HOW TO: Windows Installation Thread (includes SATA III, SSD Upgrade, RAID0 Discussion)

Hahaha - I aint bringin' it like you with my raid but my dell issue PM830's look like this on a factory install. The only thing I did was to uninstall Dell RST and install the latest from Intel. My 4k scores are a bit "sucky" but then I have read that the 830's arent the best, but I did expect better 4k performance.

 

Well, you just smacked me in the face on seq and 4k qd32 reads!So now..enable cache in rst and re run.

Do you have as ssd benchmark?

 

I was gonna try that out next (as ssd).....just enabled write back cache and got the following (random fill test)

 

Steve - have you already disabled LPM? That really boosted my SSD performance. Not that you necessarily need it, mind you. But, more speed is almost always welcome. Reg files attached in case you haven't.

LPM Fix - Ports 0/1

 

Thanks Bro - that was also on the "to do" list !

I read pages and pages of reviews on the 830's and I know they arent the very best in the 4k department. I will apply the fix and report back, no doubt.

 

Ok, so here is what I am getting using AS SSD benchmark tool after applying the LPM fix (might as well anyway) and its all good - apart from 4k read, which still suck. Anyway, here it is....

 

My writes are all low on this test...Wonder what im doing wrong.

 

Not sure John. Basically all I have done was to ditch the Dell version of RST in favour of the latest download direct from Intel. The only other two things (after your advice and Fox's) was to enable writeback cache and I also did the LPM fix for ports 0 and 1.

Maybe you hit on it before...if CDM is easily manipulated and Sandforce drives really do shine moreso on 0 fill data than random, that could be the thing right there...maybe. AS SSD uses random fill, right? (I couldnt see an option to check for 0 fill test data, so it must use random by default, making it more of a level playing field for all drives? - not sure)

What kinda figures you looking at ?

 

but it rolls nicely with hdtune. which moves small and large files of different sizes.

 

Hey everyone, new m18x user here. I'm running 2 * 240gb Kingston HyperX's and I've just got the following results. Is it me or does something appear to be incorrect here?



Thanks

 

A quick tip to anyone who is upgrading. When installing windows it took forever and I was fearing the worst as though something was wrong with one of the drives. When first loading the Windows 7 disk and it was "copying files required for setup" (or something similar), the progress bar was stuck on 100% for a good 15 minutes before it continued onto the next screen.

Once I had installed windows, it now loads windows lightning fast and I get the above results.

TLDR; Be very patient when setting SSD's up, even if something looks like it has hung, just leave it for absolutely ages and chances are it will continue at some point.

 

Those figures look pretty good to me! - have you tried using AS SSD bench tool?

 

Nice! Strong performance from those wicked SSD in RAID0. Good job.

 

Haven't tried it, I don't really want to run benchmark tools very often. Having said that, I tried the disable LPM registry change and it has made no difference at all after re-running CDM (give or take the odd 50/100mb).

Glad to hear all appears well. This thread was what pushed me over the edge to purchase these SSD's so you're all bad influences already!

 

Hahaha, surely we arent all bad influences?

Did you enable write back cache, as Johnksss advised me to do? - if not, its something you can enable by opening RST (disk icon in the tray notification area on the task bar with green tick - right click and open application) and clicking on your array on the right of the window. Then, look for "advanced" on the left side and enable write back cache. If you havent done it already, you will see your ssd performs much better.

 

I didn't even have it running! I have now installed it and enabled it and the 4k writes have flown up unbelievable amounts (from 39mb/sec to 272mb/sec).

Before:




After:



Thank you.

 

Your welcome, thanks too to Johnksss for pointing it out in the first place. Those CDM's look mighty impressive!

 

So the first upgrade I'm looking to do on my 18x is swap out one of the drives for SSD.

I haven't really been following the trend religiously so I'm not up to speed on what the best stuff out there is, so I figured id ask the crowed that probably knows!

I'm looking for a drive with a capacity of around 120GB - 250GB much higher than that and the prices really shoot through the roof in ridiculous ways. Money is not really a concern for me as I'm looking to put in the best I can buy right now.

So I'm wondering what people here recommend who are already running SSD's in there M18x's and are happy with there purchases.

EDIT: The one drive I have somewhat kept an eye on has been the Vertex 3 it has seemed to get good results all around.

 

I'm very happy with my Crucial M4 128GB. It's very stable and provides excellent results. Can wait to get a second one to see how it compares to the RAID0 performance examples above.

 

Nice.

I did some random testing myself today.... Can't understand why the writes are so low in random write mode.

edit:
Posted these in the wrong thread.

 

The M4 seems to be a pretty fast drive with the latest firmware. From what I'm seeing its beating out the Vertex 3 in most cases.

Iv also been checking out the Samsung 830 Series which also seems to be pretty fast.

What do other consider the fastest drive atm?

 

Things have been up and down with SSD on Sandforce. SSD drives that employ Sandforce technology can be faster if all the conditions are right, but they (Sandforce drives) also seem to be very persnickety. Things have gotten much better lately with new and improved firmware... there used to be a lot of issues. The Vertex drives use Sandforce technology.

The Intel, Crucial/Micron and Samsung drives do not use Sandforce controllers. The Crucial/Micron drives seem to have excellent read speeds and slightly lower write speeds. I think with SATA-III 6.0GB/s data moves so fast that the minor differences in read/write speeds are probably close to imperceptible under most conditions and the focus should be on stability and reliability more than anything. It's only my opinion, but I think that drives that do not use Sandforce controllers are the safest bet, all things considered.

 

I agree with the above ^^^^^ totally.

 

Iv just about narrowed it down too the M4 or the Samsung 830. However I have a concern with the Samsung that I found on another forum. Basically a user who does a lot of rendering had an issue with the drives garbage collection. Because he had 10+ hour renders the drive had no time too idle and do garbage collection.

It apparently got so bad that the drive became pretty much useless even when a clean install was done. Samsung replaced one for him the first time however it happened to him again a few weeks into using the new one. That's a bit of a concern for me since I will also be using the comp to render.

EDIT: If the mods permit Id be glad to share the links to the discussions on the other forums, seems like a good chunk of useful information.

 

Samsung's hard drive division was just purchased by Seagate... in case you didn't know.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/not...rd-drive-business-1-4-billion-discussion.html​

Some folks are upset about this. Personally, I have never had any problems with Seagate drives and I've built probably 20 or 30 desktops with Seagate drives... only Western Digital drives have given me fits with poor reliability.

The only issue I have with it is lack of competition to drive innovation and lower prices. One less competitor has potential to be bad for consumers.

 

I'm not really concerned with the Samsung situation. However I am concerned with the extreme degradation of the drive in circumstances similar to mine.

Mr.Fox would you be able to run something like SSDLife to see what the life of your M4 is at? Also are you doing heavy loads on your machine or does it have lots of time to idle?

 

See thumbnail attached. I would say my usage is normal to heavy. I don't have a tremendous about of idle time. I have (contrary to general concerns about doing so) defragged it and used CCleaner to wipe free drive space several times. As you can see, the projected lifespan far exceeds what I can reasonably expect from the entire system.

 

Awesome! Thanks a bunch =) Id tend to agree on the life span I'm sure by that time your 18x will either have been sold or will be used for lower duty stuff.

Well that's good to hear as I think I'm going to get the M4. Seems like everywhere I look people are saying its a rock solid drive and from the comparisons to other drives it often comes up on top, so as my first SSD I think it seems like a good choice.

Thanks again for all the help!

EDIT: On a side note I saw a SS of yours a few pages back that had some nifty gadgets id sure love to know where ya got those =)

 

You're welcome. Good choice on the M4.

Here are the gadgets. With GPU Observer you can launch two instances and configure each gadget to work with a different GPU in a dual-GPU setup.

OrbLog Blog Archive GPU Observer – Sidebar Gadget
( download)

OrbLog Blog Archive Intel Core Series – Sidebar Gadget
( download)

(The pages are in German and your browser will need to translate them if you do not speak/read German.)

 

I agree with your decision to defragg your SSD. I have several as in 5 SSD's that I defragg once a month. I use MyDfrag and have for several years with out any issues on any of them. Not being an expert on Flash Memory, if I am miss led please correct me so I do not advise others wrongly. The reason I do is stated here.

Flash memory disks
Defragment and consolidate free space on the selected disk(s). This script is specially designed for Flash and SSD disks. It will defragment all the fragmented files and make the free space as large as possible by moving all files to the beginning of the disk.

Many people think that flash disks do not benefit from defragmentation and optimization because bandwidth and access time are the same for the entire disk, unlike mechanical harddisks which are faster at the beginning than the end. But fragmented files need extra processing time inside Windows, not noticeable on mechanical harddisks but very significant on fast flash memory disks. Even more important is free space optimization. Flash memory is written in large blocks, and if free space is fragmented then Windows has to (read and) write much more data than the size of the file. This takes time, which translates into lower speed.

Flash memory has a limited number of erase-write cycles. The script is specially designed to move as little data as possible, but still uses up some of those cycles. My advise is to use some discretion and not run this script every day, but only incidentally, for example once per month.

 

Erm....Defragging a SSD? - WHY!

You have TRIM or GC to do the same thing - you are just inflicting abuse on your solid state drive for no real reason. If Intel recommends not to defrag a SSD, thats good enough reason NOT to defrag it.

So, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - if you have a SSD, turn off scheduled disk defragmentation and let the tech behind the ssd do its job - instead of using tech that was designed to keep mechanical hdd's in shape.

 

Iv been wondering with TRIM and GC is this stuff the SSD does on its own or is there software that needs to be installed for this?

 

Most modern SSD's come with Trim and GC installed on them nothing for you to down load.

 

I have 2 questions, if someone could please help, I'd really appreciate it. 1. If I put a pair of Samsung 256gb 830 SSDs in raid 0 in an M18x, will the raid 0 run at sata3/6gb speeds? 2. My idea is to get the M18x with a 500gb "regular" hard drive. Then put the 500gb in an external enclosure. Then install the 830 SSDs and create the raid 0. Then during boot, select "boot from external drive", and select the 500gb, then use Alien Respawn to restore everything to the newly installed/created raid 0 and be up and running. Would this work? I know this is long, so I repeat, I really appreciate it if someone knowledgeable about this could answer. Thanks.

 

As for the 830's running in a raid 0 array - yes. they will run at sata III 6gbp/s speeds (my PM830's do anyway) so you should be golden on that one.

Respawning can be tempremental from HDD to SSD - sometimes it will work and sometimes it wont - due to the different size of the drives. I know yours are more or less identically sized (500gb vs 512gb) so it might be fine - I know of others that have tried respawning from a 320gb HDD to a 256gb SSD and it didnt work.

You might want to have a read of this thread about respawn:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...rive-aftermarket-drive-alienrespawn-q-19.html

 

If the regular hard drive is also a SATA3 drive, then probably yes. It is still recommended you setup your new raid-0 with a fresh windows install.

I believe the Alien Respawn is specific to your factory hdd only, if someone else can kindly confirm this?

 

I also think a clean install would be the best bet. Given that the 500gb HDD will only have the OS on anyway (and some other bits & bobs that you can either download or install from disc after), it is the best way to do it. If your drive had lots of other stuff on it, it may have been worth trying to respawn but all you really need to do is to:


1. MOST IMPORTANT - create recovery media (using the basic version of respawn) on your new system AS SOON as you can - dont wipe the 500gb HDD before you do this very important step - otherwise, you wont be able to revert your system back to a "factory state" should you need to. Stash it away somewhere safe.
2. Install your 830's
3. Set up a Raid 0 Array
4. Install OS from disc included in the box (or other, if you want/have one)

Then you are good to go with a brand new properly configured raid and OS - nice and fresh and ready to rock!

(The only thing to bear in mind with this approach is that you wont have a recovery partition on your new raid array and therefore, wont be able to use respawn if you paid for the upgrade "over" the basic/free version of respawn (as it wont install without the recovery partition being intact). You can always use other products to do the same as upgraded respawn.

 

steviejones133, thank you SO MUCH for your response. Helps a ton. The crazy thing now is, after I was all set to go at it, I see the new "Coming January 18..." stuff at the Alienware web site! I know it seems to be a desktop they're hinting at there, and so it would probably not concern me. But EVERYTHING I have is still sealed, from the M18X to the Samsung 830 SSDs, so I could probably return everything for full refunds, and it makes me VERY nervous that what if I do all this only to have the "New and Improved" M18X come out a few weeks later?! Makes me crazy.

 

Your welcome.

Dell tend to keep "new stuff" pretty secret. I'm not sure what your return policy is but could be 21 days...either way, you want to make sure you are within this period after the 18th, if that is the day that new stuff gets "announced"

If it does, and you are within return period, you can decide then. You dont want to be in the position where your return period has expired and you are stuck with (and I use that term loosely, as the M18x R1 is a beast anyway!) what you have got.

If your set on buying "something", I guess the SSD's will be used either way - wether it be in a desktop with a bracket or in the M18x.

The only thing that I am aware of "laptop wise" thats on the horizon would be an M18x R2 (newer revision) but again, lips are tight at Dell as to when this may be....it could be soon or it could be months away. Dell just released a new desktop (Aurora R4) in the UK, so I don't know if they will do another so soon but that trailer on the US website looks like it could be announcing a desktop - didnt see any laptop images but you never know with Dell!

Just wait it out as long as you can before you return deadline expires and then its only you who can make the choice of keeping or returning what you have now in the hope of something better in the very near future.

Good luck which ever way you go! - decisions, decisions eh?

 

Ive never done this upgrading thing much before but I want to buy a
"CORSAIR Force Series GT 120 GB 2.5" SSD Drive", but my hard drive is 300, and its almost full. So Im wondering what would I need move to the SSD so that I can boot from it? Like all the important stuff like drivers but not needing the other things like movies.

Thanks guys.

 

AgentVFX, it is best to do a clean installation on the SSD to get the most performance. If you clone from a regular HDD it may end up not correctly aligned. In addition to the alignment, Windows 7 recognizes an SSD and makes all the necessary tweaks that an SSD needs to have to perform best.

Once you do the clean installation on the SSD, you can manually delete the Windows OS installation on the HDD and have all of your user-generate files intact.

Click the link in my signature for a helpful thread on the clean OS install.

 

Hey thanks Mr.Fox.

 

Question regarding clean installs. When you want to do a completely fresh install on an SSD that has had a previous install of an OS on it. Is it general practice to not format the drive first and then do a fresh install? Or do you just go straight to the install.

I'm used to the former however I'm wondering if that would actually be harmful to the SSD?

 

I'm fairly new to sharing on NBR, so please excuse me if this post is in the wrong section.

I just wanted to share my stock results using CrystalDiskMark.

The set up is 2 x 256GB Samsung PM83 (830 series) in RAID0.

 

Format and reinstall. Don't worry about it. It will not harm the SSD.

That is an outstanding result. Congratulations. This thread is a fine place for showing off an SSD benchmark. System benchmarks should go in the http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...alienware-m18x-benchmark-thread-part-2-a.html.

 

Thank you Mr. Fox - I'm really pleased with the performance.

 

Those figures look comparable to my PM830 512gb raid 0 array ! - I am also pleased with the performance. You could also check out your SSD's with AS SSD - these PM830's really do seem to be fantastic SSD's from Dell. Also, try CDM with 3 runs of 100mb instead of 5 of 1000mb (less stress to the drives for benching)

 

Thank you Stevie.

I'll remember that for next time I run the test

The 830 series performs great. Great choice by Alienware to install these in their current line up.

 

A question from a noob:

When I have a HDD and a SSD in RAID0 will the computer run at the speeds of the SSD? As far I can understand RAID0 combines the drives right?

If I want to boot from the SSD how will I have to set this up? Because Im not too interested in combining the drives, I want the SSD to be my primary drive with the OS on it and my stock HDD as more space.

 

Its a valid question.

You should not raid a SSD and a HDD as the raid array will only perform to the ability of the lowest performing drive, the mehcanical HDD. It will drag your SSD down to the same performance level of you mechanical HDD - something you DONT want!. If you have a single SSD and a single HDD, you would be best putting the SSD in port 0 and have the OS on it (and any other commonly used programs, apps, games etc - storage capacity of your new SSD permitting) and use the HDD in port 1 as a normal storage drive.

Dont forget to turn off scheduled disk defragmantation as you dont want to defrag your SSD - sometimes this is done automatically by installing windows, I recently re-installed to my SSD array and it did not turn it off. Best to check!