How To Setup: MSATA SSD w. 2 HDD raid 0

One of the things that confuses me is knowing how to set up a msata ssd in line with my two HDD. I have one 750gb hdd and a 250gb hdd but I will soon have another 750gb hd that I will set in raid. When I get more money I want to get an MSATA to set up along with my HDDs but I don't know how it'll work. From what I hear all of my programs etc should be on the msata while I move files (i.e.: Music, videos, docs, etc.) to the HDDs. The thing is I have no Idea how this would look. If someone has this set up, could you take screenshots so I can see how the folder system would look.

 

If you're talking about the Libraries like Documents, Pictures, etc. that Windows sets up, you can pretty easily move those to another drive. Here's a link that might help answer your question:

How Move or Map Libraries Folder from C-drive to Another Drive - Microsoft Community

Depending on the size of your SSD, you can decide how much of what to put where. If you can completely install Windows on it, great! You might find that some larger programs take up too much room, though - and you can manually set the location you install them to when you install them.

I haven't encountered issues trying to install apps from the Windows store, so I'm not sure if you have as much flexibility in installing software from there to another drive.

Basically, you'll want the things you access the very most - the OS, say, Photoshop, if you edit pictures, etc. - on the SSD, while everything else will be sitting pretty on your drives.

If you're going to be setting your HDDs up in RAID 0, be sure to back up anything important to a secure location that isn't your notebook.

 

What you would have to do is set the mSATA drive in the BIOS as the primary boot device and install windows on to it. Then, you install the HDDs make a decision here:
1. you can use the Intel RST firmware to setup RAID0 by Spamming Ctrl+i at the BIOS menu after windows 7 is installed on the mSATA, this gives you the advantage of slightly faster performance (about 10% in sequential speeds) and the RAID0 array is treated as a simple volume (I.e. totally invisible) to Windows thus enabling it to be booted from (if you are the sort of person that likes multibooting OSes) and also has better compatibility with Imaging backup software. Intel RST also allows you to use RAID 0 or RAID 1. Finally, the Intel RST allows you to set a part of your RAM to accelerate the RAID array using the RST software in windows.

2. you can use the inbuilt Windows Dynamic Disks via the Windows Partition Manager. Obviously, you do this after you install Windows 7. You can create RAID0 arrays (MS calls it Striped Dynamic Volumes) using the 750gb drives. However, you cannot create RAID 1 without Windows 7 Professional plus the performance is not as good as the Intel solution. Additionally, Intel RST will not manage your Windows 7 RAID array thus you cannot use RAM acceleration.
However, the Windows 7 solution has a key advantage over the Intel solution, since the Intel solution is implemented in the Firmware, you generally cannot recover the array from the machine should your machine die for some reason (and the culprit wasn't your drive array) unless the new machine has identical Firmware and BIOS versions to the original machine (even then, I do not know of anyone who has successfully managed to extract their array), therefore the Intel RAID is stuck to your machine. You can always remove the Windows 7 RAID0 array from your machine and you can plug it in to another Windows 7 machine, the OS will instantly recognize it as a Dynamic volume thus enabling you to access your data.

In conclusion, you have the weigh up the advantages and disadvantages yourself.

 

firstly , where do u want to install that msata ssd? in your alienware? so then u need to find out if your laptop supports msata ssd .. what i know there are no much laptops which supports msata ssd .. only ultrabooks or tablets does..and few laptops..

 

There's an MSATA Port on the AW 17, why would I try if there wasn't?

Edit: Ok disregarding the whole MSATA part, I set the two hard drives in RAID but in the folder it only shows my one HD and not the second one nor the raid set up. I wanna know what/ if I did this wrong?

 

1. There's an MSATA Port on the AW 17, why would I try if there wasn't?
answer : bcos it coud be normal mini pci-e i have it in two laptops and i installed crucial msata 256gb in both and nothing happened when i turned both laptops .. BUT that doesn't mean it wont work in yours . u just need to try it ..
2. no nothing is wrong u can clearly see u have setup raid so matrix storage utility shows u two and raid is like one sot u have two in one.. and in your ''my computer'' what u opened on pic of course u have one bcos raid is like two in one check there in matrix storage manager your storage amount is 1398 gb total... + if u have win 8 go lower left corner right click and go to disk management and check your all physical drives ..