Lenovo Ideapad Y500 - Unable to configure SSD cache

Hi - I recently bought a Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 laptop that's got a 1TB mechanical drive, and a 16GB mSata SSD drive for caching. It came with Windows 8, but I've since cleaned the partitions and installed Windows 7 (64 bit). I then install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology utility, which when I launch it should have an "Accelerate" button where I configure the 16GB SSD as a cache drive, but that button does not exist (the other four buttons do). Both my 16GB and 1TB are listed in that GUI on the right hand side, so it sees the drive.

From my reading, the most common scenario seems to be with the raid config on machines having this problem. This laptop has no built-in raid options in the BIOS or anywhere else in any configuration I can find. I have a "SATA Controller Mode" that I can set to either AHCI or Compatible. Otherwise I have under the Boot section in BIOS a setting called "Boot Mode" which I have set to Legacy Support but can also be set to UEFI (I couldn't seem to boot Win 7 install disc or thumb drive with it set as UEFI). Right under the there's a "Boor Priority" option that I can set to UEFI First (which is what it's set at now) or Legacy First.

I don't want to go through hassle of reinstalling Win8 to see if it its a Win7/Win8 thing, but does anyone have any ideas on how I can get the "Accelerate" button to show up in the Intel Rapid Storage Technology util, so I can ultimately configure my cache drive?

Thanks a million in advance if anyone has advice......

Steve

 

Most likely Y500 shares the same chipset as in Y580 which does not support RAID mode for caching purposes. That is why Lenovo created RapidDrive technology, a SW RAID mode. Try installing rapiddrive.

 

Were you able to resolve your issue ? I just got my Y500 and I see that it is missing "Accelerate" option too.
Will try to reinstall Rapid Storage Technology utility as suggested and see if that helps.

 

I think it uses Diskeeper ExpressCache instead of Rapid Storage Technology so reinstalling RST will probably do nothing to fix your issue. I don't see the Diskeeper ExpressCache software in the Lenovo drive but it is installed and running on my system. Let me know if you guys find a place to download this software because I couldn't find it in the Lenovo website either.

 

https://www.condusiv.com/trialware/default.aspx?p=home

found the software here abeit a trial version. maybe can try and see?

 

loonster - I will try this when I get home.

JackLocke - This is not resolved. See the following post for last update:
Plead for help with Y500 Rapid Storage drive cache - Lenovo Community

One more thing. I was just reading the main Y500 post here, and one guy posted a link to Chinese drivers for the Y500 that were supposedly newer (and there were some that didn't exist on english site):
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ideapad-essential/698469-y500-owners-questions-thread-9.html#post9010443

I see in there an Intel Rapid Start (note the difference from Intel Rapid Storage which I had been trying) utility...anyone know if this would make a diff? I will be trying this too when I get home.

Can anyone tell me exactly what they see on a Y500 OEM setup both in Win 8 Drive Management as well as (out of curiousity) what shows up in the Intel Rapid Storage Technoliogy utility?

I'm ready to say the heck with the mSata drive all together and just stick with the mechanical until I land a good deal on a 256 or 512GB 2.5" SSD.

 

I think i read something from Lenovo's own forums stating that Y500 would have some kind of a custom BIOS which would enable the actual computer running some kind of a software RAID setup to enable the SSD cache..

Don't know how accurate this is, and i can't remember the source. I have OEM Win 8 installed ATM, and the SSD is showing as a regular drive in the disk management. Capture here: http://i.imgur.com/wWGHo.png

According to my basic testing the cache seems to be working, even though it shows up as a regular, empty drive since i benchmarked the drive with hdtune and got average read times of 180 MB/s or so.

 

Per the advice earlier in this thread, I think I figured this out finally. Here's what I did:
1. Flattened both the 1TB drive and the 16GB SSD drive, no partitions left over, all unallocated space.
2. Took the mSata SSD out of the machine before I tried Win8 install, (leaving it in there causes Windows to carve out 350MB partition on the SSD for some reason, even though I chose the 1TB drive to install it to).
3. Installed Win8 (I have Technet version).
4. Updated all drivers off Lenovo's website except the Intel RST util, and I snagged NVIDIA's version of the driver for my GeForce GT 650M video.
5. Did all Windows updates.
6. Plugged mSata SSD back in.
7. Downloading and installed the 64 bit version of Express Cache (64 bit) that I found here:
ExpressCache software is not installed on ThinkPad and ThinkPad Edge systems with mSATA SSD device.
8. Rebooted as prompted

When I came back up I saw my SSD had a partition created and I can only ASSUME since I saw no error installing Express Cache and it carved out a partition on the SSD that it's working. Not sure how else I can verify it really worked other than, but this is wayyyyyy closer than I've gotten after working on this for a week. I have SiSoftware Sandra and I did run a disk performance report prior to the install of Express Cache, so think I will try and run another report and compare.

 

Good to know and thx for sharing.

 

Registered just to say thank you. This solved my problem. After rebooting ExpressCache had partitioned 32GB of my SSD as cache. I reran the Windows performance assessment thing and my hard drive score went from 5.9 to 7.0 so I know it's working. Many thanks!

 

Thanks a lot for the help ......was researching a lot since your method didnt work for me,.... finally i found this driver(it is supposed to be for thinkpad users but is different from the driver you suggested)

32-bit:
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/expresscache_setup_32.exe

64-bit:
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/expresscache_setup_64.exe

I feel this was the easiest way, but after so many painstaking ours of trial and error!!

I had earlier tried removing and re inserting the ssd module as you had described but all in vain....

then finally i installed this driver and now my lenovo y500 finally feels like a lightning fast notebook and worth the money......

also you can test if your ssd is working as a cache by opening the command prompt with admin rights
and typing: eccmd.exe -info

this will show in the end a cache read write percentage....keep in mind just after the driver update it might be 0...just restart your pc and update your windows if you like and then check.. you should have a percentage there...

finally i had kept my ssd as an unallocated space before the driver upgradation/ installation...
Hope this helps everyone out, as we should now be able to easily get our cache running each time we decide to wipe clean our hard drives

 

I have the Expresscache working correctly with my 32gb mSata, according to the info command, but my Windows Experience still keeps giving me a 5.9. The hard drive is definitely the bottleneck in this machine.