Razer Blade 14 Drive Configurations

Does the 512GB Razer Blade 14 ship with 2x256GB drives or a single 512GB drive and one empty slot? This question also applies to the lower models. Does the 256GB model ship with a single 256GB drive or two 128GB drives? Does the 128GB ship with a single 128GB or two 64GB drives?

These questions are premised on the fact that I keep hearing that the Razer Blade 14 has two mSATA ports...

If anyone has internal pictures, it would be greatly appreciated. I think I would buy the 256GB model if I knew I could upgrade to 512GB by simply adding a second mSATA 256GB drive. Can two drives be put into a raid 0 configuration so that two 256GB drives would act a single 512GB drive?

Thanks!

 

It's single mSATA cards for every model and therefore, each one comes with a spare mSATA slot for you to add extra storage

 

And I believe you can RAID two same size drives but I'd have to look into the bios again for that option.

I would go for the 256GB drive (that's what I got) and wait for the Crucial M500 480GB to come out (that's what I'm doing). If you need any other help let me know.

 

Yes, it comes with one drive only.
Yes, you can upgrade it by inserting a second msata drive right on the middle msata slot.
Yes, you can put 2 same size drives in raid 0 but you need to change the setting to raid in BIOS, backup your system, edit some stuff in the registry so you dont have to reinstall all your system, etc, etc, etc, google it, you will find a step by step tutorial at crucial's website.
I believe there is a picture of the innards on Razer website. If you are worried about the access to the free msata slot, dont be. Razer left it easy for us to access it and even left a screw there so you use it

 

A 512GB Samsung PM841 is $393. I'd get that. If this is for playing games bought via Steam, you don't have to RAID, just mount it in an empty directory and direct Steam to install new games to that directory.

I just put a 512GB PM841 in my Edge. Works fine.

 

Does adding an extra mSATA drive void the warranty in the Razer 14?

[edit]: The answer to this is yes. Adding a drive would void the warranty.
http://www.razersupport.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade/

 

the question is, how will they ever know?

If you have a legit warranty problem, remove the second hard drive.

For this reason I use the original 128gb drive for my system stuff and development environments, and my second drive contains all steam and game files.... I can easily pop that out if I need to send it in

 

This is a tricky one isnt it? I mean many laptop manufacturers say that you void warrantee if you open up their machine and fiddle around inside.

On the other hand...
1) Razer placed a second msata port in there for a reason and...
2) They have the decency not to even use it on the 512GB model. I mean I bet they could have saved a couple of bucks with 2x 256GB...

..so I do think that second msata is there to be used...

Anyway I have a question. If you want the original drive to be your c: drive and the second msata to be your d: drive do you have to do anything in the bios or is this the default?

 

Yes, by adding the drive, it should automatically become your D:/ drive. You will probably have to go into administrative tools in windows and format the drive, then you can assign whatever letter you want to it. Shouldn't have to do anything with the BIOS

 

There is only a spare msata slot, and afaik they don't make spinny hdds for msata. Only flash memory/SSD I believe.

 

how about swapping out the original hdd for an upgrade would it be possible? is it also just a simple screw?

 

i dont see any screws that i can easily open to install the additional msata. any info pls?

 

you remove the bottom, insert msata, get a screw that fit in msata hole if it doesn't come with one, and you are done

off course you are going to need to reformat and maybe assign new drive letters to the new ssd

 

what size of torx screwdriver is required to open the back?
thanks for the help!

 

torx is a matter of counting the points of the star

 

Anyone know how to upgrade the sssd ? any guides

 

I have a question for those who added another drive to the Blade (14) : did you notice any change in terms of battery usage ? The Blade will certainly use more battery with 2 SSDs inside, but I'm wondering if it's noticeable.

Second question : when you add another drive, is it possible to tell Windows not to activate it by default, and like only use it when you want (so that battery isn't affected) ?

Thanks in advance for your answers

PS : excuse my English if I made mistakes as I am French native.

 

I think you can raid 0

Hidevolution did it and most people bought from them because they are quite good at it .

What is holding me back is the warranty

 

The primary mSATA on the 14" Blade is tucked under some cabling for the keyboard. It's not that easy to access.

The secondary mSATA is out in the open with no obstructions. There's even a screw installed so that you have something to bolt down the second mSATA drive with.

I installed a second 512GB mSATA on my 14" Blade a while back (July). The part you're looking for if you want the 512GB drive is Samsung's MZMTD512HAGL-00000 . It's a PM841 in mSATA form factor. You shouldn't pay more than $400 for the drive. I bought one from Antarespro for $392 and another from Provantage for $388, though neither has it in stock at the moment.

 

Have you noticed any change in battery consumption vs only one drive ? I guess two drive must use more battery, but is it really noticeable ?

 

It would not be noticeable they use very little power compared to CPU,GPU, display

 

No, it's not noticeable.

 

any inside info/news that the new razer blade with a m2 drive will have a spare slot as well?

 

Hi I have been using the 14" razerblade 2013 for awhile now and am considering adding a extra msata SSD to my system as games take up so much space nowadays. My current system has 256gb stock was thinking of adding another 512. Here are some of my concerns.

1. Will 512gb be enough? At this moment I only got WoW and D3 ROS edition installed and have only 130gb of space left should I buy a bigger bigger msata SSD or would 512 be enough.

2. Is the whole installation process difficult? I have never opened up my razerblade before. Also from the photos I see online I can't tell where I am suppose to slot the new msata drive into. Are there any online tutorials that I can look up.

Is there possibly a shop that would do the installation for me say if I purchase the msata drive from them? I currently reside in sunny Singapore.

Thanks for the help.


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Attached is a picture of the back of the Razer Blade 14 after you have unscrewed the screws and taken the back off.



As you can see it has 2 msata ssds installed msata 1 and msata 2. Your original msata ssd is in the msata 1 slot.
All you have to do is put the 'new' msata ssd into the slot and tighten the screw (there is already a screw in place in the empty slot. There is nothing else to it. The whole thing should take 10 minutes of which 9 minutes is unscrewing and rescrewing the baseplate.

Difficult to say how much extra disk space you should need - only really you know that. It is, however, worth remembering that SSD read/write times are supposed to slow after the SSD gets above 75% full. You have only used 130 GB so far though.

I bought my Razer Blade in Singapore and the shop I eventually got it from wouldnt install the msata SSD as they said it voided the warranty - most of the shops there didnt even realise it had a second msata slot. In any case it is so easy it isnt worth it. Getting high capacity msata SSDs isnt particularly easy in Singapore and those that stocked them, stocked them at unrealistic prices.

 

Thanks Robbie for the quick and insightful response much appreciated. For the razerblade 14" I am assuming that I should be looking for a sata3 drive would you have any specific recommendation of model and place to get it from. Also would it be better for me to stick to the same brand as the one in my current system which is a liteon. Thanks for all this help. I am really silly when it comes to tech.


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There are several brands of mSATA SSD available today. Samsung's 840 EVO line goes up to 1TB. I have one in my Razer Edge and it performs well. I have an older 512GB Samsung PM841 in the second slot of my 2013 14" Blade. It's the same exact model that came with the 512GB Blade. Makes it a tad confusing in the BIOS. Crucial, Mushkin, Plextor, SanDisk, Intel, and others make mSATA drives. They'll all have varying performance, but for the most part they're better than any HDD ever.

AnandTech's Plextor M6S review shows how consistency stacks up when drives are maxed out and when they've 25% of their space left idle. Even with 25% of a 1TB drive left idle, that's still around 700GB of space usable.

If it was me, I'd go for the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB. At $526 it has dropped $80-$100 since it was launched.

 

Well I am on not an expert in tech (remember I was going to ask the vendor to install the extra msata SSD). I am more an 'internet expert'.

As far as I know there is only one type of msata SSD (there is only one size which is a considerable bonus). I dont see any advantage of sticking with Liteone - its performance isnt particularly good compared to other SSDs. I think it might also be difficult to source from 3rd party suppliers.

If you go 1TB there is only one manufacturer - Samsung - the one Icestorm suggested. This is the one I currently use and its performance is pretty good. Pricewise it is no more expensive than buying the 512 on a per GB basis. I just think you cant go too far wrong.

I actually live in Thailand so I cant really tell you the best place to buy it. In Thailand it is best to avoid Amazon as it uses Fedex and they get stopped in customs and apply import duty. Buying through Ebay, they tend to use UPS or USPS) and you have no such problems.

For what it is worth I bought through the following link...
Samsung 840 EVO MZ MTE1T0BW 1 TB Internal Solid State Drive Mini SATA | eBay

Delivery was about 4 days with tracking, no import charges

 

Thank you IceStorm and Robbie. I'll see if i can get the same drive locally if not I'll order it.

 

how would you clone the ssd if we upgrade the original ssd with a bigger capacity one

 

Macrium Reflect worked for me, I was also able to restore an Acronis True Image backup successfully.

 

I'm spoiled by how quickly my normally aspired Razer Blade 14 boots up...

How are boot times after switching to a RAID configuration?

Is it quicker, or does initialization of the RAID controller mean it takes longer to boot?

 

There's only one m.2 interface, no RAID possible. Not sure about the 2013 as I think it has 2 msata, but the 2014/2015 do not.

 

My 2013 has (2) mSATA interfaces...

Just wondering about boot speed...

If I put two Crucial M200's in a RAID0, will the Blade boot faster due to the increased speed of the M200 and RAID0 configuration,

Or, does the RAID controller take so long to initialize, that it actually takes the Blade longer to boot?

 

Not sure, try googling it.

 

I replaced the stock drive in my 2013 Razer Blade 14 with two Crucial MX200's, and afterwards, used the BIOS to configure them in RAID 0...

Before the upgrade OEM drive (a Samsung MZMTD512HAGL-00000) posted the results shown below (Windows 7 Pro x64)

Boot times were around 12+ seconds (just a guess)



After the upgrade, the results shown below were observed (Windows 10 Pro x64).

Boot times are now around 7 seconds (again, just a guess, I didn't use a stopwatch)



FYI, before creating the array, I flashed the firmware on both drives to "MU02" (in ACHI mode).

Afterwards, I created the array using a 64k block size, then I performed a clean installation of Windows 10 Pro x64...

No RAID drivers were required. Windows 10 saw the array immediately, and had no trouble installing the OS.