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    NP8651/2 m2 slots for RAID 0 on XP941s

    Discussion in 'Sager and Clevo' started by kvasefi, Feb 16, 2015.

  1. kvasefi

    kvasefi Notebook Guru

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    Hi all,

    I'm receiving my NP8652 in about a week and I'm getting my add-on components ready. Mainly, I'm trying to figure out if I can RAID 0 my 2x Samsung XP941 SSD drives I already own, when both of them are PCIe 2.0 4x, but only one of the M.2 ports on the laptop supports this. Will both just drop down to a slower speed or will one of them just not work?

    On a side note, I have a 3 monitor setup on my desktop. I know there are 2x mini display ports and 1x HDMI and I've been told, on this site, that the laptop can support all 3 outputs at the same time, but elsewhere, I read that I need an "active" mini display port adapter. Can anyone confirm and, if that's the case, point me in the right direction of where I can find this? Monoprice, where I get my cables, doesn't really explain what an "Active" cable is and the only ones it has are HDMI...
     
    kvasefi, Feb 16, 2015
    #1
  2. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    I don't think the system supports raiding together pci-e drives.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Feb 16, 2015
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  3. tmmedic20

    tmmedic20 Notebook Guru

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    It does not support raid on the PCIe, you would have to get the m.2 sata drives.
     
    tmmedic20, Feb 16, 2015
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  4. kvasefi

    kvasefi Notebook Guru

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    Thanks for the feedback. I thought maybe PCIe was like a faster mode it could jump in and out of and SATA (or mSATA) was a backwards compatible speed, but it sounds like it's either one or the other.

    So, follow-up question. Is the speed/performance increase of RAID-0 with SATA significant over a single PCIe x4 when you have a high performance SSD?
     
    kvasefi, Feb 16, 2015
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  5. kvasefi

    kvasefi Notebook Guru

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    kvasefi, Feb 16, 2015
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  6. tmmedic20

    tmmedic20 Notebook Guru

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    I like the speed increase in raid 0 with my msata drives.
     
    tmmedic20, Feb 16, 2015
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    flyboynm likes this.
  7. XMG

    XMG Company Representative

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    It's tricky to compare directly, as in the tomshardware article, because the 128GB drive isn't as fast as the 256GB drive . So RAIDing two of the 128GB drives doesn't really give an accurate representation of performance if you want to compare 256GB of storage split into RAID0. Of course, it is the only real world way of doing this, but confuses the theoretical side of the discussion.

    We would always tend to recommend a single XP941 running at PCIx4 over RAID0 N.2 drives each running at SATA 3. You gain stability and lower the chances of data corrpution and RAID failure with a single drive so there are advantages to not choosing RAID, if you have the power of PCIe x4 available :)
     
    XMG, Feb 16, 2015
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    kvasefi likes this.
  8. tmmedic20

    tmmedic20 Notebook Guru

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    tmmedic20, Feb 16, 2015
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  9. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Go for the larger capacity for the small file speed increase.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Feb 16, 2015
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  10. rtrainer

    rtrainer Notebook Consultant

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    Would someone answer his question about the display setup?
     
    rtrainer, Feb 21, 2015
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  11. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    The Intel display outputs support 3 displays when using 2 displayports. With an eDP internal display that counts as displayport so you could use hdmi + dp + internal. You can always turn off the internal display and run 2x dp + hdmi.

    None of these setups require an active adapter for native dp displays.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Feb 21, 2015
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  12. flyboynm

    flyboynm Notebook Consultant

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    Me too - Intel 525 mSATAs in RAID 0
     
    flyboynm, Feb 21, 2015
    #12