VPC-Z1 Custom Three Drive RAID 0?

I have been offered a deal on two Crucial C300 1.8" 256GB SSDs. I got a got this idea today that I could maybe stick a 2.5" C300 256GB SSD in the newmodeus caddy and configure the drives as a three way stripe. Anyone have any idea if this would work? Would it cause the dreaded ACPI issue? I need the advice of the experts.

My old idea was just to put the biggest SSD, Intel 600GB, in the newmodeus caddy for storage. I am now thinking that the three way stripe might give me maximum performance. Maybe I could get nearer to, or even achieve, a 7.9 WEI disk score? Here are my scores right now with the stock 128GB two way Toshiba stripe.


I think it would be pretty cool to max out the Z1, there is some unused potential here. Anyone with a 640M i7 care to share their WEI processor score.

FWIW, I know the WEI score is a crap benchmark... but I love seeing those numbers.

 

Would the C300 be connected via the optical drive's port?

I thought that that port doesn't show up as a 'hard disk' to the BIOS, but I haven't/can't check since I'm still waiting for my optibay caddy to arrive.

 

It wouldn't cause the ACPI issue, that's only if you have 5 drives. I've had 2 1.8's and one 2.5" ssd in my Z before, no problems.

 

Yes the 2.5" drive would be connected to the optical drive port. I don't see why that port would be any different than any other SATA port.

Thanks... good to know. Do you think it will let me include the drive in a three way stripe? I have the BIOS hack.

 

I never checked, but like namaiki said, I don't believe it'll let you select it from the raid drive list. It's a bios issue. I had 2 x C300's and my 2.5 was an Intel X25m 160gb so i never even tried.

 

Well I guess before I buy it I can pop a 2.5" HDD in there and try to set up RAID... LOL!

What kind of WEI did you get with the Dual C300 setup? Was it noticeably faster than the stock kit?

 

7.9

Not really noticeable, but maybe i'm less senitive to this sort of thing than others. I mainly did it to get more space. Every once in a while with the original 128gb kit I would get a 2 second hang while playing a game, hasn't happen since. Although I wouldn't put that issue squarely on the stock ssd, since it could have been something else at fault, like a modded graphics driver or something.

Everything opens stupidly fast, but I can't exactly say I had issues with speed with the stock setup or even when I used the C300's as seperate drives. Benchmarks tell me it's faster though

 

Nice! Thanks for the info. Looks like I only need the two drives to hit the mark. It can always be faster though. If I can configure a three drive stripe I will most certainly grab another C300 for the optical bay.

 

What are my options in afermarket upgrade on the Z13? Can I replace the 2x TOSHIBA 128gb ssd with 2x C300's ? I'm not talking about the caddy thing just the internal ssd which came with the system.

 

yea, you can do that, if you strip the drive casing and void the crucial warranty

 

You're just in luck, Enny02 made this thread that did exactly that:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/511578-how-replace-ssd-vaio-vpcz11-vpcz12-non-sony-ssd.html

And since you have Toshiba drives, you don't have to worry about buying new cables (like i would have to if i did the same thing since the Samsung drives use ZIF to mSATA cables as opposed to mSATA to mSATA on the toshiba drives)

 

I get 6.9 on the WEI processing power with my Z's i7-640m.

 

Thanks palkro, I guess those few extra Mhz aren't enough to push it up to the next notch.

 

I think they always update the WEI scale. But yeah, i'd expect at least a quad-core to get a 7.9

 

Thank you!!

 

btw, the 256 c300 has faster writes than my 128's, so you can expect better benchmarks than what I have

 

Nice, good to know

 

always because SSDs themselves perform like drives in RAID0 w/ more channels as you increase in storage size.