The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Vaio S 15" RAID0

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by The Egyptian, Jul 14, 2012.

  1. The Egyptian

    The Egyptian Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    25
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Is the RAID0 feature done using a software controller, or a hardware controller?
     
    The Egyptian, Jul 14, 2012
    #1
  2. pyr0

    pyr0 100% laptop dynamite

    Reputations:
    829
    Messages:
    1,272
    Likes Received:
    36
    Trophy Points:
    56
    It is a 'software' raid based on the intel rst firmware. The work is done by the system's CPU as opposed to hardware raid controllers that have dedicated CPU and RAM. It is widely called a firmware raid or fake raid since managing the raid is os independent.
     
    pyr0, Jul 14, 2012
    #2
  3. The Egyptian

    The Egyptian Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    25
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Thanks !

    Now the thing is, I ordered the customized 15" S Series

    It could be customized to have 1 HDD or 2 SSDs

    If I buy it with the HDD option, can I remove it and install 2 SSDs?

    OR, if I buy the HDD version, I will end up having only one HDD/SSD Bay and one SATA connector only?
     
    The Egyptian, Jul 14, 2012
    #3
  4. heywhitmarsh

    heywhitmarsh Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    52
    Messages:
    78
    Likes Received:
    8
    Trophy Points:
    16
    The sony raid 0 setup uses a proprietary drive that has two ssd's but is packaged in the size of a normal ssd. There is only one hard drive bay in every S series laptop; the only difference is the bios, which allows sata III with sony's raid setup but is limited to sata II for a standard hdd. (some people have reported intermittaent sata 3 speeds using their own ssd's however.) So to answer your question, no you can not buy an hdd and install 2 ssd's, there is only room for one disk regardless of the model
     
    heywhitmarsh, Jul 16, 2012
    #4
  5. The Egyptian

    The Egyptian Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    25
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Thanks (Y) Very useful info indeed.

    I wonder why Sony does not give enough info re its products


    Needless to say the dorks at Sony support line "confirmed" there are two bays and I can install two disks. I started feeling suspicious when I saw the disassembly vid on YouTube posted by one of the members here. Now you confirmed it ......
     
    The Egyptian, Jul 16, 2012
    #5
  6. alfaunits

    alfaunits Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    16
    Messages:
    197
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    31
    You could always ditch the optical bay, replace it with an HDD bay instead and have 2 HDD slots (not sure if you could run RAID0 there - I didn't see an option in VAIO F1 for it)
     
    alfaunits, Jul 17, 2012
    #6
  7. The Egyptian

    The Egyptian Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    25
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Thanks. but I actually bought the S instead of the Z because I don't like machines without an optical drive
     
    The Egyptian, Jul 17, 2012
    #7