help/advice with Z1 storage setup

hi, i have a VPC-Z1.

initially i bought a HDD-only model with no SSD.

later on i got a SSD from Qwaarjet which is a samsung 2x64GB SSD. i put that into my Z1, set it up as a bootable RAID0 128GB drive and restore the sony OS onto that SSD and its now my system drive.

then later i got a HDD caddy from newmodeus and use it as a secondary drive for file storage

lately, i noticed that im only storing 100GB-ish of stuff on my HDD, so i was thinking of giving up the secondary drive and go for a full 256GB SSD with a quad-raid setup. so i went to get a samsung 128GB SSD as well as a dual-ssd ribbon cable.

so i got my new purchases today, connected everything onto the mobo, and took out the secondary HDD from the Z1 because i heard having a fifth device in addition to the quad-raid setup will cause issues. i haven't wiped out my current 2x64GB OS yet, so i decided to boot it up as is to make sure the newly bought SSD is fine (i can still use it as a secondary drive if i want to at this point). i skipped the intel RST at boot and went straight to windows and loaded the windows RST to check the SSDs.

however, intel doesnt seem to recognize my new SSD as a 2x64GB setup. it seems that by mistake i bought a 1x128GB SSD as supposed to a 2x64GB one.........there goes my quad-raid setup

i also turned the laptop off and put back my HDD caddy (640GB) in and booted and seems to be fine.

here's a pic i took of the intel RST after BIOS check:



now here are some questions for you experts:

- people have said that if you have a quad-raid setup adding a fifth storage device in place of the optical drive will cause issues. will my current setup suffer from this issue? i think not because technically i now have 4 storage devices, not 5, but i will like a second or third opinion from you guys on this.

- now that a quad-raid setup is impossible because i got the wrong SSD, is it possible to do a triple-raid setup with the SSDs that i have? if so, will it be stable because technically my SSD part numbers and sizes are different so i worry if there may be stability issues. if this is safely doable, am i able to create a full 256GB raid setup or will i be stuck with 3x64GB triple-raid setup (because the smallest array is 64GB)? if a 3x64GB triple-raid setup is made, can i still use the remaining 64GB space safely as an extended drive partition?

- given the current odd setup, assuming that i am willing to wipe out my laptop completely and start from scratch, what is the best or most recommended storage setup in your opinion (raid or no raid, dual-raid or triple raid, etc)? since i have a windows home server backing up files every night i am not terribly concerned about losing data if a raid0 fails for some reason, and not to mention i can always fall back on my HDD caddy for relatively safer storage. that said, i dont plan to store more than 200GB-ish of data on my VPC-Z1 (currently im using 150GB-ish total including OS and program stuff) so i may give up on the HDD for a lighter laptop if my storage needs are sufficient without using a HDD. anyhow im open to all ideas and opinions on this

- a slight off-topic question. will doing torrenting/p2p on a SSD wear it out faster?

thanks very much for your responses! below are the current crystalmark results for both SSDs (C: is the 2x64GB SSD, E: is the newly bought 1x128GB SSD)

2x64GB SSD


1x128 SSD

 

Well hey, at least with 3 SSDs you don't have to deal with this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/478621-fix-new-z-quadssd-extra-ssd-cpu-bug.html

Lucky you!

You can still do RAID0, but you will have 3x64GB space. I'm not sure, but I'd try that and bench it. If it comes out worse than 1x128GB, then I'd just use the 128GB drive by itself as boot drive and have the rest as extra.

edit: Oops, I read the graphs the wrong way around. I suppose you would have best performance with triple RAID 0.

 

my main problem with the triple raid setup is that i will lose the 64gb space on the 128gb ssd

i am thinking of getting another 1x128gb and sell off the 2x64gb.....or just leave it as it is now and use 128gb as a second drive

still thinking though and will spend this weeknd figuring out my storage needs

 

I think you can use the 64GB slack space as a separate, non-RAID volume, although I haven't tried. You could use it for raw storage and get the extra throughput from the 3x RAID 0. You'd have to performance test this, of course

If you want to make a a truly frankenstein drive, you could concatenate this extra space, but this is a bit silly.

 

i tried last night, as a test, pairing up the 1x128gb ssd with another HDD that i had (500GB) and created a raid0, but i couldnt access the extra 372GB space on the HDD................or at least i dont know how to

any ideas? but i think its just not possible though, maybe someone can teach me

 

have a look in computer management in control panel what does it say about the rest of the drive. if its un allocated maybe you can just format the rest of it.

How did you make this raid 0 I assume its a software raid?

 

View option to show RAID settings in BIOS. However, you need the specific Sony SSDs and cables.

 

i simply used the windows intel RST program to make the test raid

i also tried look in computer management but i do not see any unallocated storage devices

anyhow i would like to see proof that the unused raid space being available for other uses, but it seems to be the other way around from what i see, and i dont even know how to search for info prolly coz nobody bothered to try this (most people will use the same sizes for raid normally)

 

Wait a minute. I'm totally confused.

Did you actually try to pair up a SSD & a HDD & try to create a RAID 0 on them? (Excuse my ignorance) If yes, how is that even going to work on a VAIO Z notebook?

 

yes that is exactly what i did, but i didnt use it as a system drive though (I am still using the 2x64gb as the OS)

though i created the drive i didnt try copying files over; i only went to computer management afterwards to see if there are any leftover space other than the raid that i can make a partition out from

 

chroma_cg, what did you end up doing for your storage setup?

 

i decided to give up on the HDD, and got a dvd drive with another member who was parting out his Z13

since i was too lazy to reinstall the OS or anything, i didnt break the 2x64gb raid and left it as is, and use the 1x128gb as a storage drive. however, i am only using less than 50% of the raid space which is kind of a waste

after some thought, i have decided to just get another 1x128gb ssd and make a 2x128 setup in the end. the second ssd hasnt been shipped yet, but last night i already wiped out my Z to clear my data, and using my spare laptop (acer 3830tg) as my main laptop for the time being.

i was thinking of selling the 2x64gb to surferjon, though i think he may be better off getting one from sony instead

i might try the triple raid setup in the meantime just for the hell of it, now that i have everything wiped out anyways

 

tried a triple raid, system restored the vaio thing, updated intel rst to latest version, enable write cache inside rst, and nothing else, no windows update or anything

extra space not accessible; i even tried to not make the array size 100% of the maximum size, hoping that something will appear, but no dice

here's the crystaldiskmark for the triple raid, dual and single results can be found in the first post