Hi all,
Several years ago, I bought an Alienware MX17 for gaming. With kids, I couldnt just sit up in the office as much as I used to and often after they were in bed my wife often wanted me to hang out downstairs. Long and short, I figured a alienware was perfect since I could move it up and downstairs, it would be high quality, and overbuilt enough I would get a good five years of MMO gaming out of it. Unfortunately, the one they sent me was a lemon. After about 6 months, they replaced it with a brand new one. That one also had problems and eventually (2 years later and a lot of replacement parts) they sent me a refurbished one as a replacement for that. This one works better, but has its own issues as well. Essentially, they said they sent me one with a standard HD and a msata SSD with caching and burst and improved performance. The computer runs solid when booted, but boot times are enormous and startup post boot is very slow to get everything up and running. It definitely does not have a SSD feel in that sense.
That brings me to now. I did some updating of drivers and updated the intel rapid storage technology one. After doing it, I opened it up. I saw something that puzzled me and then after digging around on the net and further confusing myself I ended up with more questions and contradictory findings. I need some help if anyone can. Essentially, I want to figure out if the hard drives were set up properly, if the caching is actually occuring and, if not, what I can do to fix it. IF it is working as it should be, I am wondering if it would make more sense to just split this off as a SSD for boot and games and uses the other standard one for storage and programs that arent essential.
So here is what I know:
1) In file explorer, it shows multiple drives:
OS (C
WINRETOOLS (D
DATAPART1 (G
I had been under the impression that if caching was occuring the SSD would not be showing (I believe that is the G drive) only the standard drive (C).
2) In the disk defrag tool it shows multiple drives:
OS (C
WINRETOOLS (D
DATAPART (G
PBR Image
\\?\Volume{8b3a...)
Same question as above. What is this exactly telling me?
3) The intel rapid storage technology interface shows:
A SATA Disk (699 GB)(System)
SATA SSD (238 GB)
ATAPI Device
Both disks shows for usage as available. Under advanced, both show disk data cache as being enabled and SATA transfer rate as 6 gb/s. However, when I look at the Intel RST interface, I do not see an accelerate tab like it seems other folks do. This leads me to wonder (along with the disk showing available here and in the file explorer for saving) whether the caching is working properly. Am I missing something obvious here? Is there an easy way to test this? Why do I see the SSD as available for saving? The BIOS is set to ACHI not RAID, if that matters. I am leery of taking a next step without more information and do not want ot just take it into the local computer shop.
Can anyone help me trouble shoot this?
Several years ago, I bought an Alienware MX17 for gaming. With kids, I couldnt just sit up in the office as much as I used to and often after they were in bed my wife often wanted me to hang out downstairs. Long and short, I figured a alienware was perfect since I could move it up and downstairs, it would be high quality, and overbuilt enough I would get a good five years of MMO gaming out of it. Unfortunately, the one they sent me was a lemon. After about 6 months, they replaced it with a brand new one. That one also had problems and eventually (2 years later and a lot of replacement parts) they sent me a refurbished one as a replacement for that. This one works better, but has its own issues as well. Essentially, they said they sent me one with a standard HD and a msata SSD with caching and burst and improved performance. The computer runs solid when booted, but boot times are enormous and startup post boot is very slow to get everything up and running. It definitely does not have a SSD feel in that sense.
That brings me to now. I did some updating of drivers and updated the intel rapid storage technology one. After doing it, I opened it up. I saw something that puzzled me and then after digging around on the net and further confusing myself I ended up with more questions and contradictory findings. I need some help if anyone can. Essentially, I want to figure out if the hard drives were set up properly, if the caching is actually occuring and, if not, what I can do to fix it. IF it is working as it should be, I am wondering if it would make more sense to just split this off as a SSD for boot and games and uses the other standard one for storage and programs that arent essential.
So here is what I know:
1) In file explorer, it shows multiple drives:
OS (C
WINRETOOLS (D
DATAPART1 (G
I had been under the impression that if caching was occuring the SSD would not be showing (I believe that is the G drive) only the standard drive (C).
2) In the disk defrag tool it shows multiple drives:
OS (C
WINRETOOLS (D
DATAPART (G
PBR Image
\\?\Volume{8b3a...)
Same question as above. What is this exactly telling me?
3) The intel rapid storage technology interface shows:
A SATA Disk (699 GB)(System)
SATA SSD (238 GB)
ATAPI Device
Both disks shows for usage as available. Under advanced, both show disk data cache as being enabled and SATA transfer rate as 6 gb/s. However, when I look at the Intel RST interface, I do not see an accelerate tab like it seems other folks do. This leads me to wonder (along with the disk showing available here and in the file explorer for saving) whether the caching is working properly. Am I missing something obvious here? Is there an easy way to test this? Why do I see the SSD as available for saving? The BIOS is set to ACHI not RAID, if that matters. I am leery of taking a next step without more information and do not want ot just take it into the local computer shop.
Can anyone help me trouble shoot this?
