Intel 160G SSD

[Carl2]

I have a Gateway FX 6801 with the original Hatachi 1Tb drive, I put two Samsung 500 Gb in raid 0 using the Intel Storage Manager. Just got the Intel SSD last night which I would like to put in, nice package since it comes with cloning software and a Usb drive holder for the cloning process and an adaptor bracket for the SSD. Right now the 2 raid drives are in frount bays, the SSD when placed on the adaptor will not plug into the connector, it needs to be shifted to the right to plug in. Possibly there is room inside and a connector to place the SSD inside.
Right now the advanced feature in the bios is set to Raid and I'm using the Raid array as the OS, there is also an OS Win 7 on the original hard drive. I want to use the SSD with the OS as the main drive since it should be the fastest. The raid array gets reads about 260Mb and writes of 230Mb and I'd like to keep it if possible, but if necessary I could use the Hatachi as a storage drive I think.
Problems are the bios has to be in the raid mode for the raid disks to work, SSD require AHIC mode, but the Hatachi drive works which is not in raid mode. Just opened notepad on this drive, drive E.
Open to any and all thoughts on this, I'll probably open it tonight.
Carl2

 

[Carl2]

Not getting much response, Opened the case put in a fan, theres room for another drive inside but I'll have to find or buy a sata cable. In the meantime the SSD is in a frount bay. The drive is not formatted so it will not show up in Computer. It is visible in bios and disk management, Disk management would like me to call it E, OS is C and DVD is D. I may use Vista to format the disk, the choosen OS is always changed to C regardless of which drive you boot from.
Carl2

 

[Kenshai]

I would recommend a reinstall honestly. I just installed my SSD and tried cloning first, felt a little sluggish. But if you're running raid you're going to have to remove your raid anyway so you might as well just reinstall.

 

[Carl2]

I got cloning software with the disk, haven't installed it yet, will have to find out if it also formats, formatting with Vista will make it a C drive which is what I want so then I'll do the format then clone the SSD. The 2 raid disks are already gone and the SSD is in the bay.
Just found someone else who would like to do the same thing, a SSD and two raided drives.
Thanks!
Carl2

 

[Carl2]

I have the Hatachi with the OS win 7 and the SSD is formatted. The cloning software wants me to boot from the disk since windows is 64 b. Turned of Indexing on the SSD, should see what other changes I should make before cloning. Possibily I should download True Image and use that instead, not sure if it makes a direct transfer.
Carl2

 

[Kenshai]

I have the Hatachi with the OS win 7 and the SSD is formatted. The cloning software wants me to boot from the disk since windows is 64 b. Turned of Indexing on the SSD, should see what other changes I should make before cloning. Possibily I should download True Image and use that instead, not sure if it makes a direct transfer.
Carl2

If you don't reinstall you won't get TRIM or any of those other functions as windows detects it when the drive is being set-up. I'd honestly recommend just reinstalling.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

agreed just reinstall and do it right the first time better off to do it now then have a bunch of headaches later

 

[Carl2]

I was able to get Dragon naturally up and running, really don't like typing. I have recovery disks for the software and drivers for the Gateway computer. Earlier I had found that the recovery disks will only work with the original hard drive. To set up the raid configuration I downloaded of Acronis TrueImage and made an image of the original hard drive which I transferred to the raid configuration. I have a copy of Vista from Microsoft but I do not have the Win seven installation. I had been at the Intel website earlier looking for information on the installation of an operating system on the solid-state drive. They do have a toolbox which should provide the trim function. I had also noticed there was a mention of using raided hard drives with a solid-state disk. I believe this was not recommended because of the trim function.
I don't believe I have any other option than cloning unless I would like to buy a version of Win 7 which I really would not want to do at this time.
Crazyeyesreaper, really nice setup you have.
Kenshai, once again thank you for the advice and the reason.
Carl 2

 

[Carl2]

I have just cloned the solid-state disk, it is up and running but once again I am not satisfied. The load times seems approximately the same.
Carl 2

 

[Solaris17]

I have just cloned the solid-state disk, it is up and running but once again I am not satisfied. The load times seems approximately the same.
Carl 2

thats to be expected. you cloned. so it probably isnt using hardware trim. and the software really isnt going to be usefull seeing as you imaged the drive and it never had the change to properly place the data to begin with.

 

[Carl2]

I timed the start up time when turning it on this morning, using the solid-state drive it is one minute 20 seconds. I just checked the performance and I am still getting 5.9 for the solid-state disk. Both the recovery disk from Gateway and a recovery disk made on the computer require the Hitachi to be the target. There is a set of two discs one for the Windows installation and one for the drivers. Both require the Hitachi drive as the destination.
I restarted the computer and in the bios I switched to the raid mode, the computer booted normally and I can see both drives. I had read earlier somewhere that the raid mode actually uses the AHIC mode but trim cannot be used.
I should look at the Gateway website and see if I can download drivers similar to the Hewlett-Packard website.
Carl 2

 

[Carl2]

I just checked the SSD with HD Tune Pro,
Read min 141,0MB/sec
max 192.3 Mb/sec
avg 182.5 Mb/sec
Access .1 ms
Burst 105,5 Mb/sec
Cpu usage -1.0 %
Can't do a write test
Error message
Writing is disabled
To enable writing please remove all partitions
Possibly it is refering to the Healthy recovery Partition coppied from the original Hd
it was able to do writes in the file benchmarks that looked good.
The bios is in the raid mode, this would disable trim but garbage collection may work.
Carl2

 

[Carl2]

I was able to mess up the SSD and during boot up it posted not a genuine windows install. I tried the Win 7 disk and tried to repair but it still didn't boot. Tried again and reformatted, installed. WEI of 7.8 and boot time from 1 Min 30 sec to 41 sec. Clean install is the way to go.
Any help on reclaiming the MBR partition on the SSD?
Carl2