i have two 80gig intel ssd drives that i would like to use in my laptop (sager np5739). i will run one in the stock sata drive bay and the other i will place into an optical drive bay hard drive caddy. the only problem i have yet to resolve is how to run the two drives in a raid0. my stock hdd controller is sata and the stock optical drive controller is pata. both the intel ssd drives are (of course) sata.

one option i have considered is to simply use a software raid0 between the sata and pata controller, set up through linux and windows (it's a dual boot system). however, i'm pretty sure that would actually decrease performance since the ide controller does not have the same bandwidth as my sata controller. is this an accurate supposition? also, i'm more than a little nervous about using a windows software raid. in fact, it's hard to even say the words "windows software raid" without bursting into laughter.

ideally, of course, i would have both drives running off the sata controller. my bios settings indicate that there is more than one sata port on the motherboard (or at least that the motherboard supports more than one sata port). in fact, my bios also suggests that my motherboard supports some form of sata raid -- though i can't help but wonder if these options have been disabled since there's really no way (outside of some serious aftermarket modding) to utilize those features.

soooooo... assuming i DO manage to get the motherboard to cooperate, support an additional sata drive, and set up a raid0, i still have the problem of actually connecting the drive to the motherboard via the optical drive bay.

has anyone done anything like this? does anyone have any suggestions, advice, or links that might be helpful?

if worse comes to worst, i will simply run the two drives separately putting media on one and my windows/linux os and apps on the other. though this will be my last resort.

thanks!

well man, this is an audacious project.
first of all, run everest to see all the capabilities of your ICHXXX controller.
after that, you´ll nedd to "dive" into intel paper sheets to find the other sata connections and do the "magic" (soldering or anything else) to be able to perform this raid.
But once you find the way, the rest would be easy.



good luck!


ps: it could be good for me to. i have a Clevo M520N and i have a 32gb SSD that can be placed into it if disassembled.

thanks for the everest tip. wasn't sure which way to go with that.