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Raid an option?

post #1 of 18
1/18/10 at 1:33pm
Thread Starter 
I have a m17x on the way. I did not have the money at the time of ordering for dual hard drives. Can I add additional hard drive? If so, do I have the ability to turn on the raid 0 or 1 option?
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post #2 of 18
1/18/10 at 3:02pm
I don't see why not.

cheers ...
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post #3 of 18
1/18/10 at 9:53pm
You will have to do a reinstall to get it to work.
Just back up your backup partition (or full hard hard drive) using any program you prefer to external media (external HD etc) then enable raid through bios and install.

I have been able to recreate my install without a "full" install but it was a bit buggy and did not really save much time.
I created a partition image (full image of the hard drive including installed os and backup partition to an external HD) using acronis then booted off of the restore CD and was able to get win7 to put the image back onto the raid partition.
Only problem was there was a boot error since the raid drivers were not installed on the backup image I put back on so I had to do a "fix" boot off of my Win7 media to fix that.

In the end, a fresh install works best but it is good to have the backup image in case you want to go back to 1 drive in the future.

Hope this wasn't too long and/or complicated (confusing)

D.
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post #4 of 18
1/18/10 at 11:38pm
the M17x includes the caddy and connector for the second drive as well.

Just flip the laptop over

remove the battery

Loosen two screws on the bottom access cover

slide the cover down, and remove it

the spare hard drive caddy is on the left side of the laptop (from the bottom)
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post #5 of 18
1/19/10 at 11:35am
IMO, RAID is a bad idea for notebooks. Introduces new issues to deal with for little gain. SSD+HDD is the way to go.
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post #6 of 18
1/19/10 at 11:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by NWGuru View Post
IMO, RAID is a bad idea for notebooks. Introduces new issues to deal with for little gain. SSD+HDD is the way to go.
Have been waiting for a statement like this in a long while ...

cheers ...
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post #7 of 18
1/19/10 at 11:57am
well I can see a benefit in running mirror if data backup is important.

If they had cheaper 500 GB SSD drives I would have two of them running raid 1
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post #8 of 18
1/19/10 at 6:26pm
As soon as a decent size SSD is available at an affordable price, I will that route.
Until then, running two 500gb in Raid0 and doing proper backups is what I do for security and speed
(although I have been tempted to just run them as separate drives and compare the speeds.. just don't want to do a reinstall quite yet)
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post #9 of 18
1/21/10 at 9:56am
Thread Starter 
All, thank you for the information. I am still anxiously waiting for the laptop to be delivered.
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post #10 of 18
1/21/10 at 10:04am
So am I but I think mine isn't coming until February.
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post #11 of 18
1/21/10 at 11:21am
Thread Starter 
They typically deliver a week earlier than what they give as Estimated Delivery Date. At least that has been my experience in the past with other laptops I have ordered from Dell. The date they gave me was 2-3-10, hope I do not have to wait that long.
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post #12 of 18
1/21/10 at 11:30am
My EPP rep went out of their way to call me yesterday to tell me there is a high backlog.
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post #13 of 18
1/21/10 at 11:36am
Thread Starter 
That is a bummer. Does that mean we will not receive by the date they gave during the ordering process?
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post #14 of 18
1/21/10 at 12:34pm
I'm thinking it will be close to the ETA versus earlier like it normally is.
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post #15 of 18
1/22/10 at 2:10pm
Thread Starter 
Good news... I called 800.283.2210, option 3, option 2, option 1, and option 1 again. My order says it's in the boxing stage, which means they should be shipping soon.
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post #16 of 18
1/22/10 at 3:14pm
Did you order the M17x-R1 or M17x-R2?
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post #17 of 18
1/22/10 at 3:23pm
Thread Starter 
I ordered the R1. With that being said, is there a noticeable difference between the core 2 duo vs i5 or i7? When I ordered I did not realize the price difference was not really that much. The difference worth me re-ordering and getting the core-i5?
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post #18 of 18
1/22/10 at 3:26pm
I would do it just because you just ordered it. The Core i5/i7 is the latest and greatest even though performance wise it will be similar. You might see a difference down the road.
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