Dissapointed: Just received new Alienware 15: No raid 0 support?

The smaller AW13 has almost no support for some ssd and this is almost worse than not deliver raid support .. Welcome to Dell in 2015 or 2016 ..

 

Whats the problem, the 15 look like the 14 use to own, the general design and concept is much the same, and it could do RAID0 on that model if required. Is this just a UEFI and legacy thing that Dell haven't implemented due to people swapping between windows 7 and 8 to save themselves extra hassles with breakages?

Should be no reason why the AW15 cannot do RAID0, only really a software limitation rather than a hardware limitation. Dell should really be enabling this, just becasue they are not selling RAID0 in the configuration therefore not supporting it via the BIOS/UEFI.

What happens here is people start modifying BIOS to enable disabled features. Many people will go the extra mile to enable other features too. Would be a good idea if Dell just enable RAID.

Somehow I get the feeling, if they don't sell the platform with RAID0 enabled we may not see RAID enabled. And if/when Broadwell is released shortly (2-3 months), then see may not never see RAID on an older revision motherboard with Haswell

 

As I said earlier: This is tragic .. AW is not a high end gaming laptop anymore ..

 

Still doesn't make any sense, the 980M option is not exactly low end. The only reason there are some many BGA chips is the Intel are behind schedule with release and the entire industry are changing with Intel shift away from socketed chips. Manfacturing other processor options with multiple GPU options means another entire motherboard parts for each GPU a option.

 

You can't modify its BIOS because it has secure-flash. It is not good old hackable Bioses in old AW

 

So then what the hell is anyone meant to do with it, if cannot mod the BIOS?

 

Dell may feel that their new AW laptops do not need raid support.. Dell's new direction..LoL

 

Is there any real proof that things are change with Dell, or this just one single isolated point?

 

All Dell has done with new Aw is a downgrade ..

 

Well their line up has certainly changed focus.

 

To the worse. Unfortunately...

 

Can anyone from dell actual chime in here and let us know if dell will add support for RAID, it just a software tweak to the BIOS after all?

 

AW representatives are fairly quiet for the time .. Interpreter this as you will.

 

Man you are extremely negative. If you sold your gear in your sign you might start to feel better.

 

Had been more positive if Dellienware had woke up declared that they have made a mistake by launching the new AW models and said that they will launch something better.

 

No body is forcing you to buy it or anything new, if you haven't already then who cares. Just stick to what you have now that is oviously ok, or buy someone else product. Neither Dell or yourself owe each other anything at this point.

I just trying to find out at this stage if there will be any support for RAID, so I can plan ahead. Doesn't matter to me that much, otherwise I would cancel my order and buy something else if was such a "big" deal.

 

There is a thread on the official Dell forums about support for RAID on the new AW lineup. Seems like someone has discovered that the laptop does indeed support RAID but it has just not been enabled.

One Dell rep forwarded the info to the engineers and they said to expect a new BIOS sometime at the end of March. I'm crossing my fingers that this is true.

Here is the link to the thread: http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19615900

 

I find it incomprehensible that Dell has not introduced raid support in the new 2015 models ..

 

I agree with the majority of the responses in the thread. Alienware fell off and doesn't care anymore. I paid for the enhanced support and was told I would get a response 2 weeks ago on another related issue with my new alienware. No response yet. That was money thrown out the window. Never pay extra for support. Especially from dell.

 

The article you quote has lots of good data, for the engineers that program the charging cycle curves into the charging circuit in your laptop. That charging circuit is designed to allow the battery to be conditioned in place, not overcharge, but instead to stay within the range of best values programmed into the controller. Allowing the user to keep the battery plugged in and running without user intervention.

Leaving the battery installed, under the power and care of the charging controller in the range of 93%-100% (mine is currently at 98%) is *not* the same as storing a battery on the shelf. A 50% level for on the shelf batteries might be best while self-discharging on the shelf. But, it isn't the same as under constant watch and adjustment by a well programmed charging circuit.

The article you quoted ends with this statement:

“Should I disconnect my laptop from the power grid when not in use?” many ask. Under normal circumstances this should not be necessary because once the lithium-ion battery is full the charger discontinues charge and only engages when the battery voltage drops. Most users do not remove the AC power and I like to believe that this practice is safe.

That is an old article, 2010, battery chemistry and controller expertise has progressed to the point Asus, Apple, and other vendors, now sell laptops with batteries sealed into the laptop / phone / tablet / etc.

There is no need to futz with the battery any longer

No RAID support, that sucks

 

Bring back the old saying "you bought a Dell"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dude,+you+bought+a+Dell+didn't+you?

 

oh wow. This just made me remember: my last dell was purchased back in 2006.
Dell Inspiron 6400/E1505. http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/dell-inspiron-6400-review-pics-specs/
It still works, and all parts functional.

9 years since I last purchased a dell. how odd that feels.


oh and to keep post relevant to topic
Is raid 0 beneficial for gaming?

 

Not really since often that is more small file speeds that makes a difference.

 

View attachment 122996

Why ? this makes no sense are you having issues making it work? With a 4 x m.2 config why would u take this option out of your machines ? The only reason to have so many drive imo.

 

I thought only two m.2 slots were available, on the 15.............

 

yeah i guess i mistaken-ed the 2 button for the 4.

 

It feels like these new systems were rushed and unplanned. So many issues with driver support with the GA and BIOS. Maybe that's why they were delayed so long?

I want to give Alienware a chance but just don't see any reason to. Nothing but disappointment thus far.

 

I believe RAID support could be easily enabled/added to this board, it is not like it does not actually have physical support for it. I would believe the AW would have enabled it while creating the machine, but back down from it as a business decision not to offer the RAID drives as a configurable option, therefore can only explain its exclusion. They likely will not enable it afterwards (future BIOS) to reduced the likelihood of people that call in for warranty claims due to in correct configuration, that may cause the notebook not to start, for those people that don't have a handle on how to setup or just plain make mistakes. In that scenario dell have no monetary gain and more to lose. Therefore no choice to show middle finger to those few that actually do want RAID, unless they really did care about those customers, but this is a large corporation and corporations usually does have any feelings for peoples needs.

 

Not sure what the hell Alienware is doing these days. The design team is either trolling us, or they're a bunch of idiots. Completely flip-flopped Alienware's design, focus, and legacy.

 

Or their engineers are useless and cannot figure out config/compatibility issues they are having. I can imagine this whole echo line was rushed out before they even had fixes for everything and figured they would add it all in as they went. From what i have read the notebooks are not the only thing they are having trouble with, bios issues with every machine they have. I'm guessing they cannot add in feature they cannot even make work or haven't even tested them yet.

 

All high end gaming laptops should have raid support .. Why can not Dellienware achieve this, while others laptop brands manage this with low end laptops? Incredible ..

 

Meh.

RAIDed SSDs are almost completely useless in the real world. The only thing they're good for is showing off benchmarks or unless you have an extremely specialized type of work to do that can actually take advantage of queue depths or things like video captures. But for loading games, programs, doing everyday things RAIDed SSDs are essentially all but completely useless. Though I do agree that the option would be nice for those are care about their benchmark epeens.

Instead of RAID what I wish Dell would have done is given us PCI-E SSDs. But it just wouldn't have been possible with the current generation of CPUs unless you add in a PLX chip. The 4980HQ supports 16 PCI-E lanes in the following configurations:

1x16 or 2x8 or 1x8 2x4

Since the GPU is connected at 16x, there's no other lanes to use. So in order to give us PCI-E SSDs it would have to drop down to 8 lanes for the GPU and 2x 4 lanes for the SSDs. But then again the performance difference between PCI-E 8 and 16 is going to be almost completely negligible so it might have been a beneficial thing to do.

 

THANK YOU. Finally someone said it.

 

I like the fact I could buy 2x largest M.2 and put them together and make and even larger drive. Often with a new machine, I might not have all the cash in one go for other upgrades. Leaves me an option to buy an SSD in the short term, then 4-6 weeks later buy a second drive and RAID them.

There are other people that may value there data and want to create RAID1. Maybe fill the 2.5" drive with another SSD if they don't want a mechanical drive in there.

It isn't just about speed, there are other reasons why someone would want RAID and at least expect it in a high-end machine such as this.

I theory if supported it could be possible to have all 3x drive slots in the 15 in various RAID levels 0/1/5

This gives the end user some freedom of choice.

 

@T2050
I agree. I would have liked the freedom to choose, and to mirror my drive. I don't know the failure rate on SSD's, as I haven't had any fail on me yet (still new to the SSD scene); however I've had plenty of HDD's fail on me and so I greatly value having RAID available.
For now, I will set it to backup routinely to my cloud, but I would like to have the raid option so that if an SSD fails, I can continue seamlessly.

I value reliability over speed, and wouldn't mind a slight step down in gpu speed in exchange for mirror drives. It would be nice if RAID could be implemented.

 

But if the only thing you're looking for is size, why the hell would you raid it? The only reason you'd do so is to see 1 drive instead of 2. It's still the same amount of space either way.

Granted like I said the option would be nice for the people who care about it, I'm not arguing that bit, but most people who want RAID in a gaming laptop want it because of speed. In that case RAIDing it is rather useless. If you want speed then PCI-E ssds are the way the go...especially considering that 1 SSD operating over PCI-E 3.0x is just as fast (if not faster) than 4 RAID0 SSDs operating over SATA3.

 

Well there are no Alienware PCI-E notebooks so i suppose we have no choice but to deal with what we have, and not having even the option to choose raid all of a sudden is unacceptable.

 

Dude, what are you doing? You know Tiller is going to come in here and start doing his...thing.

 

Do not forget that Alienware as brand; is or should be a high end gaming laptop anno 2015. Raid functionality has been for several years already for laptops of different brands. These AW hig end laptops are 2015 models .. What would people say if Alienware Area-51 desktop had not a opportunity for raid support?

 

And what's the point of your post? I pretty much clearly said that I'm not arguing that RAID support should have been included.

I'm just saying that instead of RAID I wish they had given us PCI-E SSDs.

 

Dell can not give us PCI-E SSDs then it should have been raids support in AW laptops instead.. LoL

 

Well with the release of the 850 evo m.2 you can have a 2tb mech drive with a 512GB ssd with their ram cache to get a very speedy primary drive at least.

 

Is there anyway to enable SSD caching on the mechanical drive, e.g. small 128GB M.2 in the second slot, or is this impossible without RAID enabled? Like outlined in this link http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/intel-z68-chipset-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching-review/2

And then keeping a SSD M.2 for OS only.

e.g.

• 512GB as SSD OS/boot drive in M.2 slot 1
• 128GB as SSD cache in M.2 slot 2 that is caching 1TB mechical drive

 

No you do not need RAID 0.

That's what intel smart response does and in the BIOS the default SATA setting should be "intel smart response"

 

And '640KB should be enough for anybody'.

Never assume you know what people will need even 12 months from now.

I would like to have RAID in my AW17 so I can have 4x512GB drives as 1 volume. I don't care if they read/write the same as a single drive.

EVERY other high-end gaming laptop supports RAID out of the box. I'm not sure what dumba$$ is in charge over there at Dell, but they dropped the ball on a whole host of features with the new AW line.

 

Hoping we get an update on this soon (having just received my 2nd m.2 128 samsung).

I recall a similar problem with my Latitude E7240 except someone was able to provide a procedure on how to update the bios manually (modifying the flag) in order to enable RAID0 (raid 1 was available from dell).

 

So i suppose we will have to find our own custom bios updates? that will obviously void our warranty's just so we have an option like every gaming laptop has? Even the area 51 doesn't support raid like whats the answer to this question dell you've have been ask this over and over, and the only respspose i have seen is... oh i will forward that to the engineering team.

 

I don't think its possible to that with the Dell bioses since they're usually encrypted / secureflashed. But I could be wrong.

At the moment you just have to wait, as much as that sucks. You could try sending an email to the executives directly but be polite and civil. If enough people do so it might bump the priority of it up.

 

Not even a statement/reason as to why they took it out in the first place out of every lineup. It's very stupid. I have never had any issues with the raid config on my other 5 alienwares i have had and for them to just take it out with no reason given is very unprofessional. whats the point of having a 3 drive config when you cannot even raid anything

 

Someone has a group that has tested an unlocked BIOS and sent their findings and fixings to Dell. He hasn't heard back.
He's also been tempted to publicly release the BIOS, but he awaits what Dell will do with a BIOS update.