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    M18x HDD Install Questions...

    Discussion in 'Alienware 18 and M18x' started by jamster001, Jul 22, 2011.

  1. jamster001

    jamster001 Notebook Guru

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    Hello All.

    I just received my M18x laptop and as much as I want a SSD, I simply cannot afford it. :( I just finished installing the old 500Gb from my M17x into the extra hard drive bay in the M18x. I am in the process of formatting it using Disk Management in Windows 7. The old drive that I installed was the main drive from my old laptop. So it contained the old lappy's OS and all other installed programs. My questions are this...

    Why is it that when I turn the laptop on a RAID screen is now showing before POST asking me to press (Ctrl+i) to enter Raid setup? I checked it out and the options were to Create RAID, Delete RAID, and a few other options. I am not familiar with this and is this something I need to do once the old HDD is done formatting?

    2.) Also, will I notice any performance gains, when it comes to game play, if I install all my game apps on the formatted HDD I just installed and leave the factory installed HDD with the OS and other factory installed programs? Basically, is it worth it to just have games installed on their own dedicated HDD? That was my plan. :confused:

    3.) Finally, how would I transfer the installed Windows 7 OS to this spare HDD I just installed and have the spare drive just contain the OS and games? Is this a better option or should I just load games on the spare drive and leave the OS on the factory installed drive?

    Sorry for all the questions. I am lost! :confused:
     
    jamster001, Jul 22, 2011
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  2. clienterror

    clienterror Notebook Consultant

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    1. Now that it see's 2 HDD's on bootup it's just assuming you want to do a raid setup. What RAID 0 is is basically where the computer turns both hard drives onto one big one. Both HDD's need to be the same size ect. The benefit of this is you have essentially double the read and double the write speed because you have 2 heads. The downfall is that now with 2 drives your chance for a failure has doubled as well, and if one HDD goes down you lose everything.

    2. You will probably notice a tad maybe, it won't be much. Hard drives really don't improve FPS or game performance any, they just make zones/maps/levels/games/apps load faster.

    3. If you aren't going with a raid I'd leave the original OS alone and just install stuff on the 2nd HDD, it's the least amount of hassle.
     
    clienterror, Jul 23, 2011
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  3. jamster001

    jamster001 Notebook Guru

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    Thank you so much for your help. I am just going to leave all the factory installs on the original drive and use the one that I installed to install games. Thanks again for your knowledge.
     
    jamster001, Jul 23, 2011
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  4. clienterror

    clienterror Notebook Consultant

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    Glad I can help ;)
     
    clienterror, Jul 23, 2011
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