Dell Inspiron 17r SE 7720 Msata Caching issues

Hi I just bought a Dell Inspiron 17r SE 7720 in Australia. The model I bought was advertised with the Msata 32Gb caching SSD however when it was shipped I received an email from Dell saying that it had been accidentally added to my invoice and that I would be compensated $50 for this.

I ended up purchasing a crucial 128Gb SSd and 64 GB Msata SSd for caching the 1 Tb Hdd already in my laptop. The problem I have is that I cannot enable the Msata caching (intel Rapid storage Technology ) with the laptop. In the bios I only have the options Sata and ACHI there is no rapid intel storage technology option available however in the bios help options the options inc intel rapid storage technology are explained which is weird?. I thought maybe my bios version was old however I have A01 and I flashed it with the the same bios version from the US website but the option did not appear. Has anybody got a solution for enabling Msata caching option? It seems like Dell have hardware locked the caching ability on the motherboard. Thats the only explanation I can come up with. Any help anybody? Thanks.. I

P.S As usual Aussie customers get the crap end of the stick..

 

I called Dell support, all the 7720 laptops should support Msata caching so there is an issue with the motherboard. They are sending a tech guy to try and solve it. Most likely a faulty board. Will update once I know.

 

That is because you need to enable rapid response in Windows after you install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver (you might have this already, do a search in your start menu). All is done in Windows, not in BIOS. The Intel instruction file(first or second thing that comes on google, probably? I have seen that researching before I bought my new laptop) you spoke of is outdated. If you don't have it, download it from here
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20624&ProdId=2101&lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows%207%20(64-bit)*&DownloadType=Drivers

I have attached an image of the program. You need to go to the "Accelerate" tab to enable acceleration. You can only use up to 64gb for acceration though, the rest can be formatted as a drive. Although if I am in your shoes, I'd just clone your OS from your 1 TB drive over to the mSATA drive and format the 1 TB drive as a data drive.

Source: I have done this many times - disabling and reenabling rapid storage for experiments. See my other post,
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-pavilion-notebooks/676213-definitive-guide-clean-install-os-mssd-cache-equipped-laptop-dv6t-7000-dv7t-7000-envy17-3200-a.html

 

Hi

I have been told by Dell that if your 17R SE is not supplied with a mSATA drive then there is no way to enable Intel caching (The accelerate function does not even appear in the Intel software). I've tried everything to enable mine, no Intel Smart Response option in the SATA operations BIOS menu, no acceleration. I only have AHCI and IDE