how much faster are the tri and quad raid configurations compared to dual raid? I know bench tests show that the tri and quad raid are significantly faster but how does this translate into real world use? will opening programs be twice as fast or games will load twice as fast?
View 3 RepliesIs the quad raid 0 512Gb on the Z the fastest setup in the laptop/mobile world?
How does it compare to the 512GB SSD setup on the new MBP or even the Alienware 15x and 17x?
I asked this on the Alienware forum; but nobody truly knows much other than that the alienware would demolish the Z and that the ssd on the Z is a dual setup like the mbp and alienware. I know its a quad setup, but is it the fastest option availble?
I was under the impression tht it was, and it would be extraordinary on such a tiny laptop.
I've seen on sony sites etc that one of the Z come with dual SSD hard drives.
I have a Z26GN with the standard spinning disc harddrive but am looking to put an SSD in.
I was just wondering does this mean the Z series laptops have room for 2 harddrives? Thus allowing me to keep my existing one in and add the new one?
Also with regards to SSD I've been told the intel X-25 80gb is a good choice.
I was wondering is there anything better than this?
And what do sony put in the Z series themselves?
I've seen a number of rescent posts where folks are still setting up RAID platforms even though dual core and now quad core processors are becoming mainstream.Is it the additional chipset that you demand or what is it that requires the additional hp you seek? there is no game out there I cannot play without it and short of CAD I see little use other than proffesional requirements (NIMBUS 2.1 or Zach, perhaps).
View 14 Replies View RelatedI'm about to take the plunge and order the vaio z from sonystyle uk, i was looking for the fastest, reasonably portable with good resolution laptop, and while I was looking for screen little bit bigger than the vaio z (15"-16") I couldn't really find anything that would go as fast the vaio z while still being under 17" and light enough to carry around.
But all my searching was based on the fact that I want to raid 0 two fast SSDs.
But is it really worth it? will two x18-Ms in Raid0 on the vaio z raid controller be really faster than one x25-M?
Also is it possible to DIY the raid? I did some reading and while I found some threads talking about the parts used to do the raid i couldn't get a clear answer whether it's easy to do the raid yourself.
One other question is that on sonysyle uk you have the most expensive vaio z having the carbon fibre option, while anything cheaper doesn't say so, does that mean the others are not carbon fibre? how different would a carbon fibre vaio z be VS non carbon fibre?
I've got the HDD option, which replaces the optical drive with a normal HDD, and doesn't come with proprietary Sony SSDs. I've been thinking about and testing RAID configurations, and this thread is meant to gather some thoughts on that. At some level it's probably easier to go the Sony SSD route, but... I prefer something else
There are two parts: (1) external RAID, (2) internal RAID.
Part 1: External RAID
I went down this path because I believed that there's only one SATA port offered by the HDD-option. From Intel [url], it appears that the port multiplier functionality is not implemented in the ICH8, which is what the Z1 comes with. This means we can't get two or more drives to logically share the same SATA port, which means that they have to appear as one logical device, which in turn means that some sort of external RAID/BIG hardware is needed.
I tried a number of hardware RAID solutions. The first was the Silicon Image SiI 4726, in a mini-board with a form between the 2.5" and 1.8" drives. Unfortunately, after configuration on a (old) desktop, the chip offers only its admin drive ("Config") to the bios and Windows, rendering it impossible to boot off of...........
I am looking at buying the Z690/790 with the SSD RAID configuration and was looking for more information on the size and interfaces of the SSDs used in RAID configuration.
a. Are they 2.5" inch drives or 1.8" inch drives?
b. Do they have SATA interface or some other interface
there both quad cores, heres the links for both. please help me decide on a quad core q9000 or quad core I7-720QM. these are the 2 im looking at : links:
[url]
or
[url]
So im looking at one with an 18.4" screen an one with a 17.3" screen. one has blu-ray burner and one no blue ray. one is q9000 quad an the other is i7 quad core. i don't know which is best.
I purchased a Sony AW230J/H believing it would be easy to convert to a RAID 0 array by installing my 2 Intel SSD drives. Turns out on this particular model they turned the RAID options off in the BIOS so I can't access it, and install a NON-RAID version of Intel Storage! But, striping/mirroring are available in the native VISTA Storage of Manage Computer! So, how can I create a RAID on drives that are already being used to boot into the OS? Or does anyone know any tricks to turn ON the RAID Bios so I can configure it PRE-OS installation? When I right click on the 2nd SSD (unpartiioned) all options for mirrow/striping/etc are available, but no drives to add to it. My primary drive has those items greyed out?
View 9 Replies View RelatedDoes anybody know if the SSDs on the Z series use the slower MLC flash memory or do they use the more efficient (and expensive) SLC flash memory?
View 10 Replies View RelatedI'm thinking of purchasing the new sony Z-1190 laptop. Some of the options have only one drive (say 128GB X 1, or 256 X 1) but still supposedly have raid 0. How is this possible (I thought that more than one drive was needed)? Would there be a performance difference between the 256X1 or the 192 (64X1 + 128X1)?
View 10 Replies View RelatedIm looking to buy the raid cable and bracket for my Z. I've seen old threads and saw that the raid cable is FCP-126, but does anyone know the model number for the bracket?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI was browsing at an online store today and I see that Intel has released 1.8" 160GB drives! These are 5mm thick.
Now I have upgraded my Z to a single 160G (2.5") but these should slip right in!
Does anyone know where I can get the required cable and the tray for the z-series notebooks
My RAID failed yesterday and one of the new drives I bought is dead. I only had it for less than a day.
I don't know if it is was the drive or RAID but either way the drive does not work but the connector does so.
I'm most likely going to send a ram module I bought back as I’m unsure the voltages of that ram.
My keyboard also developed a problem. Not all the keys work. I looked at it and the connector is burnt the middle of it. The keyboard connector is what goes into the sound board. I'm not 100% certain how it happened may be it was either the ram or RAID that did that or some other unrelated fluke caused by something else. I kept on powering of and on without logging of in test mode and may be that did it. I'm not a smoker and I never physically did that.
The ram I originally had was 7-10-F1 the ram I bought was a 4GB 7-10-F2. I think what has confused me is that I googled and read that the ram I bought was CL8 when I had originally CL7 it makes no sense to me to me that ram could be CL8 when the first letter is C7?
I put my laptop on my desk like I normally do and it just turned off. I powered it on and it said no OS found. I opened it and the connector looked fine and the KB was ok at that point..................
How to Setup - RAID Volumes
BEFORE CONTINUING WITH THIS POST, BACKUP YOUR DATA AND CREATE RECOVERY DISKS IF YOU DECIDE TO DO THIS!! DID I MENTION MAKING RECOVERY DISKS AND BACKUPS? GOOD!
RAID 0 as defined from this Wikipedia Article
Quote:
RAID 0
RAID 0 (striped disks) distributes data across multiple disks in a way that gives improved speed at any given instant. If one disk fails, however, all of the data on the array will be lost, as there is neither parity nor mirroring. In this regard, RAID 0 is somewhat of a misnomer, in that RAID 0 is non-redundant. A RAID 0 array requires a minimum of two drives. A RAID 0 configuration can be applied to a single drive provided that the RAID controller is hardware and not software (i.e. OS-based arrays) and allows for such configuration. This allows a single drive to be added to a controller already containing another RAID configuration when the user does not wish to add the additional drive to the existing array. In this case, the controller would be set up as RAID only (as opposed to SCSI only (no RAID)), which requires that each individual drive be a part of some sort of RAID array...............
I found the part number for the raid component in the Z-series. You just need two low-profile SSD, and you should be able to do RAID in the Z-series laptop without paying for RAID config from Sony.
Part number is A-1553-769-A
You can go here to purchase the part
[url]
You may be able to use this in the TT as well, but I'm not so sure about that.
Here's my story and, let's say, my analysis:
I bought a generic 2 HD sata2 RAID1 enclosure based on the chipset Silicon Image SteelVine 5744. It can be used in USB or eSATA2. This embedded chipset (named SiL5744) is known (understand "claimed") to auto-handle Sata I/II and host sata2 controllers that not support the port multiplier feature. The HD are two Samsung F1 1To. There's no jumper to rollback to SATA 1.5Go on them, you can only do it by flashing the HD's bios, however we don't need to do it as I wrote just before, the SiL5744 supports SATA 3Go natively.
The enclosure works pretty well with USB, but *not* in eSATA : the E6500 freezes/hangs just after the POST step (a potential driver issue with the installed vista 64bits is not the reason then). As soon has I disconnect the eSATA cable, the system recovers and continues as normal.
What I've tried/done so far :
Both E6500's BIOS SATA mode AHCI and IRRT mode were tested,
Intel Matrix driver and software was updated to the latest 8.7.0.1007 version (AHCI and IRRT),
The SiL5744 chip was upgraded to its latest firmware as well (in case of...)
In order to verify the esata cable, the HDs and the enclosure itself, I succeed to :
- Use the enclosure's RAID1 feature when using the USB connection, I could partition,format, and read/write on the logical volume
- directly connect *one* HD (Samsung F1 1To) to the E6500's esata port -(I have a sata2esata cable), Vista installed it and I was able to use it as normal, even the hotswap feature seemed to work fine (I unkindly removed it). I could so test both HD individually this way... On the enclosure hardware side, everything looks fine then.
An IMPORTANT thing : The E6500's ICH8/9-M sata host controller seems to support the Port Multiplier feature *ONLY* on sata port 0 -as a bubble message from the Intel Matrix soft sometimes shows up-, but this is exactly where the internal HD is plugged on the motherboard I found nowhere you can change the internal sata port ID (switch,bios,ect...). I think this is the key of the problem that seems to be a dumb port conflict, because the esata port is in fact the port sata 4 (the DVDRW drive is sata 1, dock's esata is 5 for instance). If somebody knows how to swap the sata port ID, I think I won't be toasted !
Trying to get rid of these questionably useful programs -- but I don't see entries for them in add/remove programs in the control panel (or for any of the other useless VAIO software packages that come on OEM machines sans "fresh start")
View 5 Replies View RelatedI have got 2 HDDs in my PB12". If I do a RAID0 using Tiger, would I get a performance hit instead of getting more speed from the HDDs?
View 10 Replies View RelatedDoes anyone have a link to a website or PDF describing how to properly open and disassemble a VAIO VGN-SZ75GN?
I have a VAIO VGN-SZ75GN, bought about 8 months ago, and now I want to exchange the built-in hard-disc with a solid-state disc.
I need some guide with illustrations/pictures, how to reach the disc
I have just been given a VAIO PCG8A2M (GRX316MP) , i was told "it's broken but if you can fix it yo can have it" so having a quick look at it there's no sign of life on the display but the lights come on and i can here the HDD heads moving about.
Looking a little more i found that all the ram is missing , so now im not sure if its worth buying some ram to see if it works or not ? The lack of ram would prob explain the lack of display but i wonder if i should be getting POST beeps at least, which im not.
So my question is if a VAIO had no ram should (if all else was working) it be getting POST beeps ?
Just performed a successful XP downgrade on my Vaio Z520, but have noticed that on this copy of the Vaio Silver Desktop Theme/Appearance doesn't exist.
I had it on my SZ and loved it over the XP Blue. Is there a way to get it back? I still have the restore discs from the SZ.
Got my XPS 1730 today and as soon as windows booted, the first message I got was that a RAID 0 drive was failing and I needed to back it up immediately. Does this mean anything? Do I have a defective part?
View 15 Replies View RelatedCan anyone please tell me if it's possible to setup a RAID 1 from an existing HD and a new HD (same size)?
I don't want to reformat just to get the RAID setup. I want to keep what I have, but have redundancy..
I bought a HDX 18 here in the UK, it came specced with 2 x 250GB HDD's...
I'd have liked to run them in a RAID 0 config but not sure if I can? I know that in the US you were given the option of RAID HDD's?
I tried to backup my M6400 with Acronis. The backup works fine, but I'm not able to restore ....
View 8 Replies View RelatedCan you do RAID Stripping with e 256 SSD and a 160GB 7200RPM Drive???
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a Dell Studio 17, with vista.
I want to be able to dual boot with XP, but am needing a raid driver.
I have installed XP on a partition on the hard drive but if I want to boot up XP I have to change the option in the bios, which does get a bit of a pain.
I don't know whats the diference (besides the price), between VAIO TZ295N & VAIO TZ395N. Specs in all the websites I've checked say they have exactly the same components: Intel coreduo 1.33Ghz 2GB RAM DVD-RW and 64GB SSD Hardrive. I was wonder if the diference might be in the hard drive interface, with the TZ295N being PATA and TZ395N being SATA.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI'm wondering if the Blu-ray optical drive (Panasonic UJ-232A) of the (old) VAIO Z series will be able to fit into the (new) VAIO Z series? I would really appreciate it if anyone is able to answer my question.
The reason I'm asking is because I'm seriously thinking of selling my VAIO Z690 & just buying the base Sony VAIO Z (VPCZ112GX/S). I may just be able to afford that base model & the icing on the cake will definitely be the UJ-232A drive being able to fit into the (new) VAIO Z series & work.