@easttn RAID 0 does double your chance of data loss since a failure of either SSD renders the data on the remaining SSD unusable. But I don't think that should necessarily change your strategy. RAID 0 or not, I'd still plan to have frequent, reliable backups, including image backups of at least my OS partitions. If you'd prefer to have all of your storage available as a single disk rather than two independent disks for your purposes, then RAID 0 seems like a reasonable strategy. And that may be why Dell only sells multiple disks that way. I've seen several threads here saying, "I ordered my system with a small SSD and large HDD, but I don't know how to store things on the HDD." Evidently some users are unfamiliar with the concept of multiple drive letters and the ability to move data to drives other than C.
So I'd only do a rebuild if you specifically want to treat your storage as completely independent devices, i.e. even partitioning the RAID 0 virtual disk into multiple partitions would not serve your purposes. Otherwise, stick with RAID 0, but have good backups -- not because of the RAID 0, but because you should have them anyway.
@easttn Happy to share some thoughts. If you haven't already, look at Macrium Reflect for image backups. Even its Free version has plenty of functionality if you just want it for periodic OS backups, although if you want to rely on it as your primary data backup mechanism, the Incremental backups only available in paid versions are useful, along with some other nice additional perks. But the reason I suggest it is that it's very easy to add additional drivers to its bootable Rescue Media.
Hi @easttn welcome to this user to user discussion forum. This is not Dell Support.
RAID 0 shares its data 50 50 between two Hard Disk Drives to improve system read/write speeds. The Alienware X17 R1 does not have Hard Disk Drives (HDD).
RAID 0 is pointless with M.2 NVMe SSD drives, there is no read/write performance benefit, its just a Dell marketing scam to trick customers to paying more, and if there are unrecoverable problems, both drives must be replaced.
The OS(C:) boot drive should be a single ultrafast read/write 1TB or 2TB M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe drive, and usually single sided so that it will physically fit into its laptop slot, see X17 R1 Storage. Use the second NVMe drive for DATA storage, so that the OS(C:) boot drive always has plenty of room for temporary files created during gaming or other applications that require extensive GPU performance.
Please click on Kudos to say thank you for response from user that is not employed by Dell. Please share an update on progress, so that other users derive benefit from your experience. Thank you.
Adding the drivers to bootable media has been the problem with NovaBackup, which otherwise works well. I’ll try Macrium on the X17 when it gets here.
Have heard and read a little about Macrium, haven’t tried it thus far after the extensive amount of time wasted trying to get the boot device drivers to work with NovaBackup on our servers or my laptops using Windows PE. Dell server support even confirmed that I was using the right drivers for the boot media for our server, still didn’t work, and NovaBackup doesn’t have rapid phone connectivity like server support.
I plan full system backups with image backups like I’ve always done with my other laptops.
Have successfully done restores from these without problems.
Have used NovaBackup for Servers on our main servers for years for daily full system tape backups, but could never get their disaster recovery tool to work due to all of the hardware drivers needed (currently Dell T340 with RAID 10) despite using the Windows PE tools, so use Windows Server backup backups to external HDDs at the same frequency as would have done the NovaBackup disaster recovery backups.
Have tried to use their PC product on my last few laptops, but still couldn’t get it to work despite using the PE tools, so reverted back using the old standby system image approach within Windows 10. Haven’t used the analogous Windows Backup for Windows 7 on my laptops, since all critical data files are mirrored on OneDrive and File History is enabled.
I hope that Microsoft will continue to have these options available when we upgrade to Windows 11 later this year.
My X17 arrived 7-15, and I installed the trial version of Macrium Reflect Workstation edition. It has been working fine for image backups of the entire RAID 0 array. It runs much faster than the native Windows disk image backup. I haven't tried separate file backups, as primarily need disaster recovery capability, so that I won't have to reinstall a large number of apps. Data files are mirrored to OneDrive.
You are right; creating a bootable USB flash drive is easy, and Macrium gathered all needed drivers for each of two bootable USB recovery flash drives from either Windows RE or the X17. Very different than my prior experience with the workstation and server versions of NovaBackup.
Have successfully booted to each of the recovery flash drives, and each can read the LaCie 1big Dock (18 TB) connected to the TB port on the X17.
Did an almost complete fire drill today to reinstall a backed-up image of the RAID 0 array, and was able to choose the Intel Raid 0 array on the X17 as the potential destination.
jphughan
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
1
June 24th, 2021 14:00
@easttn RAID 0 does double your chance of data loss since a failure of either SSD renders the data on the remaining SSD unusable. But I don't think that should necessarily change your strategy. RAID 0 or not, I'd still plan to have frequent, reliable backups, including image backups of at least my OS partitions. If you'd prefer to have all of your storage available as a single disk rather than two independent disks for your purposes, then RAID 0 seems like a reasonable strategy. And that may be why Dell only sells multiple disks that way. I've seen several threads here saying, "I ordered my system with a small SSD and large HDD, but I don't know how to store things on the HDD." Evidently some users are unfamiliar with the concept of multiple drive letters and the ability to move data to drives other than C.
So I'd only do a rebuild if you specifically want to treat your storage as completely independent devices, i.e. even partitioning the RAID 0 virtual disk into multiple partitions would not serve your purposes. Otherwise, stick with RAID 0, but have good backups -- not because of the RAID 0, but because you should have them anyway.
jphughan
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
1
June 24th, 2021 15:00
@easttn Happy to share some thoughts. If you haven't already, look at Macrium Reflect for image backups. Even its Free version has plenty of functionality if you just want it for periodic OS backups, although if you want to rely on it as your primary data backup mechanism, the Incremental backups only available in paid versions are useful, along with some other nice additional perks. But the reason I suggest it is that it's very easy to add additional drivers to its bootable Rescue Media.
PsychoG33K
19 Posts
2
July 21st, 2021 17:00
I agree with Crimsom... You will probably not notice any benefits to running RAID 0.
Keep in mind, the 2T drive is PCIe 4, so you are already getting MUCH higher performance with 1 drive vs. running PCIe 3.
Here is the performance of my 2T Gen4 drive that came with my X17...
This is my 2T Gen3 drive which I added to the extra m.2 slot...
crimsom
7 Technologist
•
6.1K Posts
1
June 24th, 2021 14:00
Hi @easttn welcome to this user to user discussion forum. This is not Dell Support.
RAID 0 shares its data 50 50 between two Hard Disk Drives to improve system read/write speeds. The Alienware X17 R1 does not have Hard Disk Drives (HDD).
RAID 0 is pointless with M.2 NVMe SSD drives, there is no read/write performance benefit, its just a Dell marketing scam to trick customers to paying more, and if there are unrecoverable problems, both drives must be replaced.
The OS(C:) boot drive should be a single ultrafast read/write 1TB or 2TB M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe drive, and usually single sided so that it will physically fit into its laptop slot, see X17 R1 Storage. Use the second NVMe drive for DATA storage, so that the OS(C:) boot drive always has plenty of room for temporary files created during gaming or other applications that require extensive GPU performance.
Please click on Kudos to say thank you for response from user that is not employed by Dell. Please share an update on progress, so that other users derive benefit from your experience. Thank you.
easttn
1 Rookie
•
11 Posts
1
June 24th, 2021 15:00
Thanks,
Adding the drivers to bootable media has been the problem with NovaBackup, which otherwise works well. I’ll try Macrium on the X17 when it gets here.
Have heard and read a little about Macrium, haven’t tried it thus far after the extensive amount of time wasted trying to get the boot device drivers to work with NovaBackup on our servers or my laptops using Windows PE. Dell server support even confirmed that I was using the right drivers for the boot media for our server, still didn’t work, and NovaBackup doesn’t have rapid phone connectivity like server support.
easttn
1 Rookie
•
11 Posts
1
June 24th, 2021 15:00
I think that having a single large drive will be convenient until one of them fails, but will have the image backups.
Getting both of the drives installed at the factory was important, so that they would both be included in my extended warranty.
easttn
1 Rookie
•
11 Posts
1
June 24th, 2021 15:00
Thanks -
I plan full system backups with image backups like I’ve always done with my other laptops.
Have successfully done restores from these without problems.
Have used NovaBackup for Servers on our main servers for years for daily full system tape backups, but could never get their disaster recovery tool to work due to all of the hardware drivers needed (currently Dell T340 with RAID 10) despite using the Windows PE tools, so use Windows Server backup backups to external HDDs at the same frequency as would have done the NovaBackup disaster recovery backups.
Have tried to use their PC product on my last few laptops, but still couldn’t get it to work despite using the PE tools, so reverted back using the old standby system image approach within Windows 10. Haven’t used the analogous Windows Backup for Windows 7 on my laptops, since all critical data files are mirrored on OneDrive and File History is enabled.
I hope that Microsoft will continue to have these options available when we upgrade to Windows 11 later this year.
A51-06
5 Practitioner
•
3.1K Posts
0
June 24th, 2021 16:00
A51-06
5 Practitioner
•
3.1K Posts
0
July 22nd, 2021 10:00
Thanks for the info @PsychoG33K ! I couldn’t believe my eyes when they were right about Gen 4 being double the speed of Gen 3.
easttn
1 Rookie
•
11 Posts
0
July 24th, 2021 14:00
My X17 arrived 7-15, and I installed the trial version of Macrium Reflect Workstation edition. It has been working fine for image backups of the entire RAID 0 array. It runs much faster than the native Windows disk image backup. I haven't tried separate file backups, as primarily need disaster recovery capability, so that I won't have to reinstall a large number of apps. Data files are mirrored to OneDrive.
You are right; creating a bootable USB flash drive is easy, and Macrium gathered all needed drivers for each of two bootable USB recovery flash drives from either Windows RE or the X17. Very different than my prior experience with the workstation and server versions of NovaBackup.
Have successfully booted to each of the recovery flash drives, and each can read the LaCie 1big Dock (18 TB) connected to the TB port on the X17.
Did an almost complete fire drill today to reinstall a backed-up image of the RAID 0 array, and was able to choose the Intel Raid 0 array on the X17 as the potential destination.
Thanks for your assistance.
GABSTER24
8 Posts
1
March 9th, 2022 21:00
Hello,
Has anyone tried Samsung Magician Software to see if you get any boost in performance?
Future x17 r1 owner, in production w/2TB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive
Item number: 400-BLXS