How to install an Intel 320 SSD in a Dell Precision workstation?

It looks to me like you should be able to ENABLE that port. "This field allows the user to enable..."

But, wait! There's more.  In order to start using the SSD, you need to initialize it and and format.  Here's what I did in Vista x64 Ultimate:

1. Control Panel
2. Administrative Tools
3. Computer Management
4. Disk Management
5. As Disk Management read the volume configuration, it saw the uninitialized SSD and prompted me to initialize as either a Master Boot Record (MBR) or GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk.  After reading  http://www.orthogonalthought.com/blog/index.php/2009/01/mbr-vs-gpt-comparison-windows-vista/, I chose MBR.
6. I then had to create a volume on the disk.  Right-clicking the disk's rectangle in the Computer Management display produced a menu where I selected "Simple Volume".
7. A wizard then prompted me for several options.  I chose to format it as NTFS (not quick format) and enable compression.
8. It took awhile, but my disk was finally ready to write to:
   
   
   
   

As you can see, only 111GB are actually available out of the 120GB that appears on the Intel packaging.  You know the old saying "Intel giveth and Microsoft taketh away."

But, wait! There's still more! 

• Rewire my SATA ports so that the SSD comes before the RAID1 pair in the boot sequence.
• I needed to update the SSD firmware
• Move my Windows Vista C: partition to the SSD.

 How I Rewired My SATA Ports

1. I unplugged all my SATA data cables.
2. I plugged the SSD into SATA-0.
   
   
   
   
   
3. I plugged my two HDD cables into SATA-2 and SATA-3. It doesn't seem to matter which of the pair goes first. I skipped SATA-1 because it is physically distant from SATA-2 plug and I wanted my RAID1 pair to be adjacent. I don't think the machine cares.
4. I plugged my CD drive and DVD cables into SATA-4 and SATA-5.
   
   
   
   
5. I noticed that the boot sequence was interupted when it could not find a SATA-1 drive.  So I returned to the BIOS setup (rebooted, F2) and disabled it (drives, SATA-1, enter, tab, escape, save/exit).

How I Updated the Intel 320 Series SSD Firmware

1. Downloaded the ISO image from Intel.
2. Burnt the ISO image to CD-ROM with Roxio Creator.
3. Read the README.txt file on the CD.  It said 'This tool will only function correctly with the BIOS SATA ports configured to "Legacy"/"Compatibility" mode or "AHCI" mode. 
   Some BIOS configurations support SATA port modes such as "IRRT",
   "RAID", and "Native + IDE" mode, which are not supported by this
   utility
   
   
   .'.
4. Inserted the firmware update CD into my CD-ROM drive.
5. Rebooted and pressed F2 to enter setup.
6. Changed the SATA mode from RAID/AHCI to ATA (seemed like the oldest)
7. Rebooted.  Got some error messages.  Hit F1 to continue.  Got some more error messages after the "FreeDos Kernel..." blurb was displayed.
8. I thought all was lost.  But, I waited and it eventually cleared the screenasked me if I understood the license agreement and then instructed me to remove the CD and reboot.  It really didn't give me that warm and fuzzy feeling like the firmware was updated and it didn't display the before and after version numbers.
9. Rebooted and changed the SATA mode back to RAID/AHCI BEFORE it tried to boot from my hard disks again.

How I Moved My Windows Vista C: partition to the SSD

Most people do a fresh install of Windows 7 on their new SSD in order to enjoy its benefits includes built-in support for the SSD trim function (garbage collection).  But, I decided to stick with Vista after the Microsoft Windows 7 Readiness program reported that two of my programs (Cisco x64 VPN client and Acronis True Image Workstation) are not supported by Windows 7.

My C: partition has all my programs and I have been using Acronis to take regular images of it.  Intel's data migration tool that comes bundled with the SSD is also based on Acronis.  But, the migration tool would not move my 60GB C: partition from a larger disk (500GB) to the smaller SSD (120GB).  The Migration Tool insists on copying the entire drive.  So, I used Acronis True Image Workstation to restore a backup image of my C: partition to my SSD L: partition.  Then I thought it was just a matter of change the drive letter C: to S:, L: to C:.  But, I got the following error when I tried to change the C: partition drive letter:

Then I thought I should add the L: drive to the boot sequence.  I soon was faced with mastering Vista's editbcd command line interface.  As a shortcut, I downloaded EasyBCD from http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 and added the L: partition to the boot sequence.  Then I tried EasyBCD's recreate/repair facility and it crashed my machine.  

After my PC rebooted, I decided to check Disk Management to see where things stood. Low and behold, my SSD is now my C: drive! And the letter of my old C: drive was change to E:!

Looks like I stumbled my way into a solution! 

But, wait!  There's yet again more!  I had to:

• Reconfigure as many applications as I could think of so that temporary files were not written to the SSD.  SSD writes are relatively slow and shorten the lifespan of the drive.
• Download and Install the Intel SSD Toolbox to do performance tuning and perform scheduled garbage collection (Vista doesn't have built-in SSD trim support).  After you install it, the GUI is simple and intuitive.

Applications That May Write Temporary Files to Your SSD C: Partition

• Microsoft Internet Explorer (must move its browser cache location)
• Firefox (must move its browser cache location.  You have to add a string/value pair to its configuration)
• Google Chrome (must move its browser cache location.  You need to add a parameter to its shortcut target)
• Microsoft Outlook (must move your *.OST file)
• Microsoft Visual Studio.NET (must update the compilation element in your root web.config file to move the ASP.NET Temp folder)
• Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) must move the root Inetpub directory.  While your in the IIS Administrator, you might as well disable logging for all your web sites so that log files aren't written.
• All your Windows personal folders under the C:Users/{username}/ directory.  Most of these have a [Location] tab in their folder properties that will allow you to move them without mucking with the registry.  Why Vista doesn't make it easy to move the entire Users folder is beyond me.
• User your Computer properties to move your Vista's paging file (pagefile.sys) to your HDD.