Should Windows 8 be installed on the SSD?

Question

I have an inspiron 7520, with a 32GB SSD and 1TB HD. It came with Win 8 pre-installed. I bought it refurbished from newegg, a few months back.

I had the impression that the big advantage of SSDs is their very low latency. So it makes sense to have the OS and frequently used programs installed on the SSD, and use the HDD for storage. However, as far as I can tell, the SSD is empty (Windows sees it as a 29.8GiB drive with 29.7GB free) and the OS came pre-installed on the 1TB drive.

1) Am I right that having the OS and key programs installed on the SSD would speed up program launch times? (The laptop runs fairly well, but opening programs is pretty slow)

2) I don't have any install media; can I use the backup tools provided by Dell to make a disk to reinstall Win8 on a different drive, or am I limited to just restoring to the original setup with Win8 on the HDD?

(In a perfect world I'd be wiping Win8 in favour of a new install of 7 and thereby avoiding all this, but I don't have the budget for a new Windows license right now. Ho hum.)

Thanks!

Philip_Yip · Accepted Answer

Maybe newegg didn't carry out the install properly with the correct SATA operation or set up the caching.

As mentioned a SSD 32 GB, 64 GB should be used as a cache drive only. Although you can squeeze the OS on the 64 GB one its pretty difficult.

If its 128 GB or superior than it is fine to install the OS on. As you stated that you didn't have the cash to buy a new OS, likely you don't want to upgrade the SSD just now.

Before altering the settings on your computer ensure that you have made the data using Dell Backup and Recovery. Review the following videos and make a recovery USB:

If Windows 8 has been manually installed from Newegg you may be unable to make recovery media and will need to procure it from Dell. Dell have a new form for Operating System media requests for in warranty US systems here although the form is translated into multiple languages I think the automated shipment of media is only available in the US at present and you need to call Dell Technical Support for other regions.

Once you have recovery media made or procured from Dell you will need to check the SATA operation of your system. To do this you will need to look at the BIOS setup, power down your system and power it back up and press F2 immediately at the Dell BIOS screen. The SATA operation of the hard drive should be set to Intel Rapid Response and not AHCI or ATA. I suspect it is set to AHCI (as you can view the SSD in Windows explorer).

To setup Intel Rapid Response on the SSD you will need to change the SATA operation to Intel Rapid Response. Changing the SATA Operation will render the system unbootable however. Which is why I suggested you to make the recovery media. Essentially if you change the SATA operation you have to reinstall the Operating System. You may also look at my Unofficial Windows Reinstallation Guide/A Clean Install of Windows 8 which will give you instructions in carrying out a manual installation.

Once the Operating System is reinstalled with the correct SATA Operation you can review Dell-Intel Responsive Technologies and setup Smart Response Configuration on page 6. This should hide the SSD from Windows Explorer but it will be used as a cache drive speeding up the overall performance of your system.

Emolient · Accepted Answer

Aha!

Found the solution: it's not enough for the mSATA drive to have free space, it must have space *without partitions*. I deleted the NTFS partition from the mSATA drive, left the entire drive as Unallocated space and launched RST... which now offers the "Accelerate" option as expected.

Thanks to all, for your thorough responses to my questions. I understand that RST takes a little while to work out which files are heavily used and therefore worth caching, so I don't expect to see vast improvements straight away. If I don't post further replies to this thread, take it as a sign that it's now working as expected.

Thanks again,

Emolient

DELL-Sujatha K · Answer

Hi Emolient, 32GB SSD is an mSATA drive; you will be unable to install the Operating system on it. To install the Operating system and other application on the SSD, the size should be 128 and more.

mallen1 · Answer

The 32GB SSD is usually setup as a cache drive to speedup the 1TB HD.  You can set it up using Intel RST. Intel RST will use the drive to cache your OS and frequently used programs.

Emolient · Answer

Thanks to all for your replies. mallen1 - I installed Intel RST from the Dell website. The help file says that I can use the SSD as a cache to accelerate my system drive. Unfortunately the instructions given in the help file refers to a button ('accelerate'  under Settings) that doesn't exist. I presume that the option is hidden because my SSD isn't in the 'Intel Ready Response' mode, as NATAKUC4 describes. NATAKUC4 - I couldn't guess who installed the OS onto the laptop, but it did include a bunch of Dell software including Dell Backup and Recovery, which offers me the options 'Reinstall Disks' and 'Bootable Backup'. Making those backups is something that I never got around to doing, so I'll test them out now! You're correct that the BIOS lists the SATA operation of the SSD as AHCI, and offers Intel Rapid Response as an option alongside ATA.  I also have a DVD which came with the laptop labelled: 'Operating System Already Installed on your computer Windows 8 Recovery medai for Windows 8 Products 64-Bit' I'm not sure whether 'Recovery Media' is the same as the reinstallation media that your guide refers to, but further text on DVD says 'Use this disc only to restore the operating system on a Dell computer', so it sounds like a likely candidate.  Anyway, I will make sure that my backups are in order and then take a crack at changing the SSD setting in the BIOS and reinstalling from either the self-made or the Dell-supplied recovery media. I'll report back to let you know how it went. Thanks very much for your very thorough help so far!

DELL-Sujatha K · Answer

Hi Emolient, Recovery media is something which you created and which is used to restore the system to the factory installed state. Or it can also be media sent by Dell. Revert for further queries.

Emolient · Answer

Hi all,

Many thanks for your help so far. I followed your instructions as best I could, but no luck so far.

Short version: Changed BIOS setting as recommended, reinstalled Windows, still don't have the option to "accelerate" in Inel RST.

Detailed version:

I used the Dell backup and recovery software to make a system restore disk (actually two DVDs). I then went into the BIOS and changed my SATA settings to the Intel Rapid Response, saved and exited. Unexpectedly, changing that SATA mode did *not* make my system unbootable: I could boot into Windows just as before, with no problems. I went back into the BIOS to confirm that I had saved the change before exiting, and it does indeed still say "Intel Rapid Response".

Because I still didn't have the "accelerate" option in the Intel RST software, I wondered whether Win 8 got stuck into thinking that it wasn't possible at install time. So I went to reinstall with the new BIOS setting.

I initially tried to reinstall Windows using the Dell disk that came with my laptop. This booted into an installer, but almost immediately gave me an error, complaining that it couldn't find a "media driver" and prompting me to insert a disk. Not having a driver disk (shouldn't it be on the DVD that Dell supplied? Seems weird that I got a DVD that doesn't work on my laptop), I quit the process and booted back into Windows, which still seemed unaffected.

I then used the recovery disks made with the Dell backup and recovery centre to reinstall Windows. It seemed to reinstall the OS without much problem. It did throw an error near the end of the process telling me that it couldn't find an .exe, but unfortunately I didn't note the name. Anyway, hitting Cancel allowed the install to finish and take me to what seems to be a functioning, clean Win 8 install.

I then installed Intel Rapid Storage Technology, using an installer downloaded from the Dell support site, found using my laptop's service tab. And... nothing has changed. I still don't see the "Accelerate" button, under "Settings" or as an icon on the top bar. I can still see the SSD as an empty, NTFS-formatted drive.

So, any suggestions?

Is there somewhere I can confirm that the "accelerate" option in RST should, in principle, work on this laptop?

As a side note, If I'd bought it straight from Dell instead of refurbished from Newegg, would this have come pre-configured? This seems quite a convoluted process to activate a feature that seems to be the entire point of having this particular bit of hardware.

Philip_Yip · Answer

Aha!

Found the solution: it's not enough for the mSATA drive to have free space, it must have space *without partitions*. I deleted the NTFS partition from the mSATA drive, left the entire drive as Unallocated space and launched RST... which now offers the "Accelerate" option as expected.

Thanks to all, for your thorough responses to my questions. I understand that RST takes a little while to work out which files are heavily used and therefore worth caching, so I don't expect to see vast improvements straight away. If I don't post further replies to this thread, take it as a sign that it's now working as expected.

Thanks again,

Emolient

Great, thanks for letting us know the solution.

Windows General

Should Windows 8 be installed on the SSD?

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