Thanks for the good info. A few follow on questions please,
These RAID drivers, where do I get these - are they Dell drivers or part of the Windows OS install, or something else entirely? I took a quick peek at the driver page for the C521 but I did not see anything that mentioned RAID.
Does the RAID part apply to the initial install of the OS onto the SSD via the optical, or when replacing the optical with the platter HD? Some brief info on when and how the RAID part is done would be extremely helpful.
Also, when you say the SATA port is SATA 1 do you mean both ports or just the port that the optical was attached to? From the service manual:
Bus type PCI 2.3 PCI Express 1.0A SATA 1.0A and 2.0 USB 2.0
Bus speed PCI: 133 MB/s PCI Express x16: 40 Gbps bidirectional speed PCI Express x1: 2.5 Gbps SATA: 1.5 Gbps and 3.0 Gbps USB: 480 Mbps high speed, 12Mbps full speed, 1.2 Mbps low speed
I thought that SATA was backward compatible, the drive I'm using is SATA 3 rated at 6gb. Does the above manual info suggest a problem here?
Thanks again for the help. I'll try to keep this thread updated with my progress - I've certainly benefited from other's posts here over the years.
There's nothing wrong with your plan that I see, and there's certainly zero risk trying to see if it will work. The tricky part is that this is an NVIDIA chipset, so you'll need the RAID drivers to perform the Windows installation. And the SATA port I'm fairly certain is SATA I, which is not going to work with some newer SATA drives. But again, you'll know soon enough if you try it.
Pardon me for being a little dense but I still don't understand the need for the RAID driver.
So how about this - I'm not going to have the ssd for a while, so I am just going to try to get two hard drives working as a test. I've got vista installed on the original HD on sata 0 and I am going to try and replace the optical drive on sata 1 with a new sata 3 drive. No RAID, just two hard drives.
Do I need the nvidia raid drivers for this config and if so why?
When you go to install the operating system, normally the installer does not recognize hard drives connected to an SATA controller. So you'll get an error that there are no available drives for the OS. So you'll need to start over and provide the location of the pre-install RAID drivers in order for the Windows installer to see the drive. This has nothing to do with setting up a RAID.
Just an update here, no need to reply. This info is more for anyone searching for info on upgrading the C521
For now I have l left the original 150gb boot drive in place on SATA 0. I removed the dvd drive which was on SATA 1 and installed a new 2tb drive in its place. The BIOS ver. 1.1.11 recognized the drive just fine. Windows Vista on the other hand could not properly format the large drive - I had used the drive as a boot drive before so I wanted to do a full (not fast) format and after many hours Vista format got stuck at 54% which I now know is a common problem. I wound up using the MInitool Partition Wizard software to format the drive with no further problems.
So, it appears that a C521 BIOS and SATA can certainly handle two hard drives, even newer ones, with no real problems.
In terms of the physical installation, there is a neat way to do it. The C521 actually has three bays, the lower bay with a hard drive, an upper bay with a DVD and a middle bay for a floppy drive that was empty in my case. After removing the DVD I noticed that the middle drive uses the same standoff and slot mechanism as the lower hard drive. I just so happened to have some standoff screws from another installation and after screwing them into the standard holes on the side of the hard drive, I lowered the hard drive into the slots and locked it into place, very nice. The only remaining problem was that I now had a hard drive face showing at the front of my case and an empty hole above it where the DVD drive was. I just so happened to also have a few mesh drive blanks from a previous build and after some snipping and shaping I fit them into place. This was actually very cool (literally) since the case now has mesh cooling vents at the front (which look rather techy tough in my opinion.) The vents are handy since this case is installed in a stereo rack and now can easily pull fresh air in from the front.
Now my HTPC has a spanking new 2TB drive to record all my favorite shows and using Plex I can stream to all my other devices.
I still plan on replacing the original boot drive with an SSD in a few months. I will post further if that little project actually happens.
I also wanted to provide some information here about the CPU upgrade I did on this machine. My box has a Sempron chip which is a real dog, and although Plex is not an intensive application, I was noticing some CPU bottle-necking. I tried replacing it with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.5ghz 65 Watts (Brisbane.) but this did not go well. I had read all the posts about doing a CPU upgrade on the C521 and had done all the recommended steps such as putting the bios back to an earlier version (1.0.3) but I still had a lot of issues. The new chip made the CPU fan go into hyper mode, very fast and loud. I tried all the relevant BIOS and Vista settings and re-pasted the chip a few times but I could not make the fan behave. The chip (timing probably) also did not play well with the RAM and I could not get 4 1mb sticks to work, three yes, but not four - previous CPU upgrade posters also saw this issue. All the RAM is good and is running fine now without this CPU. I also had problems with the video, little waves and shifts on the screen etc.
The bottom line for me is that these boards were never made to run with the Brisbane chips. And the BIOS does not give you any real control over the chip so its impossible to tweak things. I was able to return the Brisbane and I now have a 4600+ on order, but this time its a Windsor chip. The Windsor 4600+ was one of the original chips you could get with this board, I think it was the best CPU you could get. I think a lot of the original attempts to use Brisbanes were due to the lack of Windsor availability, and even now the Brisbanes are much more common, but I was easily able to get a Windsor off ebay for $20. Nothing guaranteed, but I'm hoping the new chip will not cause any issues. Will post an update soon.
This little pc, now HTPC, is running fine and looks nice with the other audio components. With a $25 RAM upgrade, new $20 (Windsor) CPU, and a $30 6450, $75 has gotten me a fine little HTPC, even better if I reuse a hand me down 64gb SSD from another unit.
Hi I am facing similar challenge with same desktop, as I want to replace optical drive and original hard drive for a RAID1 of 2 SATA hard drives, I noticed in the service manual Raid is available from BIOS so If your ssd drive will also plug in the sata port and you use them as not raid there should be no problems.
Except for the SATA1 issue I mentioned in the previous post, which is a big deal. And unfortunately, since the PCIe x1 slot is only v1.0A, getting a 3rd-party controller card, assuming you can find one that's compatible with the system for boot drives, will only get you to around 200MB/s if you're lucky (unless you're still on integrated video and can use the x16 slot). Still, that's an improvement over the anemic 125MB/s or so that you get with an SSD on this system when connected to the motherboard SATA.
BTW, I don't think that RAID setting exists in reality, but I'll check again.
srbarry
1 Rookie
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13 Posts
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September 8th, 2013 05:00
Thanks for the good info. A few follow on questions please,
These RAID drivers, where do I get these - are they Dell drivers or part of the Windows OS install, or something else entirely? I took a quick peek at the driver page for the C521 but I did not see anything that mentioned RAID.
Does the RAID part apply to the initial install of the OS onto the SSD via the optical, or when replacing the optical with the platter HD? Some brief info on when and how the RAID part is done would be extremely helpful.
Also, when you say the SATA port is SATA 1 do you mean both ports or just the port that the optical was attached to? From the service manual:
Bus type PCI 2.3
PCI Express 1.0A
SATA 1.0A and 2.0
USB 2.0
Bus speed PCI: 133 MB/s
PCI Express x16: 40 Gbps bidirectional speed
PCI Express x1: 2.5 Gbps
SATA: 1.5 Gbps and 3.0 Gbps
USB: 480 Mbps high speed, 12Mbps full speed, 1.2 Mbps low speed
I thought that SATA was backward compatible, the drive I'm using is SATA 3 rated at 6gb. Does the above manual info suggest a problem here?
Thanks again for the help. I'll try to keep this thread updated with my progress - I've certainly benefited from other's posts here over the years.
osprey4
4 Operator
•
34.2K Posts
0
September 8th, 2013 05:00
Hi SRBarry,
There's nothing wrong with your plan that I see, and there's certainly zero risk trying to see if it will work. The tricky part is that this is an NVIDIA chipset, so you'll need the RAID drivers to perform the Windows installation. And the SATA port I'm fairly certain is SATA I, which is not going to work with some newer SATA drives. But again, you'll know soon enough if you try it.
osprey4
4 Operator
•
34.2K Posts
0
September 9th, 2013 04:00
Here are the NVIDIA RAID drivers.
I was mistaken. Your ports are SATA II so an SATA III drive should work with no trouble.
srbarry
1 Rookie
•
13 Posts
0
September 10th, 2013 04:00
I really appreciate your help Osprey.
Pardon me for being a little dense but I still don't understand the need for the RAID driver.
So how about this - I'm not going to have the ssd for a while, so I am just going to try to get two hard drives working as a test. I've got vista installed on the original HD on sata 0 and I am going to try and replace the optical drive on sata 1 with a new sata 3 drive. No RAID, just two hard drives.
Do I need the nvidia raid drivers for this config and if so why?
Thank again!
osprey4
4 Operator
•
34.2K Posts
0
September 10th, 2013 17:00
When you go to install the operating system, normally the installer does not recognize hard drives connected to an SATA controller. So you'll get an error that there are no available drives for the OS. So you'll need to start over and provide the location of the pre-install RAID drivers in order for the Windows installer to see the drive. This has nothing to do with setting up a RAID.
srbarry
1 Rookie
•
13 Posts
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September 13th, 2013 10:00
Just an update here, no need to reply. This info is more for anyone searching for info on upgrading the C521
For now I have l left the original 150gb boot drive in place on SATA 0. I removed the dvd drive which was on SATA 1 and installed a new 2tb drive in its place. The BIOS ver. 1.1.11 recognized the drive just fine. Windows Vista on the other hand could not properly format the large drive - I had used the drive as a boot drive before so I wanted to do a full (not fast) format and after many hours Vista format got stuck at 54% which I now know is a common problem. I wound up using the MInitool Partition Wizard software to format the drive with no further problems.
So, it appears that a C521 BIOS and SATA can certainly handle two hard drives, even newer ones, with no real problems.
In terms of the physical installation, there is a neat way to do it. The C521 actually has three bays, the lower bay with a hard drive, an upper bay with a DVD and a middle bay for a floppy drive that was empty in my case. After removing the DVD I noticed that the middle drive uses the same standoff and slot mechanism as the lower hard drive. I just so happened to have some standoff screws from another installation and after screwing them into the standard holes on the side of the hard drive, I lowered the hard drive into the slots and locked it into place, very nice. The only remaining problem was that I now had a hard drive face showing at the front of my case and an empty hole above it where the DVD drive was. I just so happened to also have a few mesh drive blanks from a previous build and after some snipping and shaping I fit them into place. This was actually very cool (literally) since the case now has mesh cooling vents at the front (which look rather techy tough in my opinion.) The vents are handy since this case is installed in a stereo rack and now can easily pull fresh air in from the front.
Now my HTPC has a spanking new 2TB drive to record all my favorite shows and using Plex I can stream to all my other devices.
I still plan on replacing the original boot drive with an SSD in a few months. I will post further if that little project actually happens.
I also wanted to provide some information here about the CPU upgrade I did on this machine. My box has a Sempron chip which is a real dog, and although Plex is not an intensive application, I was noticing some CPU bottle-necking. I tried replacing it with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.5ghz 65 Watts (Brisbane.) but this did not go well. I had read all the posts about doing a CPU upgrade on the C521 and had done all the recommended steps such as putting the bios back to an earlier version (1.0.3) but I still had a lot of issues. The new chip made the CPU fan go into hyper mode, very fast and loud. I tried all the relevant BIOS and Vista settings and re-pasted the chip a few times but I could not make the fan behave. The chip (timing probably) also did not play well with the RAM and I could not get 4 1mb sticks to work, three yes, but not four - previous CPU upgrade posters also saw this issue. All the RAM is good and is running fine now without this CPU. I also had problems with the video, little waves and shifts on the screen etc.
The bottom line for me is that these boards were never made to run with the Brisbane chips. And the BIOS does not give you any real control over the chip so its impossible to tweak things. I was able to return the Brisbane and I now have a 4600+ on order, but this time its a Windsor chip. The Windsor 4600+ was one of the original chips you could get with this board, I think it was the best CPU you could get. I think a lot of the original attempts to use Brisbanes were due to the lack of Windsor availability, and even now the Brisbanes are much more common, but I was easily able to get a Windsor off ebay for $20. Nothing guaranteed, but I'm hoping the new chip will not cause any issues. Will post an update soon.
This little pc, now HTPC, is running fine and looks nice with the other audio components. With a $25 RAM upgrade, new $20 (Windsor) CPU, and a $30 6450, $75 has gotten me a fine little HTPC, even better if I reuse a hand me down 64gb SSD from another unit.
srbarry
1 Rookie
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13 Posts
0
September 13th, 2013 13:00
Edit - the 4600+ was the best 65 watt cpu, there were more powerful 89 watt CPUs, buy I am going low power for this htpc.
rseiler
2 Intern
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125 Posts
0
November 9th, 2013 21:00
Don't expect much from the SSD: The Nforce controller doesn't get on well with SSDs and forces most all of them into SATA1 mode.
The second page of this thread also includes a couple links of interest. There's really no good news unless you have OCZ.
http://forums.overclockersclub.com/?showtopic=193545
anibalron
1 Message
0
November 18th, 2013 21:00
Hi I am facing similar challenge with same desktop, as I want to replace optical drive and original hard drive for a RAID1 of 2 SATA hard drives, I noticed in the service manual Raid is available from BIOS so If your ssd drive will also plug in the sata port and you use them as not raid there should be no problems.
rseiler
2 Intern
•
125 Posts
0
November 18th, 2013 22:00
Except for the SATA1 issue I mentioned in the previous post, which is a big deal. And unfortunately, since the PCIe x1 slot is only v1.0A, getting a 3rd-party controller card, assuming you can find one that's compatible with the system for boot drives, will only get you to around 200MB/s if you're lucky (unless you're still on integrated video and can use the x16 slot). Still, that's an improvement over the anemic 125MB/s or so that you get with an SSD on this system when connected to the motherboard SATA.
BTW, I don't think that RAID setting exists in reality, but I'll check again.