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Can you have both an SSD and a cached HDD on Inspiron 7720?
Hi,
I think I already know the answer for this but I'd like to confirm.
I was having some issues with my laptop (Inspiron 7720 aka 17R special edition with 3D) so I ended upgrading to a 250 GB SSD with Windows 10 installed on it and using the 1 TB HDD for storage.
I still have the 32 GB mSATA SSD that came with the laptop that was used for caching the HDD. I'm wondering if I can do something useful with it such as enabling intel rapid storage for the 1 TB HDD. If yes, how would I do that? The PC won't boot if I place the mSATA SSD and I tried playing around with the BIOS settings to get it to boot with no luck.
Thanks
Bilalm
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February 6th, 2017 10:00
Yeah, I changed it to AHCI. I have the SSD in the primary slot with Windows and apps on it, and HDD in the secondary one with data on it (E:)... I guess I should switch the slots to get it to work.
But you're saying there's no benefit anyway. I was wondering whether iRST would make things like copy pasting on my E: drive faster but I don't think that's the case. My understanding is that the cache just stores frequently accessed data for quick use by the OS..
And I can't use the 32GB SSD for storage (as a third drive) either correct? So there's no way to benefit from it now with my laptop?
Thanks
ejn63
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February 6th, 2017 10:00
While there's nothing stopping you from using the mSATA cache, doing so with a native SSD will likely result in slower operation than simply using the SSD as the Windows drive.
I don't think the mSATA drive can cache the hard drive (assuming the hard drive is the second drive in the system). Since the OS isn't running from that drive, it will make no difference anyway.
Did you change the SATA operation from RAID/IRST to native AHCI when you installed the 2.5" SSD?