Ultra-Thin

[monotronco]

Hi, I just bought an acer aspire M5-581T. It had Windows 8 as OS, but it has a lot of incompabilities with the programs I use, so I decided to make a downgrade to windows 7 ultimate 64 bits, I did it and everything is working perfect even better than windows 8, the problem is that I installed the OS on the 20GB Disk and I have the other disk for documents and all that stuff, but after installing some softwares, using the second disk for heavy softwares and only the 20GB for softwares where I cannot change the place, the hard disk is almost full. I searched on the web how to make a bigger disk, and found out that I can achivie my goal by making a Raid 0 with the two disk. My question is, How can I do this?

I tried to change into Raid in the bios but it doesn´t have that option

[Alan-London]

Personally I wouldn't bother employing RAID 0 on your setup.

Bear in mind that both partitions within a RAID 0 array need to be the same size. In your case you would have 2 x 20GB - not really worth the effort for 40GB.

Also worth mentioning is that, while not essential, both partitions ought to be SSD or HDD - not a mix. If you do mix, you would effectively reduce the performance of the SSD to that of the HDD.

With RAID 0 you are splitting data across a striped set. While this can (but not always) increase performance, you are putting your data at risk as, should a stripe become damaged you have lost ALL your data. RAID 0 is not actually RAID at all as it offers no redundancy or mirroring.

I would dispense with the 20GB mSATA in favour of a larger unit and re-install Win 7.

[jyannuzzi]

Where could I change my RAID settings?  I am purchasing a replacement to upgrade the internal SSD, 120gb.  Then I plan to reinstall OS onto SSD and use the 500gb HDD for storage.

[Alan-London]

There is no setting for RAID - it is enabled through software only.
In other words, you need do nothing at all.
I suspect you are aware but I will mention it just in case, I believe the SSD in the M5 is mSATA form factor.

[jyannuzzi]

Thank you Alan, I did notice that the form factore was different once I popped off the keyboard and located the ssd chip.

My question now is this - I did a test run, did a fresh wipe of all drives (HDD and SSD) and installed the OS back on to the SSD, afterwards the HDD was no longer visible.  Any ideas why that might be?  

I find it difficult to believe that I am the first person who wanted to put the OS on the SSD alone, for better performance than just having hybrid drives working together.

Thanks

[Alan-London]

I must admit to 'flying blind' here as my M5 only has SSD fitted.

I would suggest you check the BIOS settings and confirm the HDD is discovered. Then, have a look in Windows 'Administrator Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management' and check that the HDD appears. Hopefully it is there but 'RAW' and no drive letter assigned.

[jyannuzzi]

Thanks again Alan,

After our last message I did some digging around and you're right.  The HDD was there, I didnt see it available under Computer and assumed the BIOS wasnt reading it or that the raid was setup in some fashion...  really it was just my own oversight.  I needed to go back in to Computer Management into Disk Management and turn the raw HDD disk into a simple disk. Viola!  

So, to sumarrize, Acer techs told me this absolutely could not be done, but its actually very simple.  I purchased a new mSATA 120GB SSD to replace the stock 20GB SSD, reinstalled the OS on to the SSD instead of the HDD, and now use the 500GB HDD as a storage drive.  Boot times and app responsiveness is outstanding now, much faster than the hybrid mashup.

[Alan-London]

Excellent!
Enjoy your very fast M5!

[ubuntoscar]

Hello jyannuzzi,

how do you do that?, cause i have a 128GB SSD from stock on my M5 and i want too have only the SSD for windows 7 and a second mechanical 500 GB HDD for files.

Can you explain with details how do you get this configuration keep working?

Thanks in advance¡¡¡¡¡¡

[jyannuzzi]

ubuntoscar,

Everything I did was really straight forward, and I'll break it down as simply as I can - there really wasn't and tricks to it.

a)  Started an install of Windows 7

b) As you start the install you can configure the options, do a new custom install. In the options I formatted both disks - the SSD and the HDD (and recovery partitions) so that I only showed 2 disks.

c) Select the SSD as the installation location for Windows 7, complete installation as normal

d) Once windows has installed, right click Computer, select Manage, then choose Disk Management.  Now locate the HDD (you should recognize it based on the Free Space size) It should be Unallocated, right click and choose New Simple Volume.  After thats completed you will see it show up as a disk, available to save files to and the OS will have been installed on the SSD.

Warning!  From what I was able to gather, I'm not sure if this voids the standard Acer warranty so do this at your own risk. ALSO! It would be a great idea to back up all of your drivers before doing this in case you have any issues after the new OS is installed.

Good luck!