Help with storage configuration of RAID 0 on Alienware 17

[Hawaii808]

Aloha,

Okay so here is some background information on my situation, my system was compromised with a Trojan horse hidden in the registry. In order to remove it from the system I performed a reinstallation of the OS using the recovery DVD. I paid Dell to walk me through the installation and download the drivers and plugins and this is where my trouble started, they failed three times. They were able to install the OS, drivers, and plugins but failed every time at setting up the storage system to the state at which I initially received it. After the 3rd failed attempt I gave up hope in Dell and was hoping the community can walk me through how to resolve this issue. Preferably without having to reinstall the operating system again if possible.

current RAID configuration in disk/volume information
Raid volumes
ID: 0 name: volume 1 level: RAID0(stripe) strip:64kb size: 1.8TB status: normal
physical devices
ID: 0 Model: WBC WD10jpvx-75j size: 931.5GB type/status: member disk (0)
ID: 1 Model: WBC WD10jpvx-75j size: 931.5GB type/status: member disk (0)
ID: 5 Model: LITONIT DMT-80M size: 74.5GB type/status: Non-RAID Disk

Before my system was compromised my windows primary hard disk subscore was a 7.4
storage configuration:
total size of hard disk(s) 1863GB
Disk partition (C: ) 1853 GB total
Disk partition (D: ) 11 GB total
Media drive (E: ) CD/DVD

After the reinstallation my new subscore is a 5.9
Storage configuration:
total size of hard disk(s) 1856GB
disk partition (C: ) 1856GB total
Media drive (D: ) CD/DVD
So my question is how do I add the Non-RAID disk to the RAID 0 because without it being configured together my system has been a lot slower in processing and loading times. Is it possible to do it without reinstalling the OS system? would hate to have to deal with Dell again. Please let me know if you need any additional information. I greatly appreciate the time for you to read this and any feedback you provide into this matter. If there is a solution it would be greatly beneficial to me if you provide step by step instructions.
Mahalo, Ryan

 

[JaredDM]

The SSD doesn't need to be added to the RAID 0, that's actually impossible as it's smaller in capacity than the other drives. You need to set back up the Alienware expresscache which will manage moving the most accessed files to the SSD.

This article should help: http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/SLN131651/EN

If this was already done by the guys at Dell, then just keep in mind that caching takes time. The score will be lower for a while until it learns what is the most frequently accessed data and caches it.

 

[Hawaii808]

The SSD doesn't need to be added to the RAID 0, that's actually impossible as it's smaller in capacity than the other drives. You need to set back up the Alienware expresscache which will manage moving the most accessed files to the SSD.

This article should help: http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/SLN131651/EN

If this was already done by the guys at Dell, then just keep in mind that caching takes time. The score will be lower for a while until it learns what is the most frequently accessed data and caches it.

Hi JaredDM, thank you so much for your response. To answer your question (which is weird because I received it by email but not in this thread) about if it has two disk drives. The system has 2TB RAID 0 (2x1TB 5400RPM) + 80GB mSATA catching NIVDIA. In regards to this post, your information was extremely helpful. I went into the BIOS to ensure it was set to SATA mode RAID. Seeing that it was I started the system and went to Intel RST and acceleration mode was not enabled. I enabled acceleration and it created SATA_Araay_0001 I restarted the system so the changes would take affect. Upon start up the new disk/volume information is:

RAID volumes
ID: volume1 level: RAID 0 (stripe) strip: 64KB size: 1.8TB
ID: volume_0000 level: RAID 0 (stripe) strip: 128KB size: 10.5GB
ID: volume_0001 level: RAID 0 (cache) strip: 128KB size: 64.0GB
and the LITONIT DMT-80M now has a type/status of Cache

once the system was up and running I immediately noticed improved loading times for files and programs. Thank you so much for your post you really helped me resolve this issue.
-Ryan