SSD card

Discussion in 'Paragon Drive Backup Product Line' started by rayh78, Feb 23, 2015.

  1. rayh78

    rayh78 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2007
    Posts:
    56
    Have HD Manager 14 suite.
    New PC has a 1 tb HDD but also a 32 SSD card. Wish I had just one drive that was a SSD like my other PC. Got a good deal so can't complain.

    When I did a paragon image I clicked to backup both at the same time. Saved to a usb portable drive.

    Will this be any problem if ever I do a restore. Do I need to even backup the SSD card?

    thanks
     
  2. J_L

    J_L Registered Member

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    8,738
    What did you put on your SSD card? Is the OS installed there?
     
  3. rayh78

    rayh78 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2007
    Posts:
    56
    Have Win 8.1
    I did not put anything there. I think the OS in on the HDD. Can't find the SSD under explorer.
    Everything was preinstalled on this new PC
    Thanks
     
  4. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 25, 2006
    Posts:
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    This SSD is probably used as a cache, to accelerate the operation. This is the "SSD catching" or "mSATA cache" configuration. You don´t need to backup the SSD (and probably you can´t).

    This configuration may cause you problems. Be sure you understand how it works, and backup the whole disk.
     
  5. rayh78

    rayh78 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2007
    Posts:
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    I think you are right.
    But it did let me check both disk to backup.
    I went ahead and did another backup image and just checked the HDD.
    Will this setup cause me problems. Would I be better off down the road to just remove both drive and put in a 240 GB SSD like I did in my other PC
    This new one is a Dell XPS18

    Thanks
     
  6. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 25, 2006
    Posts:
    2,557
    In this case, a good configuration would be to keep the 1 TB disk for data, replace the SSD with a larger one, 128 or 256 GB, and migrate the OS to it.

    Or you could just keep the SSD catching configuration. It can accelerate the operation of Windows. How much improvement you can get depends on the type of work you do. Protect against an eventual loss of personal data making backups regularly. Also, create image backups of the system, create a boot USB Flash drive, check that you can boot the computer from it and that it "sees" the internal disk and the SSD.

    Some important things to keep in mind about the SSD catching:

    The disk and the SSD operate in RAID mode, not in ACHI mode. You can check this in the UEFI Setup. If you change the SATA mode to ACHI, you may run into trouble.

    The SATA drivers used are the Intel RST (Rapid Storage Technology) drivers, not the MS or Windows drivers. The Windows drivers may be present in the system, but they are disabled. You can check what drivers are being used in the Device Manager.

    The SSD catching can be configured and disabled from the Intel RST GUI or “console”.

    Before you replace the SSD, you must disable the catching, so that the SSD operates independently of the hard disk.

    A 2012 Dell Whitepaper about SSD catching and related topics:
    Dell Whitepaper: Intel Responsiveness Technologies Setup Guide

    Edit 2 - See
    XPS 18 - HDD/SATA - It seems that the SSD conector is M.2, not mSATA.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2015
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