Had to go with other SSD (against my wishes)

I found myself at relatives house for Christmas, and one thing led to another, and I found myself needing to come up with some very fast Drive space…    Video files… His existing drives were dropping frames…

I wasn’t prepared to come up with a solution, but he once had a Sata Raid array, but drives are toast…

I thought… Why Not??   Get two SSD’s and stuff them in that raid as raid 0 array, and that will be fast enough for the project…

He’s thinking that he doesn’t want to put money into something that will be used once…

So I thought why not?  Buy the drives myself… Put them in that Raid Array to get project done, and then after it’s done, I walk away with the drives, and use them to retire a spinning Drive Raid 0   at home…

So off we went to Micro Center (Im in Chicago for holidays)… They sell SanDisk Ultra II’s…

That’s when I remember…Darn!!! SanDisk has two different hardware versions… and if I want to get two truely identical drives, I’ll have to purchase 3 of them… 

Sandisk were less expensive than other SSD’s, but not That Inexpensive!!!

Off to the support guys in back room… They are aware of multiple drive types… with Sandisk… One guy has Raid experience and suggested Crucial MX300…

Even though I have used Sandisk Ultra II’s in Raid 0 configuration before, and trust them… I just didn’t have the extra amount of $$ in my pocket to buy 3 SSDs, in order to get 2 identical ones…

Project finished in Chicago…  Went off without a hitch…I’ll be testing later this week in place of 2 spinning drives…

Now… I have some damming things to post about Crucial’s Software… The two drives I purchased were the latest MX300 models.

 I downloaded the latest Executive sofware…   OH MY!!!

Executime sees the SanDisk by name!!! but won’t see the 2x MX300’s in the raid 0 chassis…

(Prior drives in this chassis Momentus XT Spinning Hybrid drives—WERE SEEN by Seagate’s firmware update program, and I had updated Firmware on these drives before…without an issue with media upon them…)

Needless to say, I didn’t check to see if Crucial’s Software would update the firmware on the SanDisk SSD!!!  (Believe it or not, the option was THERE!!!)

So… The Raid0 with 2x MX300’s is working, and it is fast, but I have un–installed Crucial’s Executive Software…

more information… Executive software cannot see raids yet… SanDisk’s Dashboard CAN…

I don’t think consumer SSDs support RAID, so don’t expect the bundled software to read drives correctly. You may need a 3rd party tool like Hard Drive Sentinel. 

Problem with the Ultra II is that the Smart variables are uninterpretable … I have no idea how to calculate Media Wear Out for example without using the SSD Dashboard. 

Saying that, supposedly Smartmontools 6.6 will support the Ultra II, so if you wait a couple of months, you can use that as well to monitor the array.

Well thanks… I’ll wait a couple months per your request, and try them…  Will it support Crucial MX300’s???

Oh by the way I did get a response from Crucial Support on my questions…

Why can’t I find a Product Registration Site?  “Because we don’t have one!”

Why can’t Crucial’s Executive Software see 2x MX300’s in a raid like SanDisk’s Dashboard does??? "Because we don’t support Raids…

Of course, the MX300’s don’t know this and like the bumblebee: (That doesn’t know it can’t fly) continues to work just fine!!  

Silly Manufacturer’s!

So I go back into Crucial’s executive Software…

It doesn’t say it find’s the 2x Crucial MX300 Drives in the raid chassis… Though it finds the SanDisk Drive, and tells me it’s a SanDisk Drive!!!

BUT Here’s the CRAZY THING:

When I do a check for drives…IT DOES Talk to both of the MX300 drives inside that Raid Array!! 

I see the drive indicator lights flash!!!  It just doesn’t display their information from those MX300 drives!!!

Isn’t it amazing how MFG’s go out of their way to through limitations in front of end users???

Months have transpired… I still cannot connect to the Crucial Disks to examine them, but Crucial’s Executive software still sees SanDisk boot SSD… Today went searching for new Executive Software… No update selection in there software… When I finally found a download link to it… There was no idication what version was what that link was pointing to… Or Date…

It’s same version as before…    I’ve yet to see any update of any kind from Crucial…

My Preference, even with all the flaws I’ve mentioned… is still SanDisk…   They kind-of listen!

Regarding my other post where I mention no stock of Ultra II’s in Chicagoland… MX300’s were in stock, approx $5-10 less than SanDisk Ultra II’s…  But due to fact that I’v yet to see ANY update from Crucial… I’m staying with Ultra II’s!!!