M6600 - Add 512GB SSD or upgrade i7-2720QM to i7-2960XM?

I just ordered a Crucial M4 512GB SSD. Thanks tons!

 

You'll love the ssd. I guarantee it!

 

I know you already placed an order, I didn't have time to read this forum for the past couple of days.

Given what you have written, my guess is SSD will improve your performance a lot more than a faster CPU.

When I was writing distributed system, to simulate multiple machines, we open up multiple "VM". Unless your system require CPU intensive task (not likely for most people), your RAM + your HDD/SSD will be your bottleneck. Some database connection can consume quite a bit of RAM, when you open up enough of them to your database.

Check your current system, does your current system max out at 100% CPU usage all the time, and I mean all the time, hours at a time. If that's the case, then upgrade the CPU, otherwise, you are much more likely to see a noticeable performance boost by getting 32GB of RAM + SSD.

You said you travel a lot, consider low voltage RAM (1.35V) to save a tiny bit of battery and SSD = doesn't break as easily as HDD if you drop your laptop, not to mention SSD saves battery too. All those VM, with 32GB of RAM + SSD should, in theory, give you faster response between switching around your different tasks.

I am not factoring cost too much, since given what you have written so far, I suspect cost is not a huge issue for you right now.

I have 12GB of RAM in my system right now, I can tell you Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit doesn't do a good enough job of keeping stuff in the memory, rather than swapping them back onto my slow mechanical HDD. I wish Windows will recognize I may use 6-7 GB at most, most of the time, just keep my different apps in the memory, don't swap them out to my HDD all the time and reduce my performance

 

If you are certain you won't break 12GB then you could try disabling the swap file altogether.

 

It came in this morning, and it's in. The drive was a *CAA model, so it had the transfer kit that automatically takes care of the alignment. The only odd thing that happened is after it booted into Windows, there was an error too fast to read. Then a message box that said that I needed to reboot for it to make some changes. It hung shutting down, so I powered it down manually. I never had the problem again. I did read an MS engineering document about Windows 7 and SSDs. It said because many SSDs do not report properly, Windows 7 figures out whether it's an SSD or not by doing some speed tests that the fastest mechanical drives cannot match. If the drive is too fast to be a mechanical, it removes a bunch of stuff that it puts in to speed up mechanical drives because now that stuff slows things down. That MAY have been what I was seeing, not sure. True to what everyone has said here, things have become very snappy. The HDD blinks now instead of on steady, so it is staying ahead of the processor some of the time. I used to use hibernate mostly to save time, but now the only advantage is to save my workspace since recovering from hibernation takes longer than booting.

I'm loading apps on the new one and cleaning house on my old before bringing things across. Initially, I was thinking about putting the original 750 in bay 2. I may avoid that for the moment if I can get by without the space. The reason is, if I set up paths to D, and later change to a RAID-0 SSD, my paths will be goofy, and you never really get them all out of the registry. Intel says their next firmware update to RST will enable TRIM to be passed to drives in arrays. What I read was Nov 2011, so I'll check to see where they are on that. As soon as they are good to go, I'll re-image the 750 with the latest, set up a RAID-0, and re-image the RAID-0 back from the 750. Then I'll be done with mechanical drives.

I've been studying RAM tradeoffs. The Best Memory for Sandy Bridge It's a tough to say if the extra 20% of RAM speed of 1600 buys me anywhere near 20%. I'm deciding between 16 GB of 1600 for $98, adding 8 GB 1333 to add to what I have for $34, or 32 GB of 1333 for $340. A prototype network of VMs made of just two Windows servers and a client plus the host OS and VMWare, eat up RAM pretty quickly, so getting away with 16GB is not a certainty.

My current system is an Inspiron 9400 with a Core 2 Duo, limited to w/4GB. Where I run my prototypes now are on one of my hex core Nehalems in the Dallas DC, running a RAID-0 of X25 SSD SLCs. I have to do everything over the VPN. Those are web servers doing 66 dynamic pages a second and creating graphical maps from data. Where I'm coming up short is a good in-house system for prototyping customer networks for customers I service in the local area. I thought of using my laptop as is, and throwing the VMs on an in-house server. I decided I wanted my own playground where I can be sure I will find things the way I left them. I needed a new laptop anyway. Windows 7 has caught on over the past year, I support it. If you don't work in it yourself, you're always a little off balance. I needed to let go of my Office 2003 too. Sure, XP is more productive, as is Office 2003, but in the end that isn't the issue. They don't sell what I'm using, and customers expect me to field questions on the new over the phone. It helps to have the new in front of you. I'm the only guy here not using the new because I know it will cost me 60+ uninvoiceable hours to set it up, something I can't delegate.

I agree memory and hdd is where I'll get the most bang for my buck. You are right that I'm often packing up an moving from place to place, mechanical hard drives are a problem, and I do a lot of multi-tasking to respond to events. I've already installed Deskspace. However, always have power, and my car even has a 125 VAC inverter. That's why I could settle for the M8900. Sure, I wish I had the 4000M, but I couldn't wait any longer, and there are no good discounts available for new M6600s.

Being a business owner, I look for an ROI on for every dollar I spend. My 9400 has been on 24 x 7 for 2 1/2 months short of 6 years. I've gone though at least 3 hard drives, and all of the time it takes to troubleshoot, get a drive, and do the restores. Even if SSDs were no faster than mechanical drives, they would still be more cost effective. I have two projects that are stalled because I don't have an efficient machine to prototype on. But I'm not paying >10x the price from Dell. Dell wants $5,745.00 to add 30 GB of 1333 memory, which I can buy for ~$340, or $400 for a $100 Blu-Ray, etc. I get a good discount on a lot of machines, but not on these. That's why I bought a refurb. It is the first time I have, because I can usually get them new for no more that a refurb.

Other:
- The machine has BIOS A04, but I haven't updated it until I ask you guys. It seems I read some time back that the old BIOS had OC advantages that were plugged in later versions. Before I update to the latest for everything, I thought I'd better ask here if that is wise. (Although it's almost a certainty that I will get roped into it if/when Intel gets RST squared away to pass TRIM to drives in a RAID.)

I like the machine except for these items:
- The fingerprint reading doesn't work nearly as well as I thought it would. It misses by far most of the time. Is the FIPS any better? Can I replace it with a FIPS if it is?
- I'm not excited about the nonstandard keyboard layout, especially the Print Screen, which I use all the time.
- The touch screen I held out for looks very nice, but it takes a more pressure, and it's harder to be accurate than with my phone, when I use my finger. Hopefully, it will pay off with the more finger friendly Windows 8 and Office 2012.
- I wish it had some way of telling when it was finished hibernating when the lid is closed like I can on my current computer. Sticking it in your big when it's still on gets things pretty hot, pretty quickly.

Thanks!

 

Congrats on your new ssd.
I am sure you will enjoy speed boost.
I learnt a lot from this post of yours.thanks.
Re: fingerprint reader not detecting half the time.
I face same issue in my latitude e6520,Its caused by WBF driver.
You may remove wbf driver and replace with non wbf driver which is better at doing fp reading.
I dont know whom to blame here ,dell for incomplete driver or MS for WBF .

I always buy base system wit processor and screen that I want,then later on I myself update RAM and HDD to my wish.
works out best.

 

In Device Manager I see the SmartCard Reader, but not the finger print reader. Thus, I don't know which device it uses, which driver to get, or how to determine if it loaded.

Thanks!

 

Even my laptop had same thing.
I can see it present in hardware but. Not. Listed under original specification list with service. Tag search.

Finally I went through device manager,
It was listed as dell controlvault with fingerprint reader.
It's listed under controlvault.

 

Found it. I'll update all of the drivers to the latest on the Dell site tomorrow,

 

One suggestion, install non wpf driver as that should improve detection.