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    Best mSATA SSD ?

    Discussion in 'Alienware 14 and M14x' started by Evil_Mask, Jun 14, 2012.

  1. Evil_Mask

    Evil_Mask Notebook Geek

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    Hi everyone!

    Just about to order an m14x r2 and I wanted to know what msata ssd would you guys advice me to buy.
    I thought about buying one directly from Dell but the prices in the French website (I'm French) are totally crazy so I tried not to upgrade things I can do by myself for much cheaper.

    By the way another quick little question : I also plan to replace the cd drive by another hdd so that I could have 3 hdd, do you think it's doable? And are there anything I should be aware of by doing so? (like limitation of sata speed, bios configuration...?)

    Thanks a lot!
     
    Evil_Mask, Jun 14, 2012
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  2. harolds

    harolds Notebook Enthusiast

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    Take a look here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ll-secondary-hard-drive-your-m14x-w-pics.html
     
    harolds, Jun 14, 2012
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  3. Tapakidney

    Tapakidney Notebook Evangelist

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    If you plan on replacing the ODD with a hard drive, the mSATA is a bit unnecessary, is it not? They are much more expensive per GB.

    I use the Mushkin Atlas - great speed and currently the only SATA3 readily available drive on the market.
     
    Tapakidney, Jun 14, 2012
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  4. Evil_Mask

    Evil_Mask Notebook Geek

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    Thanks!
    The thing is I already have a 750gb 2.5" that I would like to put at the cd drive place but I don't want to throw away the 500gb hdd Dell will send to me with my Alienware...
     
    Evil_Mask, Jun 15, 2012
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  5. sgtwill7729

    sgtwill7729 Newbie

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    sgtwill7729, Jun 15, 2012
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  6. Evil_Mask

    Evil_Mask Notebook Geek

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    Evil_Mask, Jun 16, 2012
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  7. alienowl

    alienowl Notebook Consultant

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    I've been looking at the Mushkin myself, but don't know much about it.

    check this thread for lots of posts and information on MyDigital:
    http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...lssd-msata-ssd-64gb-very-bad-performance.html
     
    alienowl, Jun 16, 2012
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  8. Evil_Mask

    Evil_Mask Notebook Geek

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    Thanks for the link!
    Apparently there's a new Samsung mSATA 3 ssd that will come out, any infos?
    Do you think it will be better than the Mushkin one?
     
    Evil_Mask, Jun 16, 2012
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  9. alienowl

    alienowl Notebook Consultant

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    I've been following some information on the new Samsung mSATA. It looks promising, but as far as I know it is not available yet. However, some people are reporting that some are able to buy it from European merchants (Germany I believe). There is plenty of discussion on it in the solid state forum:

    Solid State Drives (SSDs) and Flash Storage

    Here's a thread that discusses it specifically: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...e/645523-samsung-pm830-msata-retail-date.html

    I don't know much about the Mushkin, but I am following that one too. It's a hard choice! Samsung makes quality products.
     
    alienowl, Jun 17, 2012
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  10. Evil_Mask

    Evil_Mask Notebook Geek

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    Oh thanks thanks a lot for your link! Found the German website you were talking about and I'm gonna order from them I think! I was gonna order the Mushkin from the US but it's far easier for me to buy from Germany as I live in France. And by doing so I also avoid taxes. Thanks! +rep
     
    Evil_Mask, Jun 17, 2012
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  11. alienowl

    alienowl Notebook Consultant

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    Cool! Good luck :) I can't wait for the Samsung mSATA to become available where I'm at.
     
    alienowl, Jun 17, 2012
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  12. techz1

    techz1 Newbie

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    I think Apacer is good option which comes into 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB.

    Best mSATA SSD
     
    techz1, Jan 10, 2013
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  13. shnarf

    shnarf Notebook Consultant

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    I have done a good amount of research into mSATA SSD's and from what I can find the Mushkin Atlas is most comparable to a 2.5" SSD in terms of performance. the 120GB does not suffer from massive speed loss compared to the 240GB as many other smaller capacity mSATA drives do. I have a Altas120 in a USB mSATA enclosure and a 240 in my R2 raided with a Corsair Force GS 240. the Atlas actually comes in 2 versions, one that uses async nand and the DX witch uses toggle nand. both of mine are the DX model. as I run my mSATA in RAID-0 with a 2.5" ssd I found it important to get as close to matching spec drives as possible. the numbers for the Atlas 240 and Force GS 240 are nearly identical. every non-sandforce mSATA i can find has a huge performance drop compared to their 2.5 counterparts.
     
    shnarf, Jan 16, 2013
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  14. shnarf

    shnarf Notebook Consultant

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    another thought as far as your original post would be to move the stock HDD to the optical bay using a drive caddy, then you can get a 120 mSATA and a 120 2.5" to do RAID-0 and still have your stock drive for mass storage. i dont know what size SSD you were lookin for, but the cost of getting a 120 mSATA and 120 2.5" wont be much more than a single 240, but with the right drives you can break 1GBps transfers.
     
    shnarf, Jan 16, 2013
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  15. VV1LLC

    VV1LLC Notebook Geek

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    Has anybody tried any Corsair SSD on their rigs?
     
    VV1LLC, Jan 20, 2013
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  16. shnarf

    shnarf Notebook Consultant

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    I have used the Corsair Force, Force GT and Force GS in both my r1 and r2. no issues that are specific to Corsair vs any other Sandforce drive. definitely damn good drives that have my vote. I had one of the OG force 3 drives that got recalled which i feel was a good thing. it was handled fast with very little effort on my end. and they took responsibility for something that i think was really a sandforce issue rather than putting out a crap firmware update every few weeks and making people wait with stuff that was unstable. all of mine have been rock solid in the r2, had a few issues when running at sata3 in the r1, but I can only attribute this to the chipset and the reason they limited sata speeds to sata2 with a bios update.
     
    shnarf, Jan 20, 2013
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