M14x R2 - any reason not to use mSATA as boot drive

Is there any reason not to use a 120Gb or 240Gb mSATA drive as the boot drive in an M14x R2?

My ideal setup for video editing would be an mSATA for boot and apps, and two fast drives for data. This would mean replacing the optical drive with a hard drive.

Any reason this would not work well?

Thanks!

 

If you know exactly what you want to put on the ssd then there's really no reason to use an msata drive for caching. Caching helps with general overall performance, but won't boost one specific program significantly like throwing it directly on the drive will.

 

My only concern would be the operating system, in some scenarios windows 8 might not detect the correct size for the mSATA.
To get faster access to your data, I think would be a good idea to set the other two drives as RAID 0.

 

I am not clear on this - do you mean there is a different interface to mSATA drives than to an SSD used on a SATA channel? If an mSATA drive is running off a standard SATA channel, I don't see why there should be any issues.

RAID is not always the best way to go, depending on the application. Some applications write a lot of data, and they write a lot of transaction (temp) files. Having those two on separate drives can do more for performance than having it all on one RAID system - at least, when the RAID consists of only two drives.

Using two SSDs with very high write speeds would be ideal, but the SSDs would likely have a limited lifespan. Again, depending on how valuable your time is and how much financial return you get on the speed boost, it might make sense to use SSDs and replace them frequently.

I have two Velociraptors in my home system (as well as an SSD for booting), and I really wish they could be removed from their heat sinks. These 10,000rpm drives are really 2.5" laptop drives with a massive amount of metal around them for heat dissipation. If the drives could be run without the heat sinks, they would be very interesting in a laptop.....

 

I agree with Karen, definitely worthwhile. It take less than 5 min to create the RAID array and it really makes it up for the "slow" performance regular HDDs offer.

Even with the velociraptors I'd go for a RAID, not so much for the performance but for the simplicity. I hate having lots of directories to map my programs to, with a RAID you'll only have one other volume. Of course if this is not a problem for you and you like to keep your stuff systematically organized then by all means go for the dual storage HDD config.

 

I don't disagree about the performance of RAID. I am saying that, with a two drive RAID setup, there are situations where using two different drives instead will actually provide more performance.

It is was four or five drives, then the RAID would be much faster. In a laptop with only two drives, things are not quite the same. After all, the second letter in RAID stands for Array - two drives are a pair, not an array!

I am a bit anal about organizing my files - likely something to do with memory depth as I "mature"! Having things organized means being able to find them even if you can't remember where you put them. Kind of like always putting your socks in a sock drawer - you know where to go.

 

I just installed an Adata SX300 128gb msata drive in my m14x r2. Got it as the boot drive, and the wd750gb for my files. It loads super quick and transforms the feel of the laptop. I attached a screenshot of my crystalmark scores. Got it at newegg for $110 with a mail in rebate.

 

Here's a pic of the msata installed.

 

Fair enough haha.. You've made your choice based on what you really need, I think you're all set

I'll leave a step-by-step guide on how to replace the mSATA on the M14x R2 for future reference.

 

Thanks!

Kind of reminds me about the old joke about an auto hobbyist who did a valve job on his car's engine. He was a gynocologist, so he did the entire job through the tailpipe....

 

can you even raid the 2 sata ports? isnt the optical drive on a slower sata channel?

 

Not in the R2 I don't think. The R1 has that issue

 

If you're using hard drives and not SSDs it wouldn't make a difference anyway. There are no hard drives that can saturate the 3GB/s Sata 2 bus.

As a side note, I have a 256GB ADATA SX300 and the performance is great, I've not had any boot up issues with Windows 8 (it takes about 12 seconds, no lie).

 

I heard that TRIM doesnt work in mSATA port

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2