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    M14x Second HDD. Improving Speed

    Discussion in 'Alienware 14 and M14x' started by plotnick, Aug 27, 2011.

  1. plotnick

    plotnick Newbie

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    I've just taken Optical Drive Bay out of my brand new M14x and installed second HDD instead.
    That wasn't too difficult, this guide makes it really simple:

    http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m14x/579597-guide-how-install-secondary-hard-drive-your-m14x-w-pics.html

    Although I didn't buy new SATA III drive, I decided to use WD3200BEVT drive from my old laptop which has recently died.

    It took about 20 minutes. Machine recognized it without problems. First I couldn't boot my system right away. I had to start it in safe mode and delete the partition, because of the previously installed OS. After that it just worked.

    But my concern is the speed. I am not technically very savvy, so I don't really know what average speed of that drive could be. I downloaded HDtune and did some testing. And I noticed something:

    [​IMG]

    What's that? Could it be that I attached the cable slightly wrong? BTW same thing says about a drive connected through USB but with less number of errors.

    Dear experts, can you give me an advice:

    - Should I buy a faster drive, or it doesn't matter, because this is cable or bus or bios or whatever limitation that doesn't really anything have to do with the HDD capabilities? (I think I saw somebody said in this forum that even SATA III drive works at less speed than its maximum, when it's installed as a second)

    - Is it possible to make it work faster, somehow?

    - Maybe I'm acting a little crazy and this is absolutely normal speed that you can ever can ask from non SSD drive?

    Here are the benchmarks:

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
    plotnick, Aug 27, 2011
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  2. ted264

    ted264 Notebook Consultant

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    thats about average for a 5700 RPM drive... a 7200RPM is about 100MB/s

    Iv found my caddy is very slow and unreliable.... Im going to be removing it soon
     
    ted264, Aug 29, 2011
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  3. plotnick

    plotnick Newbie

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    So if I buy 7200 SATA III Drive it could really give me up to 50% boost?

    Can you tell what caddy you use? Is it really possible that caddy can slow down the speed? I thought there is no difference between SATA interfaces so if it's SATA compatible caddy it should work with SATA II as well with SATA III. Am I wrong?
     
    plotnick, Aug 30, 2011
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  4. plotnick

    plotnick Newbie

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    I am using exactly the same caddy as the one in the guide I posted a link to.

    Macbook PRO 13" Unibody A1278

    Is it alright to use that, or there is a better one for better speed?
     
    plotnick, Aug 30, 2011
    #4