My first M14X R2 is coming. And I need some help as well.

I just purchase M14X yesterday, and the price is pretty good.

Intel Core i7-3610QM
12GB DDR3 at 1600MHz
750GB 7,200 RPM SATA 3Gb/s
Killer Wireless-N 1202
2GB DDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M with Optimus
14.0" High Def (900p/1600x900) with WLED backlight
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3Di with THX TruStudio Pro Software

Originally, I want 8G sys ram and 1G vram 650M and 1366x768 LCD, but because this is on sale, and 12G sys ram and 2G vram 650M and 1600x900 even cheaper than 8G sys ram and 1G vram 650M and 1366x768, and after talking with an agent, I got another extra $60 off.
And most importantly, I will play games on my 24" LED with 1080P, so I guess 2G vram 650M will not waste its extra 1G vram value.

Now I think I can play Skyrim and Diablo3 with more higher setting than my i5 and 525M on my XPS right now.

Now here are some questions.

1: I want to use mSata as my boot drive, which one do you recommend?
Is R2 surpport SATA III? I know Samsung PM830 is good, but it is not on
retail market yet. If I use 2.5" SSD as my boot drive, and HDD as second
HD, is the enough room in M14X for second HD. Is there second interface
to connect second HD? I am not sure about this. That's why I want to use
mSata, there is a PCI interface under battery in M14X, right?

2: Please recommend mSata 126G, which one is compatible with M14X?
There is a lot info about SSD, but less info about mSATA. It will be
perfect if I can put both SDD and HDD into M14X, then I difiniteky will
chose SDD, but so far from what I read, there is no way to put both SDD
and HDD into that small M14X case.

3: If I respawn the recovery disk, can I delete the recovery partitionin in
stock HDD? I know you can do this on Dell XPS, but no sure on AW.
How big is the requirement for recovery disk on size?

4: I like to use Ghost to back up my boot partition. Will ghost recognize SDD
or mSATA in DOS version?

5: Since I got 12G sys ram, should I shut off the page file to improve the performance?

Thanks a lot. I cannot wait my system coming in.

 

(*.*) Specs look awesome!
Let me try to help with those questions.
Look at this website for some inside images

1)It does support SATA III, the M14xR2 has space for one 2.5" HDD.
2)You can put and SSD + mSata and Raid those, but not an SSD+HDD.
3)20GB, yes you can delete Respawn.
4)Those devices will show as regular Hard Drives, it should.
5)With 12GB RAM you can leave it at auto (the difference is too low to gain anything from it, some software or games need a pagefile to run).

 

thanks, and do you know which brand of mSata will compatible with M14X?
And where I can buy it in Canada? I only want 128G for boot and game,
and I will leave HDD for movies and music and documentation.
So far Samsung PM830 is the best but not available on market, so that will
leave the choice to Crucial M4 128G, but I could't find it in Canada.
And the most important, how is the Crucial M4 mSata working with M14X?

 

I just wanted to add that you can in fact have an SSD and HDD if you are willing to give up your internal optical drive. There is a $12 insert that you need to buy to install the HDD in place of the optical drive.

I use my optical so rarely (maybe once or twice a year?) that it's not a big deal to use an external during those rare times. It is very small and can be carried in my backpack too so I always have it with me, I just don't need it physically inside the computer.

It is not a "supported" upgrade I am sure, but no damage is done and it can be reinstalled if you ever change your mind.

 

He is right

 

Thanks for reply. SSD got more choices than mSATA, I would like to go with that route.

But I will only do that until I cannot find good mSATA in Canada.

I don't use CD-ROM that much, but still need to use it 4 or 5 times in a year.