Alienware M17xR2 parts upgrade question

Howdy folks, three quick questions:

1) Will I see an improvement upgrading to a SSD from my current config? From what I understand, the interface is SATA I.

2) Best RAM to get to 16GB

3) Best blu ray burner compatible with my m17xR2.

 

I moved to single 256gb liteon(dell oem) ssd from 2x750gb 7200rpm drives in raid0, i dont feel that much of a difference in normal usage but loading times for games has come down.

Not really sure on boot times, as i rarely shutdown my laptop

edit: I was able to pickup dell oem bluray writer for fairly cheap but panasonic ones are suppose to be very good from digitor, abit pricey though. My experience with bluray writer is, that its not worth it when one compares the prices and ease of external hdds. Ofcourse for data backup and archives its great.

 

1. As far as I know, the R2 is SATA II, not SATA I. The R3+ has SATA III. I put a Samsung 830 Series 256GB in mine and am fairly happy with it; everything is a bit snappier, most notably boot times.
2. Corsair is one of the better memory brands available. Their best fit for the R2 is CMSO16GX3M2A1333C9 (2x8GB at 1333MHz). I didn't really feel inclined to buy something from their ValueSelect line (budget stuff), so I got CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10 (2x8GB at 1600MHz) from their Vengeance series (gaming line). It still only runs at 1333MHz (or 1400MHz with a 5% overclock), but it was shinier and made me feel better.
3. The model number for the OEM BD-ROM should be CA21N. I'm not sure about compatibility for a burner, although it could be just as inexpensive/easy to buy an external one (<$100).

 

R2 is SATA 2. You will achieve higher speeds than SATA II with RAID 0. I bought 2 x these for 16 GB in my R2. Uhh you'll need a slot-loaded BR disc drive. TBH it's not worth it, I've had my R2 for awhile now, not used the Blu-ray function once.

 

My Samsung 840 Pro SSD offers me performance miles ahead of my raid0 HDD performance. Especially with Windows 8, it's marvelous.
It depends a bit what you look for, if you expect all your games to gain in FPS, no such thing will happen.

SSD just offers a very smooth experience if configured correctly and used correctly, and maintained correctly, everything loads up in a jiffy, and it boots lightning fast.

 

Thanks guys, will pick up the Samsung ssd and Ram. Any special software required for Samsung?

Also, where to pick up the blu ray burner from? I am ok with a reader as well.

 

You could consider taking the cheaper Samsung 830 instead of the 840 (pro).
The 840 is Sata III, and although I have no clue about the price difference, I believe in an R2 the 830 will offer almost the same performance due to the Sata II limitation.

There are some guides here on the forum with some guidelines of things to do and how to install/configure windows for best SSD performance.

I personally have upgraded pretty much all parts in my m17x , and besides the GPU I found an SSD replacement the best bang for buck.

 

Please point me to a guide for SSD. Can 2 SSD be put in raid 0? That sounds might interesting.

 

Yes they can but since your PC is not SATA 3 you won't notice a big difference.

 

Yes they can, but an R2 there really isn't that much of a point.

Let me try to explain without to much technicalities. The R2 has SATA2, which has a limit to the max speed drives can achieve. This speed is almost already achieved with a single SSD drive, like a 830 or 840 Pro. It has slight room for improvement and higher speeds, but you aren't talking about anything noticeable.
Raid0 would further improve the SSD speed, but there's no point, you are almost maxed out already.

If you had a SATA3 laptop, like an R4 or m18x-R2 for example, then it would make sence using raid0 with SSD's, as you are nowhere near the maximum possible speed with 1 single SSD.

Also keep in mind that not only your system is a specific SATA model, but als the hard drive you buy. SATA3 works in SATA2 systems but will be limited with speed by the SATA2. SATA2 works in SATA3 systems, but will be limited by SATA2 from the SSD itself.

So the only reason to raid0 on an R2, would be to use 2 smaller SSD drives and then use raid0 to make it 1 larger drive. But this will mean you have no room left to install another normal Storage HDD as your 2 HDD slots are used. So i'd personally (and I actually also did this) install 1 SSD (SATA2 or 3, doesn't matter that much in an R2) drive in your first HDD slot, with a size you feel comfortable with, and install a 2nd drive which you just use for storage or downloads or whatever.

 

First post in this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...llation-questions-troubleshooting-thread.html

Yes, you can run two SSD in RAID0 same as HDD. You won't have TRIM available in the M17x R2, but garbage collection works well enough that it really is not that critical. I ran SSD RAID0 for a long time before TRIM support became available with the newer RST OROM and garbage collection was adequate to keep the SSD RAID0 performing well.