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    Secondary Storage Options for Alienware 17

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by CSHawkeye81, Oct 18, 2013.

  1. CSHawkeye81

    CSHawkeye81 Notebook Deity

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    So I have the 256gb msata SSD, just wanted to know what is the best performance/cost setup for my secondary storage. I was looking at 2x 500gb Samsung Evo 840's or possibly mechanical drives. Just wanted to get everyone's thoughts. Its going to be mainly used for Steam games.
     
    CSHawkeye81, Oct 18, 2013
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  2. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

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    If it's gonna be for storage I would suggest a single mechanical 1Tb drive.
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Oct 18, 2013
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  3. J.Dre

    J.Dre Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I purchased two new Dell LiteOn SSD's on eBay for $160 each and put the 256GB mSATA SSD (that came with the system) in a RAID configuration, and performance is great. My other option was to use the 256GB mSATA as an OS drive and buy two Samsung SSD's for games, but I didn't feel like spending $700~ on drives.

    If you're going to buy mechanical drives, I recommend two of these: Travelstar 7K1000 2.5-Inch 1TB 7200 RPM SATA III 32MB Cache
     
    J.Dre, Oct 18, 2013
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  4. CSHawkeye81

    CSHawkeye81 Notebook Deity

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    This is for my laptop so I assume 1TB is the largest size?? Steam games are going to be 66% of the storage space on there.
     
    CSHawkeye81, Oct 18, 2013
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  5. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

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    Sorry, typo. :p
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Oct 18, 2013
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  6. CSHawkeye81

    CSHawkeye81 Notebook Deity

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    Are the Seagate hybrid drives a good option?
     
    CSHawkeye81, Oct 18, 2013
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  7. J.Dre

    J.Dre Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I've only had experience with the above drive and it has always proven to be quite well.

    If you ordered the 256GB mSATA boot drive, your system came with a 750GB Western Digital Black drive, correct? Maybe buy another one and RAID it.
     
    J.Dre, Oct 18, 2013
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  8. Asim_j1

    Asim_j1 Notebook Consultant

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    I bought another 750GB and stuck it in raid with the one they gave, also bought the caddy and replaced it with the optical drive which gives you a free slot for an SSD or a third 750GB drive to give 2.25TB at SSD speeds.
    Western Digital Black 750GB SATA III 2.5" Hard Drive - 7200RPMrpm - WD7500BPKX - CCL Computers

    My setup is 240gb hyperx 3k SSD, which gives 550MB/s read n write, as a boot drive. 1.5TB raid as steam games and others, 256 msata as system backup, software backup and other personal files backup so I dont need an external Media if I wanted to reinstall windows with all the updates, drivers and software already installed. The backup comes to about 60GB+
     
    Asim_j1, Oct 18, 2013
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  9. CSHawkeye81

    CSHawkeye81 Notebook Deity

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    hmm I have some thinking to do. I have a 512GB MSATA I could use would that be a good option?
     
    CSHawkeye81, Oct 18, 2013
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  10. Asim_j1

    Asim_j1 Notebook Consultant

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    That would be a nice boot drive however I would recommend you install your steam games on another drive in the case of a reinstallation you would not need to download the games again, also this will stop your C drive running out of space from steam games overload.
     
    Asim_j1, Oct 18, 2013
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  11. CSHawkeye81

    CSHawkeye81 Notebook Deity

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    That is still the plan. Probably going to snag 2 hitachi 1TB drives then.
     
    CSHawkeye81, Oct 18, 2013
    #11