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    mSATA or SATA for OS

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by brittneygirl, Dec 12, 2013.

  1. brittneygirl

    brittneygirl Notebook Enthusiast

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    Just picked up a 17 a couple of days ago and looking to get an SSD installed and am curious if it is worth the hassle to remove the keyboard and all those screws to get an mSATA installed or should I just use the space 2.5" bay for the SSD. I will be installing the OS on this SSD.

    My specs are as follows:

    4700
    16 Gig Ram
    750 HDD
    770 nVidia

    Thanks in advance for your assistance.
     
    brittneygirl, Dec 12, 2013
    #1
  2. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Well is it? Only you can answer that question. So long as you buy the right one the drive the mSATA will perform like a 2.5" drive.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Dec 12, 2013
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  3. juliant

    juliant Notebook Deity

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    + You can add additional hdd / ssd in the future in case you find the need for it...
     
    juliant, Dec 12, 2013
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  4. aron-r4

    aron-r4 Notebook Geek

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    the 17 has 2 normal harddrives slot in the bottom right?
    so that option is always there..

    personally, i would just smack in a 2.5 inch samsung 840 pro or evo, or crucial m500..
    i got 2x 840 pro (2x256gb raid 0) and i LOVE these drives !
     
    aron-r4, Dec 12, 2013
    #4
  5. bigtonyman

    bigtonyman Desktop Powa!!!

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    Pretty much depends on how you want things long term. If you want the option of adding a traditional hard drive or two down the road for more storage I would get the Msata. On the other hand if you don't need more room for hard drives and feel lazy get the Msata. :p
     
    bigtonyman, Dec 12, 2013
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  6. brittneygirl

    brittneygirl Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks for your response. Since it appears the mSATA is more complicated to install (due to tear down); I think I will just go the easy way and install a traditional 2.5" drive in the empty bay.

    I do like the idea of raid 0 (2 x256 SSD), is raid 0 considered to be less reliable than just one 512 SSD drive?
     
    brittneygirl, Dec 16, 2013
    #6
  7. Optimistic Prime

    Optimistic Prime Notebook Evangelist

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    Yes, it is less reliable because you have another point of failure, effectively increasing the odds for each additional drive. Of course, the trade-off is the performance gain and combining the drive volumes. This is less of a problem with SSDs, given that they are more reliable and don't have any moving parts. It's always a good idea to back up your data, especially mission critical info. All that aside, I run RAID0 SSDs and wouldn't have it any other way. :cool:

    You could get 1x 512GB SSD and that will give you the option of adding another for RAID later.
     
    Optimistic Prime, Dec 16, 2013
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  8. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

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    It's better to get the SSD than the RAID. If you don't feel comfortable opening the laptop to get to the mSATA it would be better to get the regular SSD.
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Dec 17, 2013
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  9. cjoshuav

    cjoshuav Notebook Geek

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    I went ahead and ordered a 256GB mSATA drive since the performance on this one seemed comparable, and I want the option of putting two 1.5 TB drives in the other two bays (I have very large Steam and GOG libraries) ;-).

    I figure one good teardown is handy for learning the guts of the PC anyway.

    On a related note, if I don't want to use the 256 for caching at all, do I need to run the Intel utility before I do anything else, or can I just boot Win 8.1 from a USB drive and do a clean install of the OS?
     
    cjoshuav, Dec 17, 2013
    #9