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    M18x R2.... Should I take advantage of the mSata option?

    Discussion in 'Alienware 18 and M18x' started by npsk8ter, Mar 10, 2016.

  1. npsk8ter

    npsk8ter Notebook Geek

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    my recently purchased 18 R2 has the option for mSata. Mine does have 3x 256gb SSD in raid from the factory. Any pros/cons to adding an mSata ssd for the OS and maybe removing one of the 2.5 ssd to add a 750 or 1tb HHD for the added storage? And if so, any worries as to heat/power draw due to so many components considering the 32gb ram and dual 680m gpu?
     
    npsk8ter, Mar 10, 2016
    #1
  2. Raidriar

    Raidriar ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

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    I have a 128gb mSATA in mine, and it's wonderful really. I install my steam games and windows backup image on it.
     
    Raidriar, Mar 10, 2016
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  3. npsk8ter

    npsk8ter Notebook Geek

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    Any worries if using a 128 or 256 mSata for os and games only? As in reliability
     
    npsk8ter, Mar 10, 2016
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  4. anarky321

    anarky321 Notebook Deity

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    i have a 256gb mSATA about to upgrade to 1TB mSATA

    + (3) 2TB drives + 2TB SSD

    you can never have enough storage
     
    anarky321, Mar 10, 2016
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  5. npsk8ter

    npsk8ter Notebook Geek

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    Holy crap that's a lot of TB's
     
    npsk8ter, Mar 10, 2016
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  6. Infinaris

    Infinaris Notebook Consultant

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    I bought a 500GB evo850 and stuck it in the msata bay once I realised it was there on my M18Xr2. Using it as the OS drive and the HD bay has 3x 1TB Evo850 SSDs in it. Gives me loads of space (3.5 TB in total)since I use each drive individually (raid was never stable with all 3 linked together) to store games and media on the different drives.
     
    Infinaris, Mar 17, 2016
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  7. Riddhy916

    Riddhy916 Notebook Deity

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    how fast does it boot up? as its running sata 2 speeds. Any benchmarks?
     
    Riddhy916, Mar 22, 2016
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  8. Mr. Fox

    Mr. Fox BGA Filth-Hating Elitist®

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    In normal everyday use and doing stuff like playing games on SATA2 SSD is pretty much indiscernible from SATA3 SSD. I ran Windows 8.1 on my M18xR2 mSATA for a very long time and could not tell any difference doing that versus a 2.5" SSD on SATA3 except when I ran an SSD benchmark the numbers were not as high.
     
    Mr. Fox, Mar 23, 2016
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  9. Riddhy916

    Riddhy916 Notebook Deity

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    yeah for day to day its really fine. but does the laptop boot up faster? did you perform any boot time test with m18x Mr.Fox?
     
    Riddhy916, Mar 23, 2016
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  10. Infinaris

    Infinaris Notebook Consultant

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    My system boots to login in 30 seconds and my win10 install is on the msata. Its perfect in anycase for acting as an OS boot drive because you dont need to remove it if you have to disassable the laptop unlike the 2.5 bay.
     
    Infinaris, Mar 24, 2016
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  11. Mr. Fox

    Mr. Fox BGA Filth-Hating Elitist®

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    I usually pay no attention to that and don't really care about boot speed unless there is a problem with an abnormally long boot time. It seems perfectly fine to me, and I never had any reason to measure it since there was nothing abnormal or slow about it.
     
    Mr. Fox, Mar 24, 2016
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