SSD/HDD+SmartBay

ok...

will the SSD's fit into the AW SmartBay casings?
can one swap the SSD's for the HDD's inside the guts of the 15x?

thanks.

 

well i'm guessing you can, seeing how they've got a standardized form factor. question is if the SB connection is slower than the normal internal SATA connector, because that would possibly negate the SSD's speed advantage.

 

The only thing available in the smart bay platform currently are the conventional HDDs...SSDs can only be installed inside the m15x, and i would believe that you can change the HDD in the m15x for an SSD and vice versa..

http://www.alienware.com/Configurator_Pages/Details_Pages/Details_Page.aspx?ItemId=16968

Once again..there is no smart bay option for SSD only internal.

Now i personally feel that they may be able to fit the SSDs into the smart bay module but then again as whizzo pointed out, you may not be able to gain the speed advantage of SSDs with smart bay.. However AW may bring out this feature later on when SSDs start getting popular/affordable.

Hope this helps.

Yemo

 

I'm gonna have to give you props for this posting. you're on the ball.

the Smart Bay drive connector is ATA/100, as far as I understand. So you'd have to buy a standard 2.5" ATA/100 SSD for the smart-bay. The speed of the bus is limited to 100 MB/s, whereas with the internal SATA (which I believe is SATA-II) there's a bandwidth of almost four times the amount at 375 MB/s.

that's a huge performance loss.

My recommendation is to get the SSD for INSIDE your m15x to obtain the best possible OS speeds and the highest performance possible, then get a larger ATA disk for the Smart Bay (perhaps a 320GB or a 500?)...

if you're planning on getting an SSD, you'll save a lot of power in terms of drive wait-state, which could be easily lost if the DVD/BD drive is attached with a disk inside... also, with the smartbay HDD attachment, the secondary HDD would be spun up for a while. To prevent this, I'd recommend (since it already seems you're dropping a nice dime on this), to get the smart bay battery, and keep that in when you don't need your 2nd HDD or the optical drive... not only will this prevent excessive energy loss, it will extend the battery life of the system up to (aprox?) 3hrs... ish.

But hey, you can throw my recommendations to the wind if you want, I'm just shooting it out there.

 

me on the ball? but yeah i think we mean the same thing.

@ryujin: why exactly do you want an SSD in the SB anyways?

 

not saying i wanted one in there for sure. as you pointed out and mystik verified, the speed would be reduced for read/write anyway.
you all seem more knowledgeable in lots compared to me, and it was something i was just thinking about as a possibility....
but seems it should be the SSD interior and the HDD in the smartbay.

thx....

 

My sister bought her m15x configured with the 64gb SSB internally, simply because se didn't know what it was, and selected the highest HDD option. It was super fast, but she ran out of space real fast after installing a few games. She had also purchased a 320gb SB drive, so I cloned the SSD onto the SB drve and then swapped them. Now she has the 320 inside, and the 64gb SSD running in the smart-bay. It works just fine in the smart-bay, but whizzo is right - there is a performance limitation due to the smart-bay's connection type. So - unless it was by accident (as in my sis' case), it wouldn't be smart to stick an SSD in the smart-bay enclosure. Best to stick with the traditional spindle-drives.

 

yeah i can see that happening, vista already uses like 20 or 30gb, and then Age of Conan... and presto, whole SSD filled up

 

you know..my computer has a 20 GB HDD..my laptop barely has 30 GB...for me 64GB (fine minus 20 for VISTA) is a real treat... I play Halo, AOE, CS, Flight sim, etc and i have a billion other programs...the SSD i bought on my m15x shud be perfect..whats more i get the bundled 120 GB Smart bay..

 

yeah but CS, halo, AOE (which one?) don't use that much HDD space... look at age of conan, that game simply devours HDD space... doesn't it take like 30gb?

 

yeah - just shy of 30 without updates/fixes....
i bet at some time, games should just be issued on SSD's if they continue to take the space this one does....lol
be easier to play too - just plug in the SSD or even a high cap USB drive...

 

Please state where you got this information. Are you sure about this?

 

I do not play AOC..AOE 2 which i do play is real small..along with other games i play..so im not worried..plus..i always have the smart bay HDD..although i will not be able to use the optical drive at the same time..but then again..thats when the no cd patch comes in handy

 

I found some great areas to buy the full verson of the games like Civ 4 and Fear is direct 2 drive. You down load the game and you can play them. With no CD.

 

even AW offers games that you can download, albeit for a higher price than other places