Importance of a hot swap module bay?

Hi guys, just wondering if you might be able to help me out here. I am considering the v1j along with a w1j for my next notebook, i noticed one of the features of the V1j is the ability to swap out a component from the module bay for another component such as a hard drive.

Can anyone who has this feature in their notebook tell me how easy and flexible it is to use, ie can you use any standard hardrive in this bay regardless of it's capacity or brand?


Thanks

Mateo

 

Ok....... hot swap and simply swapable are really what it comes down to.... It's not all that important perhaps to be able to yank out the optical drive while you're working and throw in another hard drive - although that's what you could do..... although some people have slight problems in certain cases when they do that....... most people don't... but that's a little more than most people need to do anyway.

... simply being swapable, like the W3 / V1 is nice because one day you may want the optical drive... another you may need a second hard drive... another a second battery for a long trip.... and another maybe a blank travelers drawer to help lighten the load a little bit...... It's considered a modular bay and it allows things like this to be swapped in and out while on or off (sometimes the hard drives don't like being swapped in while on - but you get the idea)..... There's a little slide lever to let you pull the drive out instead of being screwed in for permanent installation.

Basically the hard drive kit that you'd need for the unit is seperate accessory, but it'll take any 2.5" notebook hard drive, as big and fast as you can find. The V1j is supposed to be the first model that will accept serial drives in the second drawer, which is also nice.

You may not need it....... but a nice feature that gives you a lot of options.

 

Mateo- I swap my DVR-K06 slot loading DVD +_ burner (& RAM), and my 2nd Battery around frequently. The important decision is to know which you need if going somewhere. Carrying ALL your options can get heavy in a bag/case. My swapping is mainly @ home, replacing Battery from trip, w/ DVD burner to load new stuff! Thinking about getting a 2nd HDD kit so I can try out more operating systems functionality on Z71* series.

Justin, Does the V1 BIOS allow a HW RAID w/ SATA main & 2nd HDD? I realize that RAID 0 would put a kink in swapability as striped array would not function, but would RAID 1 (Mirrored) allow SATA swap for DVD? TY

 

I don't want to assume because I don't have a Vx1 to see, but based on previous models - no, it most likely will not. They're not set up as a permanent solution.... most people wouldn't use both of them all of the time... just for back ups or something like that.

 

Thanks guys i really appreciate your quick response. The reason i am asking about this feature is because I'm weighing up the pros and cons of various Asus laptops (because from my experience Asus are the best), essentially i am going to replace a desktop, so i'm looking at 15.4 wsxga or larger size screens.

The swappable bay in the V1j is an interesting feature allowing extra flexibility which i like and the spill proof keyboard is also a good idea, however the w1jc or w2jc have built in digital tuners which could be useful.

I am a little bit torn at the moment, looking forward to some reviews and more feedback about these laptops, heat and build quality of the V1j are things i am interested in as well as how small text will be on the V1j/W1j with a 1680*1050 resolution on a 15,4 inch screen.


Thanks

Mateo

 

The tuner is only cool if you're in a college dorm room.. outside of that, it'll get used once in a blue moon after the first couple weeks... trust me...... but if you were in a small dorm or apartment, I can see you actually using it a lot.

 

Hi Pro portable,

The digital tuner is probably more beneficial to me than yourself, there are situations where for one reason or another we cannot watch the end of a movie or tv program, the ability to record these programs to a laptop for me is beneficial because i don't have a video recorder, and i dont have a dvd recorder, i then have the option to watch them on the laptop or tv without the need for disks or tapes.

 

Nope.. that's understood... In fact a lot of people say that's exactly what they're going to do and most of them admitt later that they don't do that all that often. It all depends.... don't buy the system because of it.... but if you get it for other reasons, it's like an added bonus.