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    XPS 15 + msata ?

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by Fuzzyhead, May 4, 2011.

  1. Fuzzyhead

    Fuzzyhead Notebook Geek

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    Hi Guys!

    Any opinions on whether Intel's new msata ssd drives would work in a XPS 15 or 17?

    Appreciate the input.
     
    Fuzzyhead, May 4, 2011
    #1
  2. DakkonA

    DakkonA Notebook Evangelist

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    mSATA is a SATA interface using a mini PCI-Express form factor. It probably won't work. There are few options for true mini PCI Express SSDs. One of which is SuperTalent's new CoreStore MV line. Right now only up to 64 GB MLC drives are available due to a flash shortage. I'm waiting for the 128 GB version to become available.

    The latter of course assumes that the WWAN/TV Tuner slot hasn't been nerfed in some way.
     
    DakkonA, May 4, 2011
    #2
  3. Fuzzyhead

    Fuzzyhead Notebook Geek

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    Intel's 310-series comes with 40 or 80gb.
     
    Fuzzyhead, May 4, 2011
    #3
  4. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    From what I am reading, none of the XPS will support mSATA drives. Only mobile workstations and business class notebooks and certain netbooks support this.
     
    Tsunade_Hime, May 4, 2011
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  5. willy30

    willy30 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Agreed... an mSATA drive will only work in a mSATA compliant slot !
    As Tomshardware's review of the mSATA Intel 310 SSD on 14 Feb points out, buyers can get confused by makers and sellers sloppy descriptions of internal slots - sometimes incorrectly describing mSATA as miniPCIe. Toms review also warns of many incompatible "PCIe" SSDs due to makers like ASUS, Dell and others 'customising' the PCIe spec such that their effectively proprietary SSD 'solutions' only work in THEIR laptops - no interoperability.
    SuperTalent spec states CoreStore MV line requires laptops to be miniPCIe Rev 2.0 compliant - but nowhere on Dell's specs can I see that statement. Dell's spec just says "minicard". To avoid a wrong choice, the Dell spec needs to state their laptops are :
    1) miniPCIe Rev 2.0 compliant,
    2) will reliably boot and run Windows 7 from a miniPCIe SSD
    3) won't throttle the 350MByte/s performance of SSDs like Super Talent's CoreStore MV.

    Keen to know if the above is true.
     
    willy30, May 10, 2011
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  6. DakkonA

    DakkonA Notebook Evangelist

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    Good points. I intend to try it out when the right size is available.
     
    DakkonA, May 11, 2011
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