Acer M5-581T-6405 SSD upgrade worth it?

It has the 500gb and 20gb drives in it already. Would replacing the SSD with a bigger one make any difference? I see Crucial has the M500 series that would work,but I was wondering if any other brands would work besides Crucial and what specs I should be looking for.If you have any suggestions,let me know.

I'm fairly new to the SSD stuff and I still don't understand how it works. Do the most used programs automatically get put onto the ssd(cache)? When I install a new program,is it installed onto the SSD or the 500gb? When I put pictures,music,etc,how does the system determine when to put it? It's still a little confusing.

Sorry for all the questions,that most of you know already.

So let me know what you guys/gals think.You haven't let me down before.

 

That system is indeed a caching scheme. The technologies involved is the Intel Cache and Rapid Start Technology. I don't know if one or both are implemented with your machine. The first one caches frequently used data to the SSD to give SSD-like responsiveness to a HDD while the second creates a Hibernation file on the SSD which will allow faster wake from hibernation/hybrid sleep.

Regardless of which, both are merely attempts to mitigate the slow access times HDDs suffer from. Both are not necessary if you go for a larger SSD which will completely fit Windows and most of your apps.

Your machine obviously has an mSATA slot and a 2.5inch SATA slot. You have to try and check whether one or both are SATAIII.
The choice you will have here now is to which configuration will fit your needs.

1. mSATA only: this is if you want extreme power conservation as you will probably shave about 1-2W at idle (which may translate to 45-90 minutes of extra battery life depending on your current capacity). The disadvantage is that you will be very constrained for space as good mSATA drives are more expensive per GB and have slightly lower performanace.

2. 2.5inch SSD only: this will allow you to have excellent performance and capacity (if you get the 960gb M500) with manageable power consumption

2. mSATA+HDD: this will give you the best balance of speed and capacity with equal or slightly higher power consumption than a single large 2.5inch SSD.

you should decide on configuration before deciding on specific hardware

 

Thanks for the reply.
Truthfully,I only used around 100gb on my old laptop. I store the majority of my files,music,videos,etc onto my dropbox account or the NAS.

It looks like option 2 would be a good solution. So I could just clone my HDD now onto a single SSD and just have that drive? I assume that I would just need to clone the HDD since the SSD is used for cache?

The 500gb is a ST500LT012-9WS142 and is a sata II according to the specs. I can't find any specs on the sata ssd?

 

These days you should be looking at the 256gb SSDs as they are currently all performance optimized (i.e. un-neutered)

Looking at the schematics, the mSATA SSD is buried very deep in the machine. I'd advise trying to replace it. What you have to do is to first disable the RST caching system. You achieve this by removing your HDD first. Then boot in to BIOS (ensuring you are in compatibility mode with the BIOS) while spamming ctrl-i.
A scary looking screen will come up. I must warn you, at this stage, you may void your warranty by deleting the RST settings and formatting the SSD cache to become un-allocated. This however, is neccessary if you want optimal performance from your 2.5inch SSD.

As for cloning, I need to know what Windows was originally shipped with this machine
Tillerofthearth would strong disagree but I don't see a problem with cloning your installation if it saves you having to track down everything again and if the original install was Windows 7. Be sure to use only manufacturer provided tools like Samsung or Intel migration software. I can also vouch for Acronis Migrate to SSD though its a paid solution.
If your machine came with Windows 8 then you would be better off clean installing in order to utilize the UEFI boot capability (this is not yet able to be cloned reliably). Be warned also, if it was preloaded with Windows 8 then you won't be able to re-activate as the OEM Key is within the BIOS. You might need a new Windows 8 key.

That HDD of yours is indeed SATAII but it doesn't tell us if the 2.5inch port is SATAIII, unfortunately, it is very likely the Acer bean counters forced this port to only support SATAII since the machine was never intended to have 2.5inch SSDs. I need you to run HWINFO in Summary mode and see if you can spot out the 20gb mSATA SSD's speed. I suspect the mSATA port is SATAIII since the 256gb SSD only M5 model has a SATAIII Lite-On model that runs 400mb/s+ speeds according to Notebookcheck. It may even be worth tearing down the machine to replace the mSATA if it is SATAIII,

 

Wow,there would be alot of stuff involved switching things out. I am running OEM WIndows 8,so that would add more cost to doing this. My warranty doesn't expire until 5/2014,so I may wait until then to try and do anything.

I ran HWINFO and found this under the drives section.....

Sata 3 Gb/s HDD
Sata 3 Gb/s Sata SSD (20gb)