Dell 1747 dual hard drive ?

Hello,

I own a 1747 dell studio and I am about to purchase a 2nd hard drive (ssd) I was wondering what size ssd would be appropriate?I currently have a 500gb 7200rpm installed. I am currently using 100-120gb of the current drive.

 

Also do i need a big hard drive or will something like 128gb be enough for music movies and documents?

 

First, if you're using 120GB now, this won't fit on a 128GB SSD (with 119GB actual capacity).

Second, does your Dell 1747 actually have the connectors to plug in a second hard drive - and, do you have the HD 'cage' to secure it inside the notebook?

Third, what do you expect to accomplish with this SSD? What is the main use of your system?

 

I want to accomplish faster transfer rates and faster opening large files. I do a lot of photo editing and some video trimming. Yes it has a second hard drive bay,When you say cage are you referring to the caddy system with the adapter? If so then yes I do have that. Also the computer has the i7 820 with 6gb ddr3 1333mhz so I figure this is going to be the last thing I can do to speed it up.

 

Okay, have to ask you one last question: do you need to do this now?

If you can wait for a couple of more months (or so) you will either get a faster SSD or get a current one cheaper.

I guess this is the last thing you can do to upgrade this system (except for maximizing the RAM): with your suggested usage I would be looking for an SSD with 200-240GB capacity though - not only will these be faster - they'll stay faster longer too than a smaller sized unit.

The fastest SSD's I have used in the last year are SandForce based drives and should be a good match for you as long as you save your finished work to the HDD instead of storing on the SSD.

With a 240GB SSD driving your O/S, apps and 'work in progress' projects and a 500GB HDD as longterm storage you should see a very nice speed increase. Your editing/trimming will not be much faster - except for loading work projects, but the system should respond to your inputs much faster and you should be able to multi-task much more smoothly and efficiently too.

Again, if you can wait for a few weeks - I would.

 

I don't need to do this right now. I wanted to do it by mid November to early December. I just wanted to make sure I do my homework before I rush out and buy something that I could have gotten a better deal on or maybe even a faster drive. So if I wait are prices set to drop within a month or two? Like I said the main reason I want this drive is for the speed increase on transfers of large files and the opening of these files.
One more thing, once I do make the purchase do I load the windows 7 on the ssd and reformat the hdd after I copy all the files over to the ssd? I'm not sure how the process works. Thanks for all your help.

 

More like 3-4 months. The Intel G3 series SSDs are currently set to be released in February of 2011 (pushed back from this fall), and the general expectation is that with the release of the G3s, prices will drop. If nothing else, prices on the older G2s and other "older technology" drives will probably drop, if only to clear out the older stocks. In fact, as you may or may not have been noticing, there have been numerous sales recently on SSDs, and I don't think they're all due to the "Back to School" season and everything else; I think a lot of them is a push to start pushing out stock for the upcoming releases.

As for file transfer and usage, it depends on how you plan to run things. You may actually want to leave your data (as in saved files) on the HDD, and move just the applications to the SSD.

 

Thanks Judicator, didn't realize they were pushed back that far (again).

With over 300GB still free on your HD - I would not format it (yet). It is great to be able to simply switch the SSD/HD if something catastrophic goes wrong.

Do a clean install on your new SSD (whenever you purchase it - I still recommend waiting if you can) and install all drivers/apps that you normally use. As you create finished work - simply move it to the HDD.

Consider an external drive/enclosure for backups - once you have some faith that your new SSD is reliable and working properly - you can sync your internal HDD with the external backup, format the internal to get rid of the O/S installed on it and finally copy back your data from the external back to the internal HDD.

Curious to know what you'll decide (wait or simply buy now/soon)?

With the new SSD's promising double the capacity for the same $$$ (not to mention any incremental speed enhancements that will no doubt be part of the equation too) it seems to me that an imminent purchase would not be cost-effective unless this purchase is also work/business related.

Hope we have given you some things to think over?

 

Well guys I appreciate all your help. I'm going to go ahead and wait till the new ones come out. As for the size of the hard drive I'm most likely going to go with 160 and above. I was set on the supertalent pro until I seen the crucial c300 real Ssd, which is rated upto 6/gbps. I don't think my laptop though is capable of reaching those speeds so I'm still a little lost on which one to go with.

 

On a SATA II connection there's not much point in a C300.

I suggest a Sandforce drive or Corsair Nova.