Hard Drives in new laptop

So I'm building a new laptop on XoticPC.com and I've come to the all important decision of deciding what type and how many hard drives to put in my Sager.

I only want 2 hard drives for now and I'm currently thinking a 1TB 7200 RPM + 120GB SSD SATA III with RAID 0.

Would it be better to go for an mSATA over either of those? Or perhaps two SSD instead of 1xHDD and 1xSSD? I'm kind of new to laptop customization so help me out! :]

 

Honestly I'd recommend buying the single cheapest HDD and upgrading the laptop yourself.

 

To do RAID 0 on the SSD, you need two SSD's. Following LanceAvion's advice will save some money.

But really, nobody can tell you what drives to get. What exactly do you want from your computer? What do you need?

 

Definitely recommend two identical drives to create a RAID0 array.

With your as-presented configuration, you will have a RAID0 array of ~111GB - if it even works at all (HDD + SSD just doesn't work in RAID0 - much too different and the performance, stability and reliability will suffer - even if you get it to work at all).

Would not recommend an mSATA over a 2.5" SSD at this point: the 2.5" SSD's will more than likely be better optimized (in nand, controller and firmware optimizations) and will also run cooler simply because the space allocated to each is physically small for mSATA vs. a 2.5" model.

I would also urge you to not consider such a small SSD either, but that would depend on your intended use (workflow) of your system and how you setup your O/S, Programs and static Data on that SSD. Another consideration is how much RAM you've spec'd your system for too (it can affect storage by increasing the size of the Hibernation and pagefile files).


I agree with LanceAvion on getting the smallest, cheapest HDD from the notebook manufacturer and then buying your own SSD and bigger capacity HDD when you receive the system. This will give you the option to get the best (and biggest) SSD for your money and also the same for the HDD too (instead of whatever clearance special the manufacturer got on storage that month).

 

Alright so it sounds to me like I should be getting either 2 SSD or one really big SSD aftermarket?

 

agree with the above.
as you have the space for 2 SSD's then thats the way to go over msata drives anyday.

totally depends on your budget. samsung have the fastest read/write speeds but the crucial are very good drives as well.
i bought a 512gb crucial as it was the largest at the time and samsung only had smaller drives available.
compared to a normal spindle boot of 20-25 seconds the crucial was 12 seconds and i was on the forum.

 

It honestly seems like I'd be spending more money buying the SSD aftermarket than I would upgrading when I buy the comp. Would anyone recommend some specific aftermarket hardware then if I was just gonna roll with the stock 1tb 5400rpm HDD?

 

i will leave that to others as im in the UK and not sure whats best shops to buy from.
i do hear of best buy mentioned quite a lot though ssd hard drive - Best Buy

 

You seem to have more information that what you have shared in this thread.

So, what SSD are you getting and for how much more from the notebook manufacturer?


I would bet that it would be the last SSD I would choose; not even taking into consideration the much too small capacity you're considering.

More $$$ is not always a bad thing if the final product you get will have greater value over the term of ownership, than the cheaper $$ option 'right now'.