How much mSATA Storage?

Hey guys! I plan to get a laptop soon (might be the malibal lotus p150em se). I may invest in an mSATA+SSD+HDD setup, with the mSATA as my dedicated OS drive. What mSATA do you guys suggest and how big should I get it? 32gb or 64gb for the OS? Thanks for all responses greatly appreciated

 

I would suggest nothing smaller than 120 GB. I had a 64 GB mSATA, but with the OS and some programs, I only had about 20 GB left, not really enough space for me.

 

Ok and thank you for your quick reply! What kind of programs did you have with your OS? I only want the mSATA for the OS and then I'll have a 256 gb SSD for important programs and such

 

Ah, I see. If you read around here a bit you can see that people can get their OS install very small. If you do not use hibernate on your laptop that can slim down your install by a few GBs. I had Microsoft Office installed, Skype, and Photoshop Elements and a few other things. I play a lot of games too and games and other programs, even though you install them on another drive, like to save things to the C drive. My personal opinion is that I feel safer with the 120 GB mSATA. I'm not worried about running out of space at all. However, with management a 64 GB mSATA drive can work. Other users can probably give you some information about how SSDs like to have free space for swapping files and optimal performance, so extra space on the drive means a faster drive too.

 

Alrighty then. I'll take a look and see if there's some 120+ gb mSATAs. Thanks for your help alienowl it is very appreciated

 

Go with Crucial M4 128GB = $118 from the crucial store and ~ $215 for 256GB.

 

Do you mean the SSD or mSATA? I'm surprised how cheap the Newegg 64gb and 32gb mSATAs were. Is there a site where I can find mSATAs with that much storage?

 

If you are planning on going with mSATA+SSD+HDD, why not put the OS / Programs on the SSD, and use a 64 GB mSATA to cache the HDD?

 

mSATA 64GB ==> CT064M4SSD3 - 64GB, mSATA Solid State Drive , from Crucial.com $72
mSATA 128GB ==> CT128M4SSD3 - 128GB, mSATA Solid State Drive , from Crucial.com $118
mSATA 256GB ==> CT256M4SSD3 - 256GB, mSATA Solid State Drive , from Crucial.com $226

Or go through the link here and get 5% off store-wide, so 64GB = $68, 128GB = $112, 256GB = $215

The regular 2.5 inch SSD's are about 5% cheaper than that even.

 

Woot thank you HTWingNut!! If you don't mind me asking, what other stuff do you put on your mSata with your OS?

 

Actually I am using a 512GB 2.5" SSD as my main drive with OS, apps, games, etc. I use my mSATA to put my data, downloads, images, music, videos etc so I can blow away my C: drive and not worry about losing my data, although I *ALWAYS* back up my important data.

 

Ah ok! And having extra applications with your OS doesn't slow anything down as long as you have extra space right? I'm totally new to SSDs sorry for all my questions

 

No. By benchmarks there are slowdowns, but it really isn't noticeable in real world scenarios. In most cases it takes constant writes/erase cycles to degrade performance, but with TRIM which is a function handled by Windows, the SSD will recover performance while idle as the SSD runs a routine referred to as its "garbage collection", basically freeing up space that it normally would have to do during a write cycle which slows down performance.

Just don't fill it past 80% is the general rule of thumb. Many users will typically partition their SSD by leaving 10-15% free so performance is never really affected. But that's really heavy users that might see any advantage by doing so.

 

Thank you! You have been an amazing help!

 

Just one more question. Would 256gb SSD+ 256gb mSATA be too much if I add a 500gb HDD? I haven't even used all my 456gb on my current laptop (the only HDD in it). But, while I'm in college, I'm going to have stuff like phone app creators, maybe MATLab, programming stuff, and your usual Adobe, iTunes, WinRAR. Also, I'll have The Secret World and GW2 and Sims 3 games. Will this be enough or overkill?

 

Who knows. Start with 256GB + 256GB and add the 500GB HDD later if needed.

 

In order to save money, I might do the 256gb for the OS and other important applications, then a 128gb mSATA for games and less important apps, with a 320 or 500 gb HDD for data. Thanks again!

 

For my Envy 17 which has two 2.5" HDD bays and one mSATA port, I ordered the laptop with a 750GB HDD, moved that to bay 2, installed a 256GB mSATA for apps + OS, installed a 256GB 2.5" SSD in bay one for games and data will go on the 750GB HDD.

It's forced to boot from the mSATA drive if present, so I had to use that for OS + apps.

 

How did you cache a HDD to SSD?

 

Intel's Rapid Storage Technology allows you to use an mSATA (mSSD) to cache a mechanical HDD. The mSATA used as cache is limited to 64 GB by RST.

It then caches frequently used data that resides on the mechanical HDD. If the OS is on the mechanical HDD, it will cache the OS and significantly lower boot times.

 

But with 64GB you might as well just install the OS and common apps on the SSD IMHO.