I just bought an Alienware 17. What ssd should I get?

Hi, I just bought an Alienware laptop with the following specs for a pretty good price, but sadly it doesn't have ssd memory and I don't know which one to get (first time I want to modify a laptop). Any sugestions? I'm looking for something between 90 and 130 usd if this is to cheap or expensive for a budget to get a good ssd plz feel free to tell me, so I can reconsider it and check my options.

Alienware Specs:
Intel Core i7 - 4700MQ
16GB DDR3 RAM
WINDOWS 7 Home Premium
Slot Load DVD+-RW Drive (I will upgrade to bluray)
4GB Nvidia Geforce GTX 780M Graphics Card
17.3" 1920x1080 (1080p) WLED Anti-Glare Screen

I will use it for gaming and work, editing videos, audio, programing and designing a bit, etc.
Thanks in advance.

 

With your intended workflow and the budget you set for yourself: keep saving.

The SSD you want is the SanDisk Extreme II 480GB partitioned to ~313GB of usable capacity (30% OP. Make sure you can leave at least 75GB free space too so your projects can complete too).

And Windows 7 HP was fine in 2009, you want Win8.1 Pro to have the most responsive system going forward.


Good luck.

 

Thanks a lot tilleroftheearth. As I understand your answer I shouldn't go for something less than 480-500gb right?

I will work with the laptop for a while before I buy any SSD, so I can save a little more money and maybe wait to get a 500gb one instead of a smaller one.

The SSD prices can drop anytime soon or that will be their price for a long time?

 

Get the Samsung 750GB 840 EVO instead.
$380, 250GB more, one of the fastest SSD out there, you can use RAPID with the Samsung Magician bundled to use some of the DDR3 RAM as storage to ensure the fastest speeds available. The magician does everything for you, you just enable the RAPID if you want and everything happens automatically.

Or buy the 500GB 840 EVO for $264. Almost half the price of a Sandisk Extreme 480GB.
Its on sale now:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147249

 

Thanks Cloudfire. I do have to wait to buy it, the laptop itself is a lot of expense. I'm not looking at anything fancy, the main reason I want one is to avoid the laptop of working to hard when multitasking. Maybe I will go with ramdisk for a while before I buy it, since 16ram is just to much...

 

I've seen the SanDisk Extreme II 480GB SSD go on sale a few times since Boxing Day 2013 for $299 - keep your eyes peeled and you'll be able to grab one at this great price.

The EVO that Cloudfire recommends is not intended for heavy write workloads (such as video editing) if you want that thing to last - and especially not recommended to use RAPID on it (taking away your productivity (the cpu needs RAM more and uses it better than an SSD does) and giving you a very non-consistent storage subsystem).

Not all 480GB/512GB SSD's will work at the highest performance level you'd want: but the SEII does.

 

Prices have been dropping slowly but steadily for the past few months.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Thanks everyone I will keep an eye on those SSD's and patiently wait. The laptop is still a beast without it so I might as well enjoy it meanwhile

 

Glad to help a little.

Wait till you get the SSD, Win8.1 Pro and 32GB RAM installed - then you'll see what a beast it really is (on your video editing workflow).

 

You will want at least a 256GB. 500GB is great, but not necessary. 256GB is plenty for OS, apps, and a handful of games that would benefit from the faster SSD. Over-provisioning is not needed, however won't hurt anything either and don't have to worry if you "fill up" your partition with data because the extra empty OP partition will help keep it plenty fast.

I've been living with a 256GB mSATA drive and 1TB SSD, which might as well be an HDD because it's used mainly as a storage drive.

 

OP'ing is not needed?

An M6400 with SSD's was upgraded to Win8.1x64 Pro for a client from Win7Pro. 16GB RAM, dual Intel 520 SSD's.

When Win8 was (clean) installed, the client immediately noticed how much more responsive the O/S was vs. Win7.

When I finally convinced him to leave 30% unallocated on each drive; he was floored with the system responsiveness in anything he tried.

OP'ing is what made me finally agree an SSD is more than a toy (way back in 2011 with the Intel 510 250GB SSD) and I could finally use it in my workflows.

What is sad is that it is still needed today (and still recommended by Anand Lal Shimpi over at Anandtech.com in almost every SSD review he does).

OP is not needed if you don't want the most performance your SSD dollars can buy today. If you want the highest performance possible over time, (almost) no matter how you use your SSD, then using an SSD is just throwing money (and performance) out the window.

 

It should be axiomatic by now that OP'ing is a good thing to do, and factoring it in when deciding which capacity to purchase is prudent foresight.

Such a simple thing shouldn't be overlooked nor ignored.

 

I dunno. I've OP'ed both my system SSD and "storage" SSD by 30% for several months on my laptop I use daily, and have noticed ZERO improvement when removing the OP for the last month or so. Recommending a 500GB drive for someone who only needs < 200GB of use is a little bit dramatic IMHO is all I'm saying. Will it hurt? No. Will it perhaps extend the usable life of the SSD, likely, but not within the lifetime that most users upgrade their machine or storage drive (3 years). If you hammer the drive daily, then sure it may be a better alternative, but for someone that loads OS, a few apps and games, and does a lot of normal Windows tasks like Office apps, web browsing, and a few productivity apps, it really won't matter.

 

What someone 'needs' is not dictated by an arbitrary capacity point.

It is dictated by the intended workflow. Period.

I do not doubt you have not noticed anything with OP'ing your drives, but that is contrary to everything I have ever seen with an SSD in mine or my clients systems (and not just me noticing it; they too were surprised at the difference OP'ing made).

If a component can perform at this level (and I'm guessing with 30% OP it can indefinitely in workstation class workloads...) what stops a user from continuing to use it past the point that you think they should be replacing it (3 years)?

Or; if a new system/platform is warranted at that future time; sell it/give it away as a still viable computer for someone else?


Going from a 240GB SSD to a 480GB SSD is more expensive sure, but even over the course of 3 years the cost is a dime a day for performance that would be easily double for the same time period.

An excellent return on investment in my opinion.

And not so dramatic after all.

 

I'm with you about not over-buying if it's not needed - especially in technology. The 120GB drives just don't seem to keep pace with the larger capacities while paired with SATA III piping - so the next step up is 256GB for better performance.

When the OS, Programs, plus room for Scratch disks and other auxiliary things, and then Data files are installed - that will consume space.
If whatever that figure is plus room for freely added new files, copies etc.; when it is doubled is less than 256GB then that size will suffice if more is never required. If it is [required] then an owner is boxed in unless there is another SATA III port available to add capacity.

I know, that you know, that filling up a SSD without any free space is not ideal, especially if the delete/create/modify-save(s) come down fast and furiously while under that condition. Add in some Garbage Collection and Wear-leveling, the Write amplification can only go up to detrimental levels.

I tend to assume that many people around here (general consumer user and gamers and downloaders) probably don't push it real hard daily, but then again who really knows what someone does or gets the notion to do since they have this newfound speed (everything is so much faster that I doubt they are going to throttle themselves).

Personally, I just set mine up at 50% Over-provision (OP) Unallocated. Doesn't feel any different than it did at 30%, and I wasn't expecting it to. I did this amount because I'm going to start hammering the drives. The space isn't used (20%, the difference between 50 and 30% unallocated) because I archive a lot of old stuff onto an external HDD.

I don't think 30% unallocated is an absolute number, but it is a solid place to start when factoring in variables and unforeseen heavier activities/uses.

 

Yeah, 30% is not a firm number. For my desktops with multiple SATA3 connectors; 50% is where my SSD's OP'ing lives too.

 

Yeah, I think 120-128GB drives are too small and most lose a lot of performance benefit of the larger capacity SSD's. But 256GB is a great size, even if you do decide to OP 20-30%, leaving ~ 200GB of usable space, which is ample for a casual user for OS, apps, and a few games with everything else on a spinner.

 

I've OPed my 256GB M4 by ~6% (225GB usable)- don't know if this really helped me or not (light/medium workload), but after an year of usage it still feels as fast as it used to be - see the numbers:

June 2013


Mar 2014


Now, I have OPed my new 480GB M500 by ~10% (400GB usable), I'll report back in 2 years. :

 

What'd you pay for that if you don't mind me asking? I'm trying to get my hands on a new laptop in the range of 1500 or below.

 

Rather than starting another thread, I'll just ask my questions here:

So my config comes with a 750gb HDD. I just had my 256 Samsung Pro delivered and I plan on doing a clean re-install of Win 8.1 pro. So is it as simple as:

1. Put new SSD in current HDD spot
2. Move HDD to 2nd spot
3. Power machine on with boot from USB/CD
4. Install windows
5. ???
6. Profit

I keep reading about leaving a 30gig unused portion on the SSD for performance improvements. Is this true? If so, how would I go about doing this?

Also, what do I need to turn off/on in Windows 8 to make sure the SSD is performing at its peak without possible performance hindrances?

 

Just resize the install partition to: 171008 MB

Because you will have a HDD in the machine most of the stock settings will be fine. Install Magician 4.3+ after all of the drivers are installed.

 

Great! I can set up the install partition on the Windows OS installer correct? Its been a while haha

 

Super simple. And you'll then easily get all the necessary auxiliary support partition(s).