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    Which for Boot/Programs? mSATA II or SSD SATA III drive?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by McGintyDM, Aug 17, 2012.

  1. McGintyDM

    McGintyDM Newbie

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    I have a Dell Precision M4700 on the way and it features a mSATA II slot as well as a spot for a regular 2.5in SATA III drive.

    Total drive space (GB) is not really a concern for me, I am mainly concerned with speed. I like the idea of having the mSATA run the OS and programs but dont like that im limited to mSATA II speeds on a brand new 2012 machine.

    Any recommendations?
     
    McGintyDM, Aug 17, 2012
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  2. Urbanus

    Urbanus Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'm strongly considering a M4700 as well. I'm planning to run OS and programs on the full 2.5" and keep data on the mSATA drive.

    The user Bokeh posted speed comparisons at the Dell Precision M4700 and M6700 - Preliminary Info thread. As you can see, the mSATA II speeds aren't that far off of the 2.5" SATA III speeds.
     
    Urbanus, Aug 17, 2012
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  3. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    The most important factors for boot speed and programs are access time and random R/W speeds. Neither are affected much by the interface connection since neither are bottlenecked by even SATA/150. That being said, just note that smaller SSD drives are typically slower than larger ones irregardless of form factor.
     
    sgogeta4, Aug 17, 2012
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  4. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Crucial M4 mSATA is same speed as the 2.5inch counterpart, and reasonably cheap too. For Windows files SATA III isn't even necessary since most of the files are much smaller and the performance for smaller files won't saturate a SATA II bus.

    Visit crucial.com and check out pricing for the mSATA drives and then search for coupons, there's usually a 5% off one. I got a 256GB for not much more than $200.
     
    HTWingNut, Aug 18, 2012
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