DV6T-7000 HD Questions

Just bought this laptop with the discount!

Instead of going for the SSD, I went for the 1 TB hard drive and instead upgraded the display. What are my options as far as getting a better hard drive?

Is the 1 tb 5400 RPM too slow? Do many get a mSATA drive aftermarket?

 

I got the 1 TB hard drive as well, and what I'm planning on doing is getting an aftermarket 240/256GB SSD later on to replace the hard drive and then put the 1 TB hard drive into a USB 3.0 enclosure for external storage. Right now there are some pretty good deals on SSD's just check around the forums. For instance, apparently you can get a 256GB OCZ Agility 3 for just $160!

 

Or get the 32 GB msata add on. It should produce better results than those 7200 RPM 4 GB cache hybrid drives(momentus XD). I will need almost 750 TB for all my games and such. Those SSD's are way out of my price range. 200 GB is laughable for today's gaming needs.

 

Eh, I've been living with a 160GB 7200RPM HDD on my laptop for years, so getting a 256GB SSD will feel like a lot more space for me. Then again, I don't have too many games and I usually only play two or three games at a time so I'll just uninstall games I haven't played in a while if I ever need more space.

And he already ordered the laptop so it's too late to get the 32GB msata addon. At this point, he might as well just go big or go home lol.

 

I wouldn't be against buying an mSATA addon at newegg or something. The mSATA was ridiculously expensive at HP, so I decided not to get it.

What mSATA drive should I get?

 

It depends. Are you going to be using it as a cache or an OS drive? Also, I would wait until you actually get the laptop before you buy an mSATA because some people have reported not being able to find an mSATA slot if they did not order HP's acceleration cache with other models. And in the owner's lounge, people are still unsure as to where the slot is even when they did order one. And even if the slot was found, we don't know if HP whitelisted specific models for that slot. And furthermore, if the slot isn't easily accessible, you may risk voiding your warranty too.

 

What exactly would the cache drive do then? I don't really understand the concept.

 

It works like a raid zero setup, it copies application data so that it can read both the hdd and the mssd to effectively double read speed. Read speed = how fast applications will launch.

IMHO mssd is a halfass SSD, really not a fan of that set up as a sata3 ssd will be faster and cheaper.

 

If you happen to lookup on this particular laptop you will find that it uses HM77 chipset from Intel and this SSD cache is a feature of that chipset.

mSata stands for mini Sata interface. This is basically an SSD (without the case) for direct mouning onto the motherboard/pcie board.

How exactly it works? You have to dig up Intel HM77 chipset algorithm. I highly doubt that Intel would come up with this feature if it didn't have any value.

Readup before giving halfass advice:

Mobile Intel® HM77 Express Chipset