DV6t-7000 Quad & Full mSATA Drive

Hello All,

I recently settled on the DV6T-7000 Quad as the best compromise between price and performance for my new machine. The only thing I was unsure of is whether I would be able to replace the 32GB mSATA cache with a full 120/240GB mSATA drive and use it separately from the mechanical HDD. I did some searching through the main thread and couldn't find a clear answer on this.

Anyway, I took the plunge and upgraded my 32GB mSATA cache with a 120GB OCZ Nocti mSATA drive and it's working great. Installed windows on the OCZ and I'm copying my data over to the 1TB drive after cleaning out all of the HP partitions. I now have 2 independent drives in windows rather than a single large cached drive.

Sorry if this has already been answered elsewhere but I couldn't find any info and this sealed the deal for me on this machine. Main SSD + Large Mechanical + Optical Drive in a reasonably sized 15".

 

How was the installation? did you just have to change the boot device in bios to boot off the SSD? Did you restore your windows that came with the machine or have to buy another copy to do a clean install on the SSD?

 

Yes, I also would like to find out some particulars on what was required. The 32gb mSATA as cache drive is in a raid configuration. What was the process you used to remove that drive from a raid config?

There are no raid settings in the Bios, and no way to get into the raid controllers bios, unless a change is made to make it appear like the raid array has changed, such as removing one of the drives bound to the raid array.

Please expand on the process for those of us who are thinking about doing this.

Thanks,

Les.

 

In order to use the mSATA as a drive I think you'd have to pull it out and start the laptop without it, and then put it back again.

A question though, does the mSATA also cache Windows files and uses it when it boots? I don't think I'll be using the 64gb as a standalone drive, merely just as cache.

 

That's one way to do it. Doing so will get you to Intel Matrix Storage Technology screen on boot and you can then proceed to delete the raid volume on the hard drive and you then have to remove the hardrive and boot with only the original mSSD and delete the RAID volume on the mSSD too. I guess second part is not strictly necessary if you are just going to put it away in a box somewhere.

Alternatively, you can disable acceleration in Intel RST and change Usage from "Cache" to "Available" under the "Accelerate" tab. This is all done in Windows. Reboot your computer and you can now format your mSSD to be a 32 GB drive in disk management. Now you have the harddrive and the mSSD dissociated from each other. Pop-in the new mSSD, format it in Disk Management and proceed to install OS on it with your favorite methods: recovery or complete clean reinstall.

Disclaimer: I never follow through to install OS on the mSSD, I only got as after as dissociating it from the harddrive.

 

OP, does your mSATA drive show up as SATAII or SATAIII using something like HWInfo?

 

It is a SATA II mSSD though, the OCZ.

Newegg.com - OCZ Nocti Series NOC-MSATA-120G mSATA 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

My DV6t-7000 shipped with a 750GB 7200RPM drive and no MSATA drive. I have just finished installing a Mushkin Enhanced Atlas Series MKNSSDAT120GB-DX mSATA 120GB SATA III MLC Internal SSD. It now has Windows 7 Enterprise installed and is part of a dual boot system with the original hard drive containing the OS shipped by HP. It is reported as a SATA III (6Gb/s) drive.

 

After I put in a Kingston HyperX 3K SATA III in my 5 year old Dell laptop, I realized HWInfo doesn't report the actual transfer mode, what we were looking at is the merely the interface capability on the SSD. Intel RST, on the other hand, actually reports the transfer mode correctly.

EDIT: in case anyone is wondering, yes, you can get Intel RST for a laptop that old,
Where are the Intel Rapid Storage drivers that support ICH8M?

 

Here is a screenshot of the Mushkin msata ssd RST info:

 

I’m having trouble getting an mSata SSD to boot on its own.

I apologize for my ignorance just a beginner here. Can someone tell me what I'm doing / did wrong? Thank you...

As delivered: New dv6tqe-7000, no mSATA SSD, 750 gb 7200rpm “hybrid” drive
added: Crucial m4 128GB mSATA SATA 3 SSD


1. Made HP recovery dvds
2. Removed mechanical HDD, Intalled mSata SSD.
3. Used recovery disks to install win7 onto mSSD.
4. Unable to reboot:
Boot Device Not Found
Please install an operating system on your hard disk.
Hard Disk (3F0)
5. Replaced original drive, Updated Bios
6. Booted into windows, ran disk management. Showed mSSD as drive1 with no system partition (unallocated) and without the word boot as it showed in the mechanical which read as disk 0.

7. Removed origonal drive again. From a win7 repair CD ran diskpart bootsect /nt60 SYS /mbr and bootrec /FixMbr same boot error after each but things now appear differently in disk management. I am able to boot into windows with the repair CD in. (Actual windows not just the repair)
8. Tried to rebuild the BCD store also with bootrec (from the command prompt win7 repair CD), but it couldn’t identify any win installations

 

Don't pull the HDD out. Do the install using recovery disks but point it to the mSSD.

 

No option appears to direct the recovery in the HP recovery.

 

Well, my bad for stepping out for so long on my post. When I first posted this there wasn't much response and I kind of forgot about it. I too am having trouble with a Crucial MSata drive though mine is a 256GB. The 120GB Nocti drive worked well but it was a little small so I decided to move to something larger. If I boot to Windows 7 Media (USB) I can install Windows to the MSata drive but the installation doesn't complete. On the first reboot (as part of the windows installation) I get the same error as DaveFLN --> "Boot device not found". The BIOS recognizes the drive in some sense because I can write to it but won't allow me to boot to it. I've read elsewhere about cold boot problems with the m4 based drives and HP machines and wonder if this could be related. Maybe there is some kind of incompability. Has anyone successfully got a m4 (or other marvel based drive) working in a DV6t machine?

 

I looked into your issue and considering I am about to put the same drive in my DV7t-7000 I was interested in your post and may have found a answer. You will have to call Crucial for a definite answer. I have read that the firmware update and directions in the link below has helped with the same issue you are having. If this works for you please post your results as I am curios myself.

Crucial.com Product Downloads - Firmware Updates

 

Interesting...I tried to run a firmware update but it didn't work for a couple of reasons. First, they don't seem to provide software for the MSATA versions of the m4 drives. I tried the firmware for the 2.5" m4 but it wouldn't recognize my drive. Maybe if I called support I could get a different update tool. However, the second reason is that my m4 is already on the 000F firmware which is the latest listed release. Unless there is a beta release I don't know about I'm on the current firmware. Your link just points to the firmware download page and not to any instructions. I'd be interested to read anything you've found if you can relink.

The problem seems to be that the HP doesn't recognize the Crucial mSATA drive as bootable. I was able to get the whole thing working by using the 1TB drive in the 2.5" bay as the main boot device and have it point to the mSATA drive to load windows.

Semi-Short Instructions...

- Boot Win7 Install Media (USB/CD - Recommend SP1) and begin installation of windows on the mSATA drive.
- Leave your media in and when it reboots for the first time it will load your install media again (remember your m4 isn't bootable). Now install Windows on the 2.5" mechanical drive (complete the installation, including reboots, etc.)

** At this point you have a windows installation started on the mSATA drive and a windows installation completed on the 2.5" drive.

- Boot into windows on the 2.5" drive and install EasyBCD (free version is fine). Add a new entry to the boot menu (type windows7) and point it to the drive letter of the main partition on the mSATA drive.

- Reboot and choose the mSATA drive from the list of boot options. You should now be able to complete the Windows installation.

** Now you have windows installed on both drive and you can boot to both from the startup menu.

At this point you can basically do what you want. If it's easier you can just leave it like this and choose to boot off the mSATA drive every time you startup.

This is how I complete the process...

- Install EasyBCD on the mSATA load of windows. Edit the boot menu so that only the Windows installation on the mSATA drive remains and tell it to "skip the boot menu"
- Delete the Windows, Program Files (x86/x64), Program Data, User Folders, hiberfile, pagefile, etc. from the mechanical drive. This is much harder to do than it sounds as windows protects these files pretty seriously. Eventually I fired up a Ubuntu live cd and deleted it that way.
- As far as I know the only thing you really need to leave on the mechanical drive is the hidden "boot" folder and "bootmgr" file.

This isn't an ideal solution because if I remove the 2.5" drive for some reason I won't be able to boot. For my usage pattern this isn't a problem and I can't justify buying another mSATA drive at the moment so I'm going to leave it like this. Please post if you hear anything from Crucial on how to solve this. I'm sure it's firmware related because I had no problem booting from my OCZ Nocti drive.

Hope that helps

 

I already regret getting the 32GB cache drive, when I could've gotten this 128GB drive to combo with my 750GB 7200rpm drive, for just $30 more than my tiny 32GB drive cost.

 

so if i buy new dv6t-7100 without mSATA in it, i can still put it my self later right? i only need tu buy the mSATA myself? or when i buy it without mSATA in it, it would not have mSATA slot?

 

Thank you all for help, I just ordered the Mushkin Direct Atlas Deluxe 120GB mSATA SATA III Solid State Drive MKNSSDAT120GB-DX, hopefully this one will work, Bontemps in this forum has the Mushkin but he has a dual boot setup.

 

Stan, mine came with the slot (ordered without mSata drive) Worth considering however you basically have to disassemble the entire machine to get to it. Also they don't provide a screw.

 

So I purchased a dv6t-7000 with the 1tb hdd and a 32gb msata. I removed both the hdd and mssd, and installed a crucial m4 256gb mssd. Installed Windows 7 w/ SP1 onto it (keep in mind there is NO hdd in my computer), installed fine, but when I installed the Chipset driver, it made a dudu noise like a device was removed. I assume this is the msata drive gone? I got the no boot device found. So then I updated the BIOS to the latest F13 version. Updated okay, but then on reboot, nothing. Wouldn't respond like the screen didn't want to come up, and the motherboard was bad. So I removed the m4 mssd, reinstalled the original drives, and it continued to finish the BIOS update and works okay now (with the orig drives). So my plan of attack tonight is to again take the orig drives out, install the m4 mssd (with it being on the new BIOS rev), and also try and update the m4's firmware as there was a release on Sep 25th ( Crucial m4 firmware 010G is now available - Crucial Community). Maybe with all this it will finally work correctly. If it does I will write back the instructions.

If you haven't figured it out, my plan was to run JUST the m4 256gb mssd and NO drive in the 2.5" bay. If I known this would be a PITA I would have just bought a 2.5" ssd and no mssd

 

No good. Although if you leave the Windows installation CD in, bypass the installation (press any key, dont' hit a key and wait), it will boot up fine. Very strange. Just going with a 2.5" ssd and no cache, unless it makes it faster? I can't image though.

 

Has anyone had any recent experiences with this? Should I avoid a Crucial mSATA drive and go with a Mushkin?

 

Ya, has anyone done this in a while? I want to install a crucial m4 256 msata, but I am wondering if the bios will boot from it. Thanks!

 

Well, has anyone?

 

I have just bought a DV6T-7300 Quad Edition with 1TB HDD and no SSD cache. Bought a Plextor PX-256MSM and finally figured out what is the problem. YOU MUST USE HP SYSTEM RECOVERY and choose the 3rd option - FACTORY RESET where it will totally reformat the mSATA SSD and place all necessary partitions on the drive. I am now able to boot WITHOUT the HDD and continue to install the software. Everything looks GREAT at this point!

Also some bios settings - disable secure boot and leave machine booting in UEFI mode, not legacy mode.

You will also see a 8 or 16GB (the amount of RAM on your system) final partition on your SSD. Do not remove it if you want to use Intel Rapid Start. This is the hibernation partition. If you don't care about Intel Rapid Start, go ahead and delete this partition.

I am going to try and see what happens if I reconnect the original HDD....

My DV6t-7300 is now working perfectly with the Plextor PX-256MSM, wow this baby is SUPER FAST!!! Windows boot up in about 5 seconds, shutdown in 2. Everything flies with the SSD. However I am faced with a very strange isue after reinstalling the mSATA drive - the HDD now disappeared!!! I can only find it in the BIOS, when I boot it up, Windows 8 can't see it at all!!! This is exactly the reversed situation with some of you on the mSATA drive, except now I have a system perfectly working with mSATA as boot and system drive, but can't seem to locate the HDD?!!

Perhaps I need to update the Intel RST software, as the version on the HP System Recovery image is pretty old.

Anyways I will continue to experiment to try to locate the HDD....

Update: After I finish updating Intel RST and other HP software and reboot, it is now able to find the 1TB HDD. I now have a 100% perfectly operating system - 256GB SSD as my system boot drive and 1TB for media and also as a secondary boot drive in case my SSD dies.

DONE!!!

Update: Been running for about a day, everything looks GREAT - HP DV6t-7300 with UEFI and Secure boot, booting up to SSD, using my HDD as a media drive, smooth and quick. The battery consumption has not gone down much though... time for another tweak...

 

In case anyone is wondering how I did it:

What I have:

HP DV6t w/HDD and No mSATA option
32GB USB drive (you can use 6 DVD if you don't have 32GB USB drive)
Plextor 256GB mSATA SSD, I believe you can use any brand, not just Plextor, but IT MUST BE 256GB or larger


1. create your HP Recovery Media on USB (preferred) or DVD (6 disks)
2. install mSATA to DV6t
3. remove HDD - you can just disconnect the cable and leave the drive in
4. disable secure boot in bios, do not enable legacy mode, leave it in UEFI mode
5. Boot recovery media
6. select HP Factory Reset which will format your SSD and place all necessary partitions, but since my SSD is only 256GB, it ran out of space for the recovery partition.
7. It will start to restore software to your SSD, and will reboot successfully to install additional software a few times, and after about 30 minutes, it WILL FAIL because there is not enough space on the recovery partition
8. After recovery failed, boot again using your USB or DVD, this time select the first option - Factory restore, to have your laptop setup exactly the same way as it was when you first got it. Factory RESTORE will format ONLY the Windows partition and will not affect any other partitions, which is very important.
9. The restore will take some time and will be successful, and the system will reboot
10. After reboot, it will show a failed installation, just select "Other Operating System" and it will boot into Windows 8. This is because you have a failed Factory RESET due to insufficient space on your SSD, but you also have a successfully restored Windows 8 image from Factory RESTORE operation
11. Go to windows, run command prompt and type "msconfig" at the command prompt
12. in msconfig, click on the "boot" tab and remove the TDC SDV boot option, that is the failed Factory RESET operation
13. Reboot your laptop and you will not see any startup option, it should boot straight into Windows 8
14. You should be able to re-enable secure boot in Bios. I strongly recommend enabling it to avoid root kit viruses.

If you plan on reconnecting your HDD:

1. Turn machine off, reconnect HDD cable, reboot. Press F10 to Bios
2. In Bios make sure Intel Rapid Start is OFF
3. In Win 8, you will NOT see the HDD, don't panic
4. Allow HP Assistant to update all the drivers and software, make sure you get the Intel RST software updated
5. Reboot after updating all HP software
6. After rebooting, you will see your HDD appearing as drive E:, and your recovery partition on the HDD will show up as drive F:

If you have a 480GB or 512GB (lucky you!) mSATA SSD, I think the Factory RESET will be successful and you won't have to do a Factory RESTORE to get the system up and running.

HAVE FUN and enjoy your new mSATA boot drive with a large HDD as media drive!!!

 

Oh, one last question some of you might ask: How do you switch between booting from SSD or HDD?

Simple! Press F9 and select between two different boot managers. Which is which? The one on top should be SATA port 0, which should be the hard drive, while the second boot manager is SATA port 1, which is the mSATA SSD.

I am now able to switch between the two Win8 installations at will!

 

By the way, after re-installing the HDD, DO NOT MODIFY BIOS SETTINGS. The moment you modify BIOS settings with the HDD installed, it will always default back to HDD boot. You will then have to unplug the HDD, boot with mSATA and go back to BIOS and save the settings with mSATA as your only drive, then it will go back to booting on mSATA. This is because mSATA is SATA port 1 and HDD is SATA port 0, it will always try to boot PORT 0 when you save BIOS with a device on PORT 0

Also if you ever press F9 and select HDD boot (the first OS BOOT MANAGER), it will reset back to always default to HDD boot upon power on. You will have to unplug the HDD, boot from mSATA and go to bios and save settings in order to get back to mSATA booting on default.

Hope someone find this info useful.

 

Thank you for this! Just a few questions:

My Dv6 came with Windows 7, do you think this will work (no secure boot and UEFI boot are available under windows 7 I think)?
and
Why did it run out of space?

Thanks!!! I never thought anyone would respond.

 

You are welcome, just thought I would add my experience to the knowledge pool. It was pretty daunting getting all this to work, fortunately it all worked out ok.

By the way, Windows 7 does support UEFI boot, but not secure boot. You don't need secure boot for this to work.

What model is your laptop? If you have a DV6-7000 series or higher, I think it comes with UEFI and GPT partitions. I believe this is what is needed for it to work. If your system only has plain vanilla bios, (i.e you don't see an option in your bios for UEFI boot), you are probably out of luck.

Go to your bios by pressing F10. Go under "boot" menu and see if you have two separate sets of boot option, one is UEFI, another should be Legacy or CSM boot options. If you only see one set of boot option list, it probably won't work.

The key to getting this whole setup to work:

1. You must use HP Restore Media to install your Windows 7/8 system, NOT a clean Windows 7 install or disk cloning, and you must choose Factory RESET option in the HP Restore program after it boots up, not any other option.
2. You must REMOVE your HDD while you run HP Reset to the mSATA
3. You must boot with your Windows 7/8 partition to get the UEFI to recognize mSATA as a boot drive.

If you do not have UEFI, it will always default to booting the first SATA port, which is port 0, and your HDD is connected to port 0. The mSATA is connected to port 1 and you need UEFI to "remember" the last boot device to override the bios boot order. I might be wrong though, as different manufacturers have different BIOS and BIOS extensions, but I seriously doubt you can alter SATA boot order unless you have UEFI, or you have that option explicitly laid out on BIOS (which most of the laptops will not have).

On my HP Envy 17, there is an option in BIOS to alter boot order, you can choose between mSATA and HDD, unfortunately it is not available on the DV6/DV6t.

The reason it ran out of space is because HP Restore Media program is expecting a 750G or 1TB HDD. These were the only two configuration options for drive sizes for my DV6t-7300. I only have a 256GB SSD which is not what the program expects. However you can still run a HP Factory Image RESTORE after you run the Factory RESET, and it will properly install everything. Since you have a Windows 7 machine, I think you should have an easier time to get it to work. I literally have to jump through hoops to get my system running.

Getting the mSATA working as my primary SSD is fantastic. This baby boots so quickly it is amazing.

If you haven't ordered your mSATA drive, I suggest getting the Plextor PX-256MSM, which is one generation newer than the Crucial M4 256GB. I bought the Crucial for my HP Envy 17, it is a good drive but the write speed is slower than the Plextor. I think they are both around the same price anyways, I paid $210 for the Plextor BTW.

Have fun and do let us know your experience upgrading your Windows 7 DV6.

 

Ok! Thanks! I have the Dv6-7000 CTO notebook. I know my BIOS does support UEFI booting so I will follow the procedure that you have described. The size might not matter for because when I ordered my laptop, there was an option for a 160GB SSD. I assume UEFI will automatically enable if I disable legacy and it will recognize the mSata when I boot it for the first time? I was looking at the Crucial, but I will look into that Plextor drive. There was another drive I was looking at that is 240GB. Is that big enough? It is the "Mushkin Direct Atlas Deluxe 240GB". Thank you for your help! I can't wait to get this up.

 

Yes, if you disable legacy mode, you are using UEFI (there are only two modes - UEFI or legacy/CSM), and if you enable UEFI and use the HP Restore Media, it should create the UEFI partitions necessary to boot in UEFI mode, and your hard drive will be created using GPT partitions. The UEFI partitions are the key to making this work. UEFI firmware will create partitions to store information, and when you boot with your mSATA (with your HDD disconnected), it "remembers" booting with SATA port 1, and will continue to do so even after you reconnect your HDD. However, if you revert back to booting with HDD (by pressing F9), or going into bios and change any settings, it will revert back to booting port 1. I am assuming you want to keep your Windows 7 installation on your HDD. If you wipe out your HDD after installing your mSATA, it will always boot up port 1 since port 0 is not bootable, so you will have an easier time compare to what I am doing, since I kept my Windows 8 installation on my HDD as a "hot" backup in case my mSATA drive failed.

If your specific model offers a 160GB SSD option (I am assuming it is an mSATA, not a regular 2.5" SSD), in theory you should be able to get one that is similar in size and get it working. However I strongly suggest minimum 256GB SSD, you will run out of space faster than you think when you are having so much fun with your laptop. I am not familiar with Mushkin, but I think they use Sandforce controllers, which is higher in power consumption (they do real-time compression/decompression) and will perform slower when encountering uncompressible media (photos, mp3 or videos). I would rather get the Crucial M4 or Plextor mSATA SSD, they consume lower power and perform consistently. Beware if you are getting the Crucial m4, it has a firmware bug that will cause it to fail and not be recognized by the bios, the only remedy is to physically remove it and wait for 30 minutes before reinstalling it. With the Dv6 complicated mSATA installation, I don't know if you want to have a drive that will require periodic removal. It happened once to me when I put it on the HP Envy 17, suddenly it failed to boot and was not recognized. I had to remove it and waited 30 minutes and reinstall it before it will work. I then upgraded the M4 firmware to the latest version and so far so good, but you never know. I personally will never use the M4 on the DV6, if it ever fails it will be a big hassle to remove it again.

Be VERY CAREFUL with the keyboard when you try to remove it. It is a very thin plastic + flimsy metallic backing. Don't force anything or you might break one of the plastic edges on the keyboard (I broke mine) since the plastic is literary as thin as a spaghetti. Also be VERY CAREFUL when you remove the top cover, the edge near the DVD drive is very thin and easily broken as well. Do Google how to remove the keyboard etc. on your specific model, as HP has a very good guide on their website on step-by-step instructions how to remove each part. I wish I knew about it earlier so I wouldn't have broken my keyboard.

Good luck and let me know how it goes,

 

On another chain of thought - if you do not plan to keep your existing Win 7 OS on your HDD, and you plan to wipe it clean, you should be able to boot even with legacy mode. As you no longer have an OS on SATA port 0, it will automatically find SATA port 1 which is your mSATA SSD. So in any mode (UEFI or Legacy), it will boot up just fine. You will still need to use the HP Recovery Media's Factory RESET option though.

Have fun!

 

A firmware update usually fixes these issues. Have come across multiple instances. I was looking for higher write speeds and also consistent writes across compressible and incompressible data and it works!

 

One last question, I've heard that people have had trouble getting screws for the drive. Does hp include one in the case? Did the drive come with one? What did you do?

 

Firmware upgrades usually improve the situation but usually will not totally fix the issue. For Sandforce it is an architectural issue, if you use compression, your performance will always be better if the data is compressible.

 

Yes, the screw can be an issue. I stole one from my other laptop with a full size PCie slot (they come with 2 screws) and use it on my DV6t. I plan to buy a replacement screw from one of those screw kit from Frys for $4.99 ( FRYS.com | F.C.S.), and you can also get them from Amazon I believe.

AFAIK, none of the mSATA vendors will include a screw for the drive, and HP did not have one on their mSATA slot.

 

Ok. Thanks

 

The drives capacity doesn't really do much to change the battery life. Take mSATA for example, you still have 4 NAND chips, they just increase in density.

 

Generally true except for the Mushkin 480GB mSATA which has a daughter board and extra chips, it is definitely going to consume more power!

 

So I plan to do this in the next week or so. I just realized that this may void my warranty. Do you think it will? My warranty is not with HP it is with Squaretrade. I was just worried because it is a very involved procedure. Were there warranty stickers or labels inside? Thx!

 

Adding the mSATA will not void your warranty if you do it carefully. There are no warranty stickers or anything else, if you do it carefully, the reassembled DV6t will have absolutely no signs of being opened.

Do google HP's step-by-step disassembly instruction on their website. The pdf manual is not very good and contain errors.

 

I have a dv6t-7000 with the 750GB drive (no mSATA). I also had originally formatted the main partition into an extended partition so I have a 108GB C: and 568GB D:

I was hoping to make this upgrade without reinstalling Windows, if possible.
Is there any reason why I can't just clone the EFI partition and my system ("C drive") partition to a 256GB SSD, install a custom UEFI bootloader over the HDD EFI partition, and use that to boot into the SSD? I could probably try it from a USB drive first, but does anyone know?

I've played around with something similar on a dual-boot Hackintosh, but I'm not aware of all of the limitations of the BIOS on this laptop. It does sound like it's a bit more difficult, but I feel like if I can keep booting to the HDD EFI partition and go from there to the OS install on the SSD, I can avoid the BIOS problems.

Otherwise I think I'll follow this guide, then I'll clone over my C: partition last.

Second question is about recommended 240+GB drives:

Mushkin Mushkin Enhanced MKNSSDAT240GB 240GB Mini-SATA (mSATA) MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Newegg.com
Crucial M500 Crucial M500 CT240M500SSD3 MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Newegg.com
Plextor M5M Plextor M5M PX-256M5M 256GB Mini-SATA (mSATA) MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Newegg.com

Should I go with the Plextor because the better reviews, or does anyone have any experience with these options? I'd like to save money but I'm also more worried about needing to open the laptop up later if the drive fails (it sounds like it's fairly involved).