*HP ENVY 17 & 17 3D (3XXX series) Owners Lounge*

Did HP solve the "red issue" on their IPS panels? The Envy 15-30xx - which has an IPS panel - displayed red as orange.
HP to Issue Fix for Envy 15 IPS Displays that have Orange colored Reds
Absolutely a no-go.

I would contact HP support and / or wait some time and hope that the graphics switching will work with a BIOS update...without that issue fixed, I would tend to the non-3D, too. But IMO it's just a driver / BIOS issue.

 

Lots of testing when the computer arrives ;;
Thanks for the help

 

Only the 15" is an IPS panel. Only the 15" had a color problem. Yes HP released a fix to correct most of the red issue on the 32xx 15" series. The 17" has no display color problems, never did, and it is not an IPS panel like someone here said it was.

As for the grapics switching problem, my thoughts are if you are here reading these forums you know about it, if you don't like it return it or don't order it hoping HP will fix it. It is HP's obligation to fix it, they should not misadvertise it, but at least the will take it back no questions asked if your not satisfied. If I buy a watermelon expecting it to be ripe and I get it home and it's not, the store will give me my money back, they're not gonna fix the watermelon. Is this the perfect solution, preferred solution, no. Is it better than say other manufactures that don't have a liberal return policy, yes. The Envy is overall a decent unit, there was some manufacturing issues at start up production , which happens starting up a new line, but those are mostly corrected and those who got a unit with manufacturing defects have the opportunity to send it back. I appreciate people putting pressure on HP to fix this but if your dissatisfied completely return it, it is what it is. There has been a saying in law since the beginning of commerce, buyer beware.

 

what's wrong with the i5?

 

i7 is more worth the money specially if u r planning to push it hard.

 

@mraufait: Of course it was only the 15" model, that's why my post was about the 15-30xx But thanks for making that a bit more clear.
If the 32xx 3D doesn't have an IPS panel, then I would wait for HP to fix this graphics-switching-thing.

@CPU: Nothing is wrong with the i5. If you plan to use the Envy more than 2 years, take the i7. If you often buy new hardware, I think saving money with the i5 is acceptable. It just depends on your personal needs.

 

Thx for all the insight, this will be my 1st laptop. I have noticed that I tend to use my wife's laptop(Asus G72GX) a lot more then the desktop(Gateway GM5664) and have been playing with the idea of a build vs laptop. In my search for laptops I keep coming back to the envy 17's as a there seems to be a lot for the $ and the current $450 off coupons.

 

And I would say u are at the right place if u are aiming for the Non-3D model..with the initial Manufacturing defects taken care of the Non-3D Envy 17 seems a pretty good laptop and worth the money spent and yes the discount coupons..

 

I bought mine with the i7-3820qm. Definitely shrugs its shoulders when I throw everything at it. Its always clocked above 3.5Ghz. Only when I put it in power saver does it go down to 1.2...

Sent from my SGH-i917 Windows Phone using Board Express

 

So, best way to clean this beautiful screen is?.... (I have a bunch of microfiber cloths around)

I can see a few specs of dust and my idiot dad's fingerprint when it's off...

Sent from my SGH-i917 Windows Phone using Board Express

 

For those that don't mind paying for the HP Care Pack, HP will accept the 2 yr. HP Care Pack sold at CostCo.com (online purchase only), where it's sold @$80 which cost much Less than @HP.com!

Online registration is an issue but you can call the Registration number and the HP agent will register it for you.

Also, if you had a delay in getting your unit due to shipping then comparing it with HP's warranty information, tell the agent the day you (remember) received it and the agent will adjust the warranty date and HP Care Pack starting date accordingly.

I ordered on 7/5 but HP lists my warranty began on 7/10 which is darn impossible!
I told the agent that I tracked it (from Shanghai to Japan to Korea then to Alaska to NY then finally to MA!! WTH is wrong with HP's delivery service?! Better to have paid for quicker delivery!), I managed to get the basic and Care Pack warranty to both start on a much later date

 

Does costco offer the in home service contract? Also I can't find that on the Costco website -- I found one for a $120 with LoJack. Can you provide a link please?

 

So what have you guys been using to clean your beautiful 1080 screen?

I've noticed a few specs of dust, a smudge and my idiot dad's fingerprint on it... -_-

Can i use the microfiber that came with my prescription eyeglasses?

 

That's what I use with a high grade eyeglasses cleaner that you get at Costco or optics department. I start off very light to make sure no dust scratches the screen and turn the cloth over still using the optics cleaner while I press harder. I also open the unit up and set the back of the screen on the table while holding the keyboard portion up so that the back of the screen is lying flat on the table to support it while I clean it.

 

Jason, I feel all guilty with that frowey-face on your post!!! I wasn't trying to be an a$s, and I'm sorry if I was.

When I said to steer clear of the i5, I didn't mean it was problematic. I was responding to DPG123, who literally asked how to spend his money. So, I pointed him to the price/performance sweet spot - the base-level i7. It's the #1 upgrade I would recommend. Everything else can be changed easily afterward without losing your warranty.

Day-to-day, you'd rarely notice the increase in speed. Where the i7 proves its worth is in very heavy multitasking, as well as in demanding programs that run on four+ processor cores simultaneously - things like:

• CAD Design/3D Modelling
• Animation
• High-end Photo/Audio/Video Editing
• and many Video Games

(but most video games actually depend more on the GPU than the CPU; meaning, your Radeon graphics card has a much more significant effect on games than the i7 processor would)

Most people don't "need" the i7. But, if you're speccing out a laptop, and you don't mind spending an extra $110 to buy two more processor cores, then it's a nice upgrade and a good value.

Personally, as both a power user, as well as someone who spends his money carefully, I was not interested in the i5, but I was even much less interested in the more expensive i7's. Obviously, they're faster than my baby i7, but I don't care - I wouldn't pay that large additional cost for marginally small performance gains. The benefit of going from i5 to i7 is doubling your cores, but to go from the base i7 to the top i7 costs $400. And all that $400 does is increase core speeds by anywhere from ~11% to 20%. Jstr_MSFT paid it, and he's happy with it, and that's great for him. But I'd rather save the $400, live with a slightly slower computer, and buy an iPad.

Then again, I overclock the hell out of my desktop, but overclocking is free!

Which brings me to this guy, lol. Jstr_MSFT - have you tried running a real-time processor monitor? HWinfo64 has one built in. It shows you live bars of your processor's current clock speed on all four physical cores.

The i7 processor was designed from the start to run at an extremely low 'idle', while having the ability to instantaneously boost the speed of any/all cores to meet the demands. And, as soon as the demand is met, the cores drop back down to their super-low idle state.

For example, I'm sitting here testing this out for you, and my bars are all at 1200MHz. But, when I open Photoshop, the bars immediately jump up to ~3100MHz on all cores to open the program. Then, once the program is done loading, the processor drops back down to 1200MHz. And, for reference, I currently have open Chrome with 14 tabs, 2 explorer windows, iTunes, Spotify, Evernote, Control Panel, and HWinfo64, plus Photoshop, obviously. That's a lot of multitasking, but once they're open, all they need is RAM space.

Anyhow, here's what I'd like you to try out, because I think it could help your system run cooler and save some energy. There's an option in the advanced power plan settings that lets you control your processor's performance parameters. You can control its minimum state, as well as its maximum state, in terms of percentage.

By default, HP's High Performance plan sets the minimum state to 100% - which is ludicrous and pointless. The i7 was expressly designed to be a best-of-all-worlds solution, and does not need its minimum processor state to be set above 5%.

So, go into Control Panel, to Power Settings, and get to the advanced options box for the power plans, and go change the minimum processor state... it's under the "Processor Power Management" submenu. Set it to 5%, and you should see your core speeds drop, your machine run cooler, and your fans quieter, plus use less energy while sitting 'idle'. And by idle, I don't mean doing absolutely nothing... I just mean that the i7 will ramp up immediately and down immediately, even if that means changing speeds dozens of times per second. It's a very cool feature of both the i5 and i7 lines.

You'll notice that it does this simply by changing the multiplier from 12x to something higher. If you've done any overclocking on Sandy Bridge desktop i7s, this should all be familiar. That's what's so cool about overclocking Sandy Bridge... you don't have to overclock the nominal running speeds of the i7 in order to overclock it. If you have an unlocked multiplier, then you do your main work by just changing the multiplier. My desktop idles at something really low, like ~1100MHz. I don't remember, and I'm too lazy to go check right now, but it's something really low, and honestly, that's all a computer needs for web browsing and whatnot. But, what matters, is that when I open up something demanding, the processor immediately jumps up to 5GHz by ramping up the multiplier to 50x, but stays there only as long as it has to, and then it immediately drops back down. It's great.

Try it out, and lemme know what you think.

PS... Adding this as an edit... Once you get your processor idling nice and low, just take your mouse and snap it all over the screen, and watch just exactly how quickly the processor leaps into action. It's kind of hilarious that the processor ramps up that fast just for the mouse, but it does, only to settle back down.

 

You are most definitely right. I did not see that.

I'm the one who posted it, and I'm sure you knew, but thanks for not loudcapping me, haha.

Ya, I knew the 15" Radiance was IPS and the 17" 3D was TN, but I thought that the non-3D was IPS as well for some reason. I don't know if I read it somewhere, or if I just made it up in my head.

 

Thanks, Holmes!

 

In 2003, when I bought my PowerBook, I picked up a pump-spray bottle of eyeglass cleaner and a microfiber cloth at LensCrafters.

I've long since run out of the original eyeglass solution, but for years, I've just been refilling the little 2oz. bottle with water, and I add a single, small drop of dish soap and shake it up. It's a super-low concentration of dish soap to cut the grease, and it's never hurt the glass. I use it to clean everything - CD's, Netflix DVD's, my rear-view mirror...

So ya - dish soap and water.

 

So, we're sure that the 17" non-3D panel isn't IPS?

 

Sorry for the double post, though for anyone that bought an Envy 17 in the 128GB mSATA SSD + 2x 1TB 5400RPM drives config, was Windows loaded onto the mSATA drive or was it on one of the 1TB 5400RPM drives?

I'm going to put a 256GB Samsung 830 SSD as the primary boot drive and remove one of the 1TB HDDs, split the 128GB mSATA into a 64GB cache drive for the 1TB HDD and a 64GB other drive to use up the other space left on the mSATA.

 

no worries. i was not offended.

i do agree it is the best bang for your buck.

for my situation, didn't need that much bang. actually i would have prefered a mid-level notebook. but it was difficult finding one that is 17" + blu-ray + 1080p screen. (i've had problems with the dv7 blu-ray players)

 

If I'm understanding this correctly, it sounds like you're asking this from a pre-purchase standpoint. And, if so, please read these points below. Feel free to verify and fact-check. I will not be offended if you challenge my points, but I believe this all to be accurate.

• HP sets up the mSATA SSD as a boot/system drive, not as a cache. Refer to a post by AU4U to verify. She posted such a couple pages back in this thread.
• If I understand from other posters, the motherboard always defaults to mSATA as boot/system drive. Cannot be overridden in BIOS, and cannot be circumvented with boot managers / drive selectors. So, if you're using mSATA, it's system drive or nothing at all.
• I recommend you buying your own mSATA drive aftermarket, for price, choice, and performance reasons.
• The mSATA market is not as established or predictable as the 2.5" market, but there are attractive mSATA options in the same speed class as the top 2.5" SSDs. So, mSATA is a 100% viable boot option and not necessarily a performance downgrade from 2.5" drives. It is more expensive, though.
• The mSATA drives HP sells you are not too impressive. The 80GB Intel is SATA 3GB/s, and the 128GB Samsung is 6GB/s, but hardly one of the top drives speed-wise.
• Look into mSATA drives by Mushkin. They're reasonably priced, use a SF2281 controller, and Toggle NAND. That's BOOYAH performance! 256GB is ~$350, which is downright cheap in the mSATA market, especially for the potentially fastest kid on the block.
• AU4U has an Intel mSATA SSD and will likely disagree with me on that previous recommendation. She would argue that Intel is a solid choice because they do not have the frequent firmware issues that plague SandForce-based drives. And, with some mSATA drives, such as the "MyDigitalSSD" brand, firmware updates are destructive - meaning, you have to backup, update the firmware, and then reinstall everything like new, every time new firmware comes out. Intel mSATA drives are not as fast as their competition, but they are still much faster than mechanical drives, and they are simpler to use. If Mushkin can release their firmware updates in a way that is non-destructive, then I would personally support Mushkin as the drive of choice. Much larger, much faster, and more affordable per gigabyte than Intel.
• Remember, that with SSD's, you never want to fill them up. Even 75% is pushing it, so if you still want to do a second drive in the 2.5" bay as a partitioned media cache + high speed storage, then make sure you're buying an appropriate size to make use of the space.
• If you are partitioning an SSD, be sure that you understand how to properly setup the partitions so that you do not cut the life of your drive or waste space. (there's a cluster size parameter, if i recall correctly, that if set wrong, ends up splitting every logical cluster across two physical cluster stores. I may have the lingo wrong, but I know that it ends up wasting space and wearing out your drive by making it write more than it needs to.)

 

Well, then it sounds like you made the perfect choice. The ENVY certainly has a lot of creature comforts that you won't find on other notebooks, and you get an outstanding mobile multimedia experience, regardless of which processor is installed. The i5 should gobble up Blu Ray and multimedia with aplomb.

 

Shrike, I'm reposting this for you, because Permalink seems to be broken atm. The forum is about to be upgraded, and there are some problems plaguing the site right now.

Here is a link to the Intel 310 Series 80GB mSATA SSD on Newegg, and you can see from AU4U's screenshot, just exactly how the SSD comes setup from the factory. It's a very info-rich shot, and it should answer a lot of questions you might have.

 

That's something I can't understand, as the DV7-7000 has the option of a cache drive for the mSATA and doesn't force it to be the system drive. I can't find the post in question about the mSATA on the Envy only being a boot drive and never a cache drive.

 

Furthermore, here is some more info about the MyDigitalSSD drives and the Mushkin mSATA drives.

MyDigitalSSD Smart Series (Not the Bulletproof Series) is SF2281-based, with synchronous NAND, for performance in line with the similarly-specced 2.5" competition. Something like a Corsair Force GT or a OCZ Vertex 3 would be comparable in speed.

Despite the silly company name, they are high-quality drives. They are rebranded ADATA drives, so the quality is there.

Their firmware updates have been frequent - that has more to do with Sandforce than with MyDSSD. But, the firmware updates have all been data-destructive, which is MyDSSD's fault. Many other manufacturers release non-destructive updates for the exact same controller.

Here's a review from TheSSDReview.com on the Smart Series 256GB drive. It's ~$320, and very fast. Just a pain to update the firmware, and Sandforce firmware does need to be updated regularly.

Here's a chart from their site to show the speed in PCMark Vantage's HDD Suite. For reference, the fastest Toggle-NAND based 2.5" drives are only hitting <74,000 points. So speed-wise, the speed is there.



And here's a chart with standard 2.5" drives...


Mushking Atlas drives are a little harder to find than the MyDSSD drives, but quality-wise, they're made by Mushkin - need I say any more? They're certainly going to be solid drives, and Mushkin may go the extra mile and release non-destructive updates, which would make them the hands-down winner in my book, at least for now.

Here's a link to the Mushkin Website. I think I mentioned earlier that their largest was a 256GB. I was wrong, it's a 240GB. I didn't see any reviews of the drive yet, but based on the specs, it should be even faster than the MyDigitalSSD drive, which is saying a lot.

Atlas drives are $350 for 240GB, $140 for 120GB, and $85 for 60GB. Newegg - Atlas 240GB, Newegg - Atlas 120GB, Newegg - Atlas 60GB.

>>>

Obviously, you can see that I am in favor of the Mushkin drives, but I did want to make a point about the Intel mSATA drives. Despite their low performance numbers on paper, they manage to perform "above their specs". By the numbers, you would expect the Intel drives to be laughably slow, but they're actually very respectable, garnering more than half the Futuremark Points as the others, despite having only 6,600 Write IOPS, 35,000 Read IOPS, and Max Read/Write speeds of 200MB/70MB/s.

AU4U is a bigtime Intel fangirl, and she reports a 12-second boot on the Intel. So, props to Intel.

I'm thinking about buying a Mushkin myself, but I'll give Intel some respect.



.

 

I'll try and find it, but the search is also broken!!!

It would be great if you're right, though, and again, I'm happy to be taken to bat.

 

I ended up taking the plunge on a Envy 17, as everything I read in comparison to the DV7-7000 made it sound like a better option. The 33% off coupon was too much to resist this time around.

I opted for the 2 x 1TB drives, knowing I'd remove one of them and replace it with a Samsung 830 256GB SSD for my boot drive, removing the 1TB HDD in the SATA3 bay. I didn't add in the HP-provided 80GB or 120GB mSATA SSD because of cost issues. My plan was to buy a 60GB mSATA for a cache to the 1TB HDD, though if the mSATA won't work as a cache drive at this time, I won't use it.

EDIT: I ended up canceling my Mushkin mSATA 60GB order until things get sorted out with the cache SSD issue.

 

You shall enjoy it, sir!

And I hope I didn't make anything too confusing - I'm rereading it, and I chucked up more info than I thought I had. I was at least trying to help. Either way, sounds like a good plan.

 

I know you've already made your mind up and purchased your PC, but I did find the thread, and hopefully it can help others to make their decisions in the future, so I'm posting here...

This is another thread, titled "HP Envy 17 (32XXXX) How do you bypass mSATA drive?" and located here.

And, from skimming over the post, it looks like another user, Jerohm, had successfully gotten EasyBCD Bootloader to allow him to switch between the two 2.5" bays on his ENVY 17 3000 series, but there was no confirmation to verify if the same solution worked for mSATA, or if it worked on the ENVY 17 3200 Series, either.

So, until it's attempted and documented as working for the mSATA drive, as well as on the 3200 series, it seems to be up in the air.

And I have no idea about the implications of caching.

 

No worries, I greatly appreciate the help in regards to the mSATA.

Since it's easy to get to behind the service panel with the HDDs, RAM and the like, adding a mSATA later isn't a huge issue unlike other systems. The SSD + HDD combo will work more than fine for now and if they get it sorted out (once the forum comes back from being wonky), it's an easy add later for the mSATA to do cache. Better to cancel the order before it goes out than deal with the return later (coming from NewEgg, so didn't want to deal with a restock).

 

Costco - HP Care Pack Services 2-year Accidental Damage Protection & LoJack for New HP Laptops

Wow... Costco.com changed the pricing to $120!

Luckily I bought it when the price was $80 which was ~ 1 week ago. It could have been a July 4th special promotion.

This protection plan does not include the in-home service but HP will send you a box for shipping the laptop to them and gives you priority status for repairs then will ship back via Fedex, according to the registration rep when I ask how this differs from the regular warranty. I just wanted the screen protection and priority repair service.

 

Envy 3D has F6 Bios
DV7 has F49 (current) Bios, this is what allows the caching.
To change the boot order in the Envy, migrate the OS to the new mSATA (super easy with Intel and their Data Migration Tool), install it, remove the HDD with the OS, boot up.
W7 will find the mSATA, strip clean the HDD, install the HDD and use it for data (movies/music/documents etc).

 

My personal feelings are that as the OS/program drive, the speed is needed in the Random READS, not the Sequential READS, as you are not doing large file transfers (movies/music) or watching/listening to the files. The OS and programs run intermittently as you move through your data.

As for Random Writes, that's all your OS/programs do when updating, and you are not installing/ripping large files such as movies/music on your OS drive,,,are you?

I believe HP engineers got this part correct with the choices they made.

I REALLY like Intel products and the tools they provide for free, the 310 series mSATA, look here in the Intel SSD forum for the problems people have with them, if you can find any......
Solid State Drives
Really solid little performer.......

 

Where can I find the 33% off coupon? The ones I found are all expired and the best I have come across is $450 off. And, dang, there are some knowledgeable ppl on here. I have gotten answer to ?'s b4 I could think of them myself.

Update: Found it, guess $450 expired.

 

Lol finally i can reply.

Couldn't even reply on my phone -_- Thanx admins for getting back online.

Well said to the first part.

I use CoreTemp which shows both the temperature, clock speed, multiplier, and usage of all 4 cores. I haven't changed any of the advanced power settings, but yes i agree it is quite amusing to watch it go from 1.2 all the way to 3.6Ghz (12 tabs? That's just crazy haha, jk). On my old G60 with an AMD QL-62 dual core i used to mess with those settings, but then again... It was AMD lol.

Guess i'll give it a try tomorrow when i get back to work

 

I said a few posts back, that you are a more technical user, and I prefer simpler setups. You've described several fairly complex user-intensive procedures that would overwhelm most folks.

And myself, I've kind of done all that stuff at least once to say I did it, but I really prefer a simple day-to-day setup that requires very little effort.

So, I find it comically ironic that you - the technical user, prefer Intel for the simplicity of interacting with them, despite their having only half the performance of similarly priced drives.

Then you have me. I generally prefer things simple and low-effort, but I would hands-down pass up the Intel drives to get something that runs twice as fast for the same money, even if it means I have to step in and maintain it every few months. Heck, I'm still not averse to getting the MyDigitalSSD drive, because its performance is just that good. Literally, it puts legitimate high-end 2.5" SSDs to shame.

Now, Intel-wise, I could dig the new 520 series SSDs, but again, there, I'm not going to spend 60% more than competing models that are within 5% performance.

I'd much rather go Sandforce, or if I wasn't going Sandforce, I'd go Crucial. Crucial outperforms the Samsungs that everybody is so amped about, and it's among the cheapest drives out there.

But, TBH, I'm a little bit of a Corsair fan, and I did those sexy red Force GT's and GS's. I have a Force GT in my desktop, and I'm inclined to get one for the lappy as well, if I end up putting an SSD in the 2.5" bay.

 

You already have an Intel processor, chipset, and wireless adapter. Why not go all out and throw in their 520 as well? lol You'll have their 5 year warranty, and know that their silicon and chips are top of the line in quality.

 

And we both agree that ANY SSD will out perform a HDD.
But what you will never find me doing is 2x Intel 520 SSD's in RAID,,,,,Why?,,,,,What could possibly be the benefit?
I guess some people get addicted to the technology, or some how loose their way through the forest (intel ssd forum).

 

Not a bad, very current, article on Crucials m4 mSATA dives from Notebook review.


Crucial m4 256GB mSATA SSD: Performance

 

My current known status of Windows writing to a disk is: Totally weird. You can't exactly say that big files are read / written better than smaller files.
Sure, random read / write benchmarks are the one you are obviously interested in when buying a new drive.

@SSD RAID: It's again a bit faster & simple to set up (if supported). But as I said before: RAID 0 with important data would never be my personal decision. I would guess that even with an SSD the bottleneck is often the SSD itself (in normal day work).

 

Samsung Series 7 17.3" vs. HP Envy 17t-3200 17.3"

Thanks to MacHater's comments, I decided to compare these two machines even though I already had an Amazon order pending for the Samsung. And then two days ago I decided to go with the HP Envy (customized) for the following reasons:

In HP's favor:
1. Worried about Samsung's wifi issues due to poor antenna placement; very important
2. HP's 17t-3200 CTO comes with a full two year warranty (note: pre-configured HP Envys come with one year warranty)
3. All HP Envys come with "Concierge Service" - meaning only US trained and US located 24-hour support specialists with priority service (competing with Apple's renowned service?)
4. 21 day "no questions asked" return policy, including shipping, for full refund
5. 33% discount coupon available which yielded a price approximately $200 lower for the HP vs. the Samsung (until July 19 - coupon code: NBP9668) - with same processor, hard drive, wifi card, graphics card, etc.
6. Full version Norton's Internet Security for two years included
7. Full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere included (which I was going to buy in the next month anyway)
8. Access to hard drive and RAM via easily opened panel on bottom of laptop; upgrading to an SSD will not void the warranty (on Samsung, the entire bottom must be removed which will void the warranty immediately according to Samsung's website and verified during phone call to Samsung)
9. Design almost identical to Apple's MacBook Pro; it definitely does not look like older generations of HPs
10. Better keyboard lighting and design
11. Two hard drive bays

In Samsung's favor:
1. Thinner and one pound lighter
2. Sleek design
3. Possibly quieter fans
4. Non-glossy display

So for what it's worth, I want to thank everyone who takes so much time to update entries in this forum. I appreciate it greatly.

My HP will be delivered in about ten days; hopefully it will live up to my expectations. Otherwise, I'll return it and move on to the Samsung.

 

Yep. SSDs are awful. We should talk about:

• how surprising it is for products in a developing category to need firmware updates - that's never happened before!
• how SSDs have higher costs than HDDS, while simultaneously having shorter lifespans - that's never happened either!
• how that any drive you buy, no matter how fast, will be outclassed within a few months - also never happened!
• how ridiculous it is for consumers to consider performance when buying SSDs.
• how the only brand we can trust is Intel, and how we should avoid all the manufacturers of poor-quality products, like Corsair, Mushkin, Kingston, OCZ, PNY, Plextor, SanDisk, Toshiba, Samsung, Marvell, Micron...
• how that the 'same manufacturer' argument always works. That's why we all love using Microsoft's web browser with our Microsoft operating systems.

Yep.

• I'm clearly off my rocker to consider any company but Intel. I should avoid their competitors and their snake-oil products.
• I clearly am alone in caring about performance. Why should I care about a 100% increase in throughput, or a 300%-to-1200% increase in read/write performance?
• How utterly irresponsible and speed-obsessed I am to buy these new models. I mean, you can tell I'm nuts because of how much money I'm willing to spend. If only the current-gen drives didn't cost twice as much as last-gen drives. Oh wait, they cost the exact same.
• Of course the smart move is to buy last-generation drives for the same money and then mock others who are being 'too demanding' by choosing to opt for more speed for the same money.

Or, maybe I'm not *quite* that crazy.

Maybe I haven't made my purchase yet, and I'm just trying to get the best value. I don't demand a RAID 0 array of Plextor drives to be happy. I just want to buy a current-generation, competitive SSD for a good price. Also, I'm not the only person in the industry willing to consider SandForce-based drives, even if it requires updating my firmware. Intel's toolkit is nice, but I'm a capable, tech-savvy user, and manual firmware updates don't bother me.

I'm honestly astonished that my mindset is being regarded as overly demanding, or that I'm being billed as too hungry for speed. Are these words really coming from the same person who mocked me for considering a RAID array for my multimedia drives? You're saying that RAID is so slow, even on sequential data, that I'm silly to consider it. And on the flip side, I should be thankful to the gods of NAND for an outdated 3GB/s mSATA drive, and I should be ashamed to ask for more?

I'm not interested in the 310 Series mSATA SSD for good reason. It's slow and overpriced, compared to the competition. And yes, a 100% speed increase is significant. The 310 is SATA 3GB/s, it's significantly slower than current-generation drives in every single parameter, and despite that, Intel has not dropped the price to a competitive level. I've already acknowledged that it's a high-quality drive and manages to perform better than its spec sheet. But even at that, it still barely manages to top 50% of current-generation drive performance. If Intel releases a consumer-marketed mSATA drive at 6GB/s speeds, and sells it at a competitive price, then I would gladly buy it and be proud to do so. Or, if Intel priced the 310 series relative to its performance - half that of the competition - then I would go out today and buy a 310. But that's not the case - yet. I have to choose from products that are actually on the market, and base my decisions on retail prices. And, while the consumer-available mSATA market is limited, it does offer enough choice that I feel like there are significantly better options than Intel's 310.

Now, as for the 520 Series SSD, I am very impressed by the performance, and I would gladly buy it, if it were the same price as its competitors - but it's not. The warranty is a nice bonus, but I don't feel like it implies a quality difference. I mean, Honda and Toyota have two of the shortest warranties in their industry, yet they are respected as the most reliable cars on earth, and their numbers back it up. So, no, I'm not interested in paying 60% more money for a drive that is not-noticeably-faster than its competition. And yes, there is such a thing as faster on paper, and faster in the real world. The Intel 520 is faster on paper than almost anything on the market. But it is not appreciably or noticeably faster than the majority of SATA 6GB/s drives. Great drive, but I won't be buying one.

 

You'll enjoy it, man. It's cherry.

 

You're totally right.

Stability-wise, RAID will always be RAID and carry its own beautiful set of a multiplied risk of failure.

Performance-wise, SSD RAID does show astonishing numbers in benchmarks, but that's it. SSD RAID is not as attractive because 6GB/s SSDs are already approaching a perceived ceiling on responsiveness. You could say price is a factor, but lots of people did Raptor RAIDs, which were expensive.

I ran a Velociraptor RAID back in the day, and it was noticeably faster than running on a single 7200RPM drive. But SSD RAID is barely noticeable. I've never set one up, but I have a friend who's a sponsored Overclocker, and I tried one of his sponsored rigs.

Oh, and TRIM doesn't work on RAIDs. You have to find an alternate solution for garbage collection, or your performance drops so quickly, that you would have been better off using a single 6GB/s SSD from the start.

 

How is the battery life on the Envy 17t-3200? Is there a larger battery available than the 6 cell that it comes with?

 

Of course. But when not sharing the same 6GB/s port, SSD RAID 0 would be faster, wouldn't it?
I never tried that, yet. That's why I put the words "a bit" in my above post

Companies definetely should use RAIDs, but 5 or 10 would be appropriate

Really? That would be a no-go for SSD RAIDs. Are there any sources pointing that out? Just RAID 0? RAID 1 - from the (my) logical point of view - shouldn't make any difference to TRIM.

 

See, here's something I'm also wondering, though I don't know if it's possible.

I still don't know why two HP systems with the same chipset and most likely semi-similar system board design behave differently with how mSATA drives are handled, though that's obviously something for HP to figure out.

Since for the time being I'm stuck with a mSATA port that I can't quite use how I'd like to use it, what about the following scenario:

* Install a 256GB mSATA SSD into the mSATA bay instead of the Samsung 830 I'm going to use. Crucial m4 mSATA 256GB seems to fit the bill at the moment, or the Micron Atlas mSATA 240GB.
* Take the two 1TB 5400RPM HDDs I have on the config in my Envy 17 and stick them together in RAID 1. I know they'll do RAID 0 in the chipset though I don't know if it'll do RAID 1 as well.

For anyone with an Envy 17, is RAID 1 even an option at the BIOS level?

 

it may be a 6-cell battery, but it is a big battery at 86WHr.

so battery life is good for a 17", 1080p notebook.

unless you get the 3D model (then battery life not so good).

 

Someone in the other thread answered my question, which is that there's nothing in there for RAID.