Inches away from buying the Envy 15 - please help choose Hybrid HDD or SSD

I plan to order an Envy 15 within the next 24 hours.

I really wanted an Envy 17 because of the superior graphics and dual drive bays, but portability reasons are preventing me from going for it. For those who own the 17 - is it really a pain to carry around in a backpack?

Assuming that I have to go for the 15: it's a longer bitter choice between the 7200 Hybrid HDD (presumably with 8GB flash cache) and the 256 GB SSD.

How much value does the SSD add over the Hybrid HDD for general web / productivity / multimedia consumption (not production) work? Is it worth $250? $250 is a lot to me, and will really stretch my budget. I'll go for it only if it's really really worth it.

Secondly, there's a question of future-proofing: I believe the Envy 15 has only one drive bay. Does that mean that, if I take the Hybrid now, I have to throw it out (or throw out the optical drive) if I ever want to install an SSD? Or can I keep the HDD and install an mSSD or mSATA - I don't really know what these things are - I've just heard of them. I would not like to buy a hybrid now that I might have to throw out to install an SSD later - in that case I'd probably go for the SSD now itself.

Any help would be invaluable!

 

Don't buy the SSD from HP. Buy a high-quality SSD yourself and install it.

True SSD is much faster than the Hybrid solution by Seagate. Plus, only 8 GB of the most frequently used data is stored on the cache. So if you say.. decide to copy a 20 GB movie one day, your cache is gone, and the drive is just a normal hard drive in terms of speed.

A real SSD is consistently fast, whereas the caching solution is not.

 

Thanks. I understand this. However, if I were to install an SSD myself later, wouldn't that mean I need to throw away the Hybrid HDD provided by HP, since the Envy 15 has only one drive bay? Could I keep the hybrid and install some sort of mSSD?

Note that this is quite unlike your Envy 17, which has 2 drive bays.

 

You can install a 2nd HDD by removing your optical drive. This requires a 9.5mm caddy which is pretty easy to find online. Even after tossing the included HDD you'd still save money from the inflated price of an HP SSD The only reason to do it is if you don't mind spending the cash because you don't have experience swapping hardware or doing a clean install, and would prefer to avoid the trouble.

An SSD on a current system will probably give you the biggest noticeable performance boost over any other component. Once you try it you won't want to go back to a regular disk drive.

 

Anyone know of a good video tutorial showing how to install a ssd on an envy 4t?

 

If you're not replacing an optical drive it should be as easy as opening the casing door, unscrewing the old HDD and putting in the SSD. How you restore and install windows after is up to you.

 

Thank you so much for the reply. One last thing: I've heard of 'caching' SSDs - low capacity SSDs called mSSDs.

1. Is it possible to install one of these mSSDs on the Envy 15 while retaining both the original 7200 rpm HDD and the optical drive? I've heard that the Envy 17 has an mSATA bay which can fit an mSSD (?) - but I'm not sure if the Envy 15 can do the same.

A 32 GB mSSD would fit in my OS and practically all my applications.

2. If this is possible, would I really get 80% of the benefits of a full SSD at a much cheaper cost? In that case, I would go for the HDD now, and buy and install an mSSD later.

 

I'm pretty sure this isn't possible, although I remember seeing a thread where the OP tried to stack two slim disk drives on-top of each other. As far as I remember it wasn't doable without shaving off the casings which makes it a heavy duty modification.

As far as mSATA for caching I think you may as well get the hybrid which should have a 4GB cache. Doing anything like watching a video, or playing a game would fill up that 32GB cache fairly quickly and you'll end up paging as usual. Day to day operations, 4GB would be enough.

I'd still suggest just shooting for the SSD. I'm awaiting a replacement for my Envy so I've held off on installing my SSD and it feels slow to me. Prices are now reasonable at 1GB < $1, check this article on tomshardware.

 

Best recommendation I'd make would be the following:

* Don't order the SSD from HP. It's $300 of an upgrade to get a 256GB drive and you could easily get a 256GB drive, such as a Samsung PM830, Crucial M4 or other such drive for around $200 when on sale. Both of those drives have been sub-$200 this past week. 128GB drive have been even cheaper, some under $100 at the right times.
* Leave it at the base 750GB 7200RPM non-hybrid drive, and when you get your SATA drive, buy an external enclosure for the 750GB HDD and use that as an external drive. Make your recovery media/USB stick and do a fresh install on the SSD.

 

Thanks for the advice everyone. After much consideration I simply took the 256GB SSD from HP and ordered my Envy. I have two good reasons for this:

1. I'm buying the laptop on a 30% discount coupon... so I paid $175 (and not $250) for that 256 GB SSD, which I think is a decent price.
2. I've never opened up a laptop before, and don't want to start with my expensive Envy 15. I'm generally not good with hardware.

Your comments convinced me to get the SSD, although I chose the slightly more expensive (but for me - safer) route.