The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    What msata ssd for cache?

    Discussion in 'HP' started by Double 0, Jul 29, 2012.

  1. Double 0

    Double 0 Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    72
    Messages:
    85
    Likes Received:
    5
    Trophy Points:
    16
    Hey guys

    Bout to buy a shiny new HP Envy 17 soon, and was caught off guard with the newly added msata slot

    Since I'm adding an Intel 520 ssd (120GB) and theres already a 1TB HDD.. why don't I add a msata drive for cache purposes

    but I'm kinda stumped on what size to buy.. let alone brand.
     
  2. tommytomatoe

    tommytomatoe Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    59
    Messages:
    579
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    31
    Save your money and get bigger SSD. Not enough reason to use cache drive with super fast SSD :)

    Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
     
  3. LTBonham

    LTBonham Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    182
    Messages:
    347
    Likes Received:
    52
    Trophy Points:
    41
    From what I understand, the new Envy 17 does not use the msata for cache (unlike the pavillions), but boot drive. There has been some discussion in the forum about this, you should look around. I plan on eventually getting a msata drive for my envy, but it will be a while otherwise I could tell you for sure.
     
  4. lordbaldric

    lordbaldric Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    2
    Messages:
    203
    Likes Received:
    6
    Trophy Points:
    31
    The Envy doesn't have the proper chipset or bios to set up an msata cache drive.
     
  5. reposed

    reposed Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    38
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Despite the awful website, this looks promising for those stuck with the hm76 chipset:

    http://www.elitebytes.com/Default.aspx
     
  6. JSHidaka

    JSHidaka Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    40
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    What tommy said, in the end mSATA is. Temp solution while you get a SSD.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
     
  7. LTBonham

    LTBonham Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    182
    Messages:
    347
    Likes Received:
    52
    Trophy Points:
    41
    I disagree. With the Envy, the msata can be a decent boot drive (since it is sata 3). I plan on using my mSata with something like the Crucial M4 to use as my boot drive, and then use a couple terabyte drives to provide some massive internal storage. This will hopefully give me great boot speeds AND 2 TB storage in a laptop.