Wanted some information on W520?

To make a long story short, I'm making a change in a school plans to become a machinist specializing in CNC programming. I'm going to have to learn how to get around software such as Solidworks, and that means I'm going to need a machine with a pro GPU that's up to the task. The W520 instantly came to mind, but I've got some questions about it first. My major requirements are that it must have the FHD display and the Quadro 2000M. Bumping up to a W530 comes to mind, but I much prefer the classic keyboard layout and unless there's a massive performance differential between the two I am compelled to stick with what I know. This isn't going to be an immediate purchase but I'm still preparing myself with getting as much information about this beast as I can.

Firstly, I need it to play nicely(I'll be picking up a Series 3 dock) with at least three external monitors(my two current 1920x1080 panels as well as my good 'ol 1600x1200 IPS display). It looks like it's up to the task; will it be? Another concern is my sound system. Currently with my Asus G73, I'm hooked up via HDMI to an external home theater receiver running a very nice 5.1 surround sound setup. I've heard these newer DisplayPort revisions will carry sound; will I be able to pick up an adapter that'll convert to HDMI?

Also, lots of storage is another concern. I'll likely be(at least eventually) using a 256Gb mSATA SSD as a boot drive and one of my existing SSDs(a Samsung PM800 256GB FDE or an Intel X25M G1 160GB) to store applications and games. I may also pick up an ExpressCard SSD for another 128GB of space, but that's further down the line. As I really don't use an optical drive that often I'd like to pick up an Ultrabay caddy. I recall these are 12.5mm and will as such take one of the larger 1TB notebook drives? Are there any larger ones available, or any faster spindle speeds than 5400RPM? And, will all this play nice with each other?

 

* I would seriously consider the W530 for current-generation technologies. (You can CTO a W530 from Lenovo for less money than a "similarly configured" TopSeller W520 from a reseller. Unless you happen to find a mint, docked on desk, year-old W520 for a nice price.)

* You don't interact with Solidworks and the likes by typing pages after pages, why worry about the keyboard?

* A 2.5" 256GB SATA SSD in the main bay plus a 2.5" 1TB SATA HDD in the UltraBay caddy adapter would be awesome enough. Note that the two SATA 6 Gbit/s ports are assigned to the main bay and the UltraBay, and the SATA 3 Gbit/s port is assigned to the mSATA/WWAN slot.

 

Interesting observations. I'm also a hobbyist-level writer and editor so keyboard and layout is extremely important to me. I don't have many misgivings about the island-style keys as I've heard the feedback is still top-notch, but admittedly having the page up/down keys next to the navigation arrows is a huge nitpick of mine. It is kind of a tossup, as I did find a nice new in box W520 with the configuration I want for about $1600 off of the Feebay, whereas a similarly equipped W530 is only about $100 more. Are there any more advantages to the W530 other than a faster CPU and GPU?

 

As I said, if you happen to find a mint, docked on desk, year-old W520 for a nice price, go for it. ($100 less for last year's product is not very attractive.)

Side note: if every requirement is "extremely important," it's hard to set priorities, isn't it?