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    intel msata ssd 310: now or later?

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by intergalactic, Apr 14, 2011.

  1. intergalactic

    intergalactic Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi,

    Just pulled the trigger on a W520 and trying to figure out if I should get the 310 now or wait till something else comes out. I don't need the ssd all that urgently... would hold out if there are going to be more msata solutions around the corner. that said, i know intel only just released their 310 - how long before other makers start putting out their msata solutions?

    thanks much
     
    intergalactic, Apr 14, 2011
    #1
  2. dan h

    dan h Notebook Geek

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    I saw somewhere on the web a timeline for intel's upcoming release of new products and there is a new msata ssd coming this year. I forget if it was called 315 or so.
     
    dan h, Apr 14, 2011
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  3. jschwartzbeck

    jschwartzbeck Notebook Enthusiast

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    Debating the same thing. My thinkpad won't arrive till the end of the month so I've got some time.

    mSATA + HDD seemed like a cool combination since you don't have to drop your optical drive for an extra harddrive. But I haven't been able to justify the roughly $200 price tag for an 80GB drive plus another 50-60 for a HDD.

    I'm thinking I'd rather spend the ~$270 on a 120gb vertex 3 and get the huge performance boost and 50% storage increase... then maybe buy an ultra bay adapter down the road if storage space becomes an issue.
     
    jschwartzbeck, Apr 14, 2011
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  4. Thors.Hammer

    Thors.Hammer Notebook Enthusiast

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    I think mSATA would be more attractive to a lot of people if the drive capacity was north of 80GB. The speeds aren't terrible when compared to a standard 5400rpm hard drive many people are used to. Comparing it to the top of the line SSD on the market is different.

    Then there's the price.
     
    Thors.Hammer, Apr 14, 2011
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  5. vinuneuro

    vinuneuro Notebook Virtuoso

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    I'm interested in this as well. What I'd like is a faster a 40gb. That size is enough for me as an OS drive, but the 310 40gb is way too slow on random write. If a faster 40gb msata ssd is released later on I'd rather wait for that than spend $175 on the 310 80gb.
     
    vinuneuro, Apr 14, 2011
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  6. hrana

    hrana Notebook Evangelist

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    I've read various reports online that a 40GB mSATA SSD won't allow the W520 restore process to work because it takes up almost 60-70gigs of space with all the recovery partitions and various stuff that is installed. Therefore the 80GB mSATA SSD is necessary if you don't want to do a manual reinstall and post-restore clean-up. Can anyone confirm? The 80GB mSATA's performance is fine. If people really want to go all out then they can always run 2 Intel 510 SSDs in RAID 0 in addition to a mSATA boot device.
     
    hrana, Apr 14, 2011
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  7. intergalactic

    intergalactic Notebook Enthusiast

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    reading elsewhere, windows 7 install is supposed to take up ~16GB... why does the W520 restore process take up so much space?
     
    intergalactic, Apr 14, 2011
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