How would you build it?......

Well judging by all the info I have been reading about toughbooks here I determined here would be the best place to ask the questions.


I recently bought a Toughbook CF-19 that has no hard drive(fortunatly the caddy was there!)

Also seeing the sigs of some of the people on here who are toughbook fanatics seem to have the best of the best in there TB's.

I would like to know what hard drive would be the best to buy that functions very well with these laptops.

What else would you change from factory on this TB?

I know it comes with WI-fi built in and besides that I am clueless!

Thanks

 

I would stick with the basics... I think the CF-19s are SATA so get a nice 7200 rpm SATA hard drive and install what you can afford.

I'd ad everything in the book... But I do that to all mine...

 

How much Ram would I be able to install into my TB? and whici one would you recommend?

Also I was looking at the seagate 500GB hard drive 7200rpm, would that be a good choice?

THanks,

 

You can install 4GB of Ram. I would recommend Kingston Hyper X (very Fast Ram).

But the best way to increase perfomance is to install a SSD Drive. The SSD Drive will hands down provide you with the most noticable difference. I currently have a 80GB Intel X25-M Generation 2 MLC SSD drive with TRIM, and it is fast (purchased for 200 bucks). You can find Kingston rebranded versions of the Intel X25-M for about 20-40 bucks less.

If you want faster SSD Drives, Crucial makes MLC SSD drives with 220MB/s Read and 200 MB/s writes, but that will cost you.

 

If you want REALLY fast, suck it up and buy an Intel Intel X25-E series or OCZ Agility EX Series SLC SSD; They cost twice as much for half the space, but there's a reason people who know are still willing to pay it...

mnem
Dammit, now I don't have time to get a cup of coffee while my PC reboots anymore... heck, I don't even have time for coff...

 

I'll second the SSD recommendation, to me this makes my CF-19 seem way faster than a machine with a higher CPU and a conventinal drive.

As for the RAM, h3lpmedic is right, you can put in 4GB. The exact type depends on what generation your CF-19 is, though. Also, the second memory slot is not accessible from the outside. You will have to remove the bottom and fiddle around with some fragile tiny plastic connectors to reach the slot - just something to keep in mind, depending on how comfortable you are with that kind of thing.

 

how would one know what generation Toughbook they have?

honestly, I am the type of person who only likes to buy once, so I normally just try to get the best I can. This computer will be used for tuning vehicles and hardley anything else.

 

Damn, I dont get it! that Intel X25-E cost 719 for 64GB. So this is basically a hard drive but SSD(solid state drive) which is better why?

 

You can look at the model number, which you can find on a sticker on the bottom, or in the DMI Viewer utility under "General Information", which is usually installed on Toughbooks I believe. It should look something like this: CF-19FHGCXAM - that's what mine says. The first letter after the "9" tells you what generation it is: C/D/E = Mk1, F/G/H = Mk2, K/L/M = Mk3. So mine is a Mk2.

It is significantly faster at reading and writing data, as it does not have to move around a read/write-head and wait for a disk to spin in position like a regular hard drive does. It is also more robust against physical shocks, having no moving parts (of course, the Toughbooks already has a degree of protection here by packing the drive in foam).

 

The prices of some of those SSD are ridiculous. So would I be okay with the Intel X-25M with trim 80GB?

 

The X25-M is great. That is what is currently in my computer right now. It's faster than any Plater type HDD's in the consumer market. Boot up times are wicked fast. Program loading=fast. Great drive the only con is the drive size, but in my case I dont care about that since I can carry a regular external HDD drive with less important info on it. While most people are waiting for their computers to load I am already working (or done working in some cases).

 

Kingston drives are a little cheaper and will offer TRIM support for W7 soon. I believe that it is just a firmware update to get that function going.

 

sounds good, you would happen to know the exact model of you SSD would you?

 

Intel X25-M
Model: SSDSA2M080 G2XX (the two "XX" at the end could be any combination of letters and numbers)

Note*: Make sure its a Generation 2 or higher if you want TRIM support for windows 7. You can tell if it is a Gen 2 by looking at the 11th and 12th letter/digit of the model number (G2=Generation 2).

I bought mine from Newegg less than a month ago for less than $200 after rebate (still waiting for the rebate...).

Note 2*: KINGSTON Model# SNM225-S2/80GB is an INTEL X25-M SSD with a kingston sticker on it (the two companies have some sort of agreement to do this) It cost about the same with the only difference is you can find it bundled with a USB harddrive enclosure which makes cloning your original HDD easier and giving your old HDD a useful purpose as a external drive. If I knew then what I know now I would have bought the kingston instead. http://www.kingston.com/ssd/m-series.asp

There is a temporary con to the Kingston, and that is they do not yet have a TRIM firmware update. Their web site says that they expect it out by the end of the month.

Note 3*: When using SSD as the primary BOOT Drive you must ensure proper OFFSET/PARTITION ALIGNMENT
If you do fresh installs of vista or windows 7 you will be find since all those things are taken cared of automatically.
If you are cloning you HDD to SSD or installing XP then you will need to manually set the OFFSET.

I dont want to go too much detail into OFFSET/PARTITION ALIGNMENT. All of the stuff I think you should do a little more research before you make the jump to SSD is BOLDED BLACK.

If you want to know the basics of SSD and How TRIM works go here: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3667