Is the mSata really worth it?

Hi Guys,

I have pre-ordered my P170EM/NP9170 and my friend offered to sell me his mSata drive, it's a OCZ Nocti 128Gb for a very nice price; though i think i have spent enough money on my current rig.

I would be using it ONLY as a caching drive for my 500GB storage drive, i don't really believe caching my ssd/boot drive with a sata 2 drive will give me any noticeable performance increases, it actually leads me to believe quite the opposite.

Does anyone have a suggestion whether to buy the mSata drive or not?

 

how nice is the price

 

like jaw-droppingly nice, it's like $230 RRP here, he's selling for $120. Again it's not about price, it's about the value/performance it adds.

EDIT: I don't know why Ebay is more expensive, when retail stores sell them for like $219-$229.

 

They are not sorry.. only if you have money to burn and you need a quick RAID 0 system or just more space. I would wait .. more than a while

 

There was a decent discussion about the benefits of it here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/668031-32gb-msata-ssd.html

 

Thanks for the link heihachi!

 

woah woah woah hold up, fancy cache is using a RAM cache, if I'm not mistaken. that's going to be way faster than even the best SSD you could get on the market nowdays.

 

IMHO, a mSATA ssd is equal to SATA2/3 in many respects. The only issue is the higher price. I'd definitely grab one if I needed an extra storage and had a slot in my lappy.

 

actually you know, thinking about it - just using straight up fancy cache is a cheaper way to get awesome performance. you could have 16 GB for ~$100, or if you use 8GB sticks (pricier) 32GB for... idk I've never looked at it because tbh too much for me.

 

I intend to use mine for storage eventually if/when prices drop.

 

So your main drive is an SSD? That's going to make a big difference in how much effect an mSATA cache drive makes.

 

You sig shows you already have a Crucial M4 drive. I wouldnt get the mSATA unless you plan on dual booting off the HDD as well. But if you were going to dual boot i'd partition the 256GB SSD and go that way.

 

What about using the ssd caching with virtual machines installed on the HDD? Has anyone done that?

 

I ran CrystalDisk while I was watching a movie and just doing other normal browsing and such, but with a 4GB RAM cache. Here's what I got:

This is a 1TB Western Digital AV-25 drive at 5400 RPM running on SATA II. I think these numbers are quite impressive for such a mundane, mechanical drive that was reading an HD movie file the entire time as well.

 

I think movies and music would see the least amount of performance increase? I was thinking more applications and programs that you don't quite use as often so they are placed on a mechanical drive rather than the ssd.

 

No I'm saying the drive was busy when I ran the benchmark. This is a more traditional run, with nothing going but background Windows processes and CrystalDiskMark:


EDIT: This is still a 5400RPM mechanical drive on a SATA II port aided by 4GB of FancyCache-crafted RAM-Cache.

 

Hey guys, im currently running a Seagate Momentus XT with 8gb cache, would I benefit much from installing a msata card? or will the performance be the same as the on board?

 

not sure how the XT's cache would play along with another cache.. but if u have a free hdd slot, spending the mSata money on a good ssd drive and booting off that would be a better choice IMO.

 

I bought the 120GB Mushkin Atlas SATA-3 500mb/s Ready/Write drive for the P150EM. I'll be using it as the main/boot/OS drive.

Will report when the laptop and mSATA arrives. Be using the 750GB XT as the storage/programs drive.

 

You will be doing what I have plan. Smart people think alike!

 

The thing is the optimum configuration is still a sata3 Ssd in the main bay and hdd for storage in the optical. Better and cheaper than using msata. Not that msata is a bad thing, just a bit superfluous, especially with a sata 2 interface.

 

Well, if you have concerns about that, you can try this guide's trick out. Granted, it is difficult to do as you would have to break your standard HDD into multiple partitions, but this could also help. Righthooks Guide to RAID with Solid State Drives and Multi Disk file Management | Trubritar News

To be honest, for those programs you rarely use, I don't think you will miss the access speeds that much.

From my observations on my desktop computer running the OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD and the Seagate Momentus 750GB HDD, most of your programs that are collecting dust on the storage drive won't be the issue. My music and docs are stored on my 750GB along with what games I don't play as often. I really don't notice that much of a difference in load times for those sorts of items.

I have noticed that World of Warcraft loads MUCH faster on the SSD, I didn't really notice until I moved it to the 750.

Given that you have a 256GB Crucial drive, I think you should be just fine with your configuration. Don't sweat the small stuff until you've played with your laptop for a bit.

 

Games with long loading times would benefit mostly only if you use them often i guess, but i can't help but keep sweating the small stuff.

This will be my first laptop and also my largest investment in any computer prior, this blows my budget out the window, already sitting pretty at just under $3500, and I am still looking for a new 95% gamut matte screen and steelseries keyboard upgrade which will edge my laptop to almost the $4000 mark; i don't think the wireless card is a good investment as i will mostly be using a LAN connection with just under 100Mb/s fibre internet connection.

Considering all this the alienware m18x looks very tempting but gtx 680m sli is just too much, it would bring the total to about $5000, will definitely get either the m18x for my next lappy or clevo's dual gpu laptop (if that ever gets released).

 

Will be good to see how the results turn out, currently have the 750gb XT and currently considering the mSATA.

 

I really need to see a video tutorial on installing an HDD in the optical drive caddy. AFAIK I don't even know how to open up the optical drive; only the HDD bay.

 

I'm fairly certain that the ODB Caddy is just a case that slides in the notebook the same way the ODD would if you had a disk drive. You just unscrew whatever's holding the optical drive in and the ODB Caddy will have a connector inside for the hard drive you plug it in and slide the drive back into the machine, everything should be dandy.

I've only seen still images, but I have removed my own optical drive numerous times so I'm pretty sure that's how it works. Don't quote me on it though.

 

You have to open the main drive bay and remove one scew, then push the optical out. It's dead simple.

 

I didnt know about the main drive panel, but I just found this video in the P150EM owner's lounge.

EDIT: From my phone I had to go get the link, here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3tE4_qxG7s&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

I really wish these P150EM came with an mSata slot that is Sata 3. I'll be running a 256GB Crucial M4 as my Main in the Sata 3 slot and a 500GB / 4GB flash Hybrid drive in my ODB. Seems like it should be a pretty clean set up

Later on when mSata is cheap I may throw a 256/500GB mSata in there as 300/mb sec is still quite fast compared to a 7200RPM HDD. Once they are 0.50 per GB I might want one but that could take at least a year.

 

Sequential speeds are quite useless when comparing performance. Random read speeds and access times are much more often the limiting factor, especially in loading the OS. Random speeds have barely saturated sata 150, so don't worry about losing significant real life performance if you do not have sata 600.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

If you do plan on using the msata as a boot drive it will be worlds apart from a a mechanical drive. Other than that I think it has been established now that it is not really worth it.

 

I doubt the mSATA is worth it. I was considering one myself while making my purchase. But Donald@PNB was honest with me and told me the gains given their small size would be minimal at best..

 

can i run the msata drive on a m18x r1 and run my OS off it ?

I hadn't read the post correctly and have ordered a msata ssd and a normal ssd and now i'm worried i wont be able to use the msata ssd

 

If you have a SSD you wont need to mSATA as you wont see much if any increase in speed. It does depend on which drives you ordered but a regular SSD is usually all you'll need.

 

I don't know if it's worth it, but I have one. Check this out:
Intel 510 12GB SSD (SATA3 Port)


Mushkin 240GB mSATA (SATA2 Port)


Seagate 750GB 7200RPM (SATA 3 Port)

 

Or have a little of both words.

I using the Crucial Msata for my OS drive and favorite games. A 750 Seagate Hybrid drive as my steam and space hard drive.

 

I use FancyCache for Read-Only for my Samsung 830 256GB SSD with my 16GB of 1600 RAM, you might not need an mSATA:

With FancyCache/Block Size 16KB/Cache size L1 5120MB/Algorithm LFU-R/Read-Only :




Without FancyCache:

 

Once mSATA runs on sata3 and my other ports are filled with SSD's and it is more cost effective then adding a larger SSD, then - I would consider it. But I highly doubt it would end up being needed in my case as anything extra could just be stored on a external HD, or hopefully eventually I'll get to setting up a server so I can access the data form anywhere.

Otherwise - its just not worth it to me. Though, I am thinking of maxing out my RAM to play with a RAM Cache for grins. It it keeps some write cycles off my SSD's - I think that right there is worth it. Ignoring the insane speed advantage.

 

^^ This.

I have a 256GB sata III drive, and a 128GB mSATA drive (also sata III, but limited by the motherboard). Truth be told, for the OS, the most important factor is IOPS, and my mSATA, overall, has better IOPS than my sata III drive. It's a tiny bit slower in reads, and much much faster on writes.

To keep your specific question in perspective: Should you buy it if you ONLY plan to use it as a cache drive? I'd say no. That being said, I DO think you should buy it, as it's a great price, and it would be a great drive to use for your OS. Basically, you can think of it as NOT having to use any space on your primary drive for your OS, plus your OS drive can be kept nice clean.

My plan is to use the mSATA drive for my OS, and other commonly used applications like iTunes, my virus protection, system tools, etc.

My 256GB drive will be reserved for most games, and then my 1.75tb external (that are always plugged in) are used for such things as movies, tv series, etc. Lesser used applications will be placed dependent on size and purpose.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised at how many people I've noticed on these boards saying "don't use msata it's only meant for this or that..." Truth is, I know not everyone can afford to spend the premium on it, but the justification that they are inferior is pretty silly. Everyone is so focused on this 6gb/s vs. 3gb/s maximum throughput issue. When is that EVER a factor? If you have to copy such a large quantity of large files that you're sitting there and saying "this 3gb/s isn't fast enough", then A) I envy your storage array because it must be HUGE, and B) You aren't deciding whether or not to buy a 128 gb mSATA drive for super cheap.

 

i just got myself a nice monitor for 200 instead. then again i can be patient, and ssd price goes down in time

 

Hackness this program looks awesome. Thanks for the heads up. Is it free? Also, why read only? Is there a reason for that?

 

Yes, CrystalDiskMark should be free, you can download it here CrystalDiskMark - Software - Crystal Dew World

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he has it on read only because a write will be made on the disk/volume anyway, at least that's what it says in the FancyCache User Guide.

 

FancyCache is in beta testing at the moment, free for 180 days, then need to renew it with the new release. And the reason I use read only is because with 1 sec latency on defer write the IOPs bumps up to 200k per second (6600 mb/s write) when using with bench tools, that's 4-5 times more than a SSD does, I think it might affect SSD's life cycle, so I only allowed the cache to be read-only.

 

Just to clarify, is the point of Fancycache to cache on the RAM or just to make the cache on the SSD more efficient?

 

All it does is it creates a cache in your RAM, works as long you have space in RAM you can spare.

 

Right now I'm using Dataram. Does this program do anything differently?

 

I haven't tried RAM disk before but if it doesn't do caching then it's not the same. But if what it does it create a storage in your RAM then you can probably create a RAM disk and place the system pagefile on the RAM disk, might see similar performance.

 

It would not have similar performance. There are specific reasons why someone might want to put the page file on a ram disk, but overall performance is not one of them. It would only increase performance in very rare instances, specifically if a game INSISTS on writing to a disk page file, because windows' normal memory handler automatically uses free space in RAM before it ever touches a page file. Page files are intended to increase the size of your RAM for applications that need more than you have, so simulating it on your RAM ends up futile. I.E. 8gbs of ram plus a 4 gb page file = 12 gb of usable memory for windows, with ram used first, then 4gb page file. 8gb of ram with 4 of it set aside as a ram disk for your page file still only equals 8 gb of usable memory.

That's actually why I was so interested in Fancycache. I'll definitely have to throw that on my system when it comes in. Just one more reason I'm glad i went the extra mile and got 32gb of ram.

 

This is a good read on pagefile on ramdisk

http://www.overclock.net/t/1193401/why-it-is-bad-to-store-the-page-file-on-a-ram-disk



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