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    mSATA

    Discussion in 'Sager and Clevo' started by dukesucks, Jan 16, 2013.

  1. dukesucks

    dukesucks Notebook Enthusiast

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    I have a NP9150 and an empty mSATA slot. My computer has the old 7200 rpm disk type hard drive not the solid state hard drive. Is there any advantage for me to plop in some memory to my mSATA? RAID and AHCI seem to be over my head, but if I'm not mistaken you need a solid state drive for these to work. Is this true?
     
    dukesucks, Jan 16, 2013
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  2. Invincible10001

    Invincible10001 Notebook Consultant

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    mSATA -> mSATA SSD. There's huge advantages to "plop" some mSATA memory in that slot.
    1. OS Drive: Boot into Windows in 8-10 seconds.
    2. Cache Drive: Improve access speeds for stuff on your 7,200 RPM drive
    3. Fast Loading: Just save most frequently accessed programs & games on it for fast loading times.

    If you think you can benefit from any of the above, get one.
    It's as easy as plug & play. You don't need a lot of technical background to just get it to work.
    You will need to open up your laptop though. (There's videos around to show you how)

    Also, I think you might've posted in the wrong forum. Post here: NBR SSD/Flash Storage Sub-Forum
     
    Invincible10001, Jan 16, 2013
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  3. Support.3@XOTIC PC

    Support.3@XOTIC PC Company Representative

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    Your best bet would be to set it up as a cache drive so you wont have to install everything you already have on your HDD. But if you do set up it as a boot drive you will see slightly faster overall performance for read/write including boot time like Invincible10001 mentioned.
     
    Support.3@XOTIC PC, Jan 17, 2013
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  4. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Also reading your post just be aware that you treat an msata drive like any other ssd in its own right.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Jan 17, 2013
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  5. fatih64

    fatih64 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Don't buy anything below 120GB and clean your temp etc files. SSD's run out of space very quickly.
     
    fatih64, Jan 17, 2013
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  6. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Unless you want to use it as a caching drive, intel wont let you use a larger than 64GB drive.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Jan 17, 2013
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  7. 0xsergy

    0xsergy Notebook Geek

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    Not sure if it would be that quick. I've got an Samsung 840 pro(256gb) in a Sata3 port(mSATA is sata2) and I have a 10 second boot time(not including BIOS)(including login, etc).

    Personally if you were going for a boot drive I would go for a full SSD for the Sata3 capabilities.
     
    0xsergy, Jan 17, 2013
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  8. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Meaker@Sager, Jan 17, 2013
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  9. dukesucks

    dukesucks Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks for the helpful information. This leads me to ask a couple follow up questions. If I wanted to run SC2 on the mSATA, that would mean I would also have to reinstall the OS there as well. Is this correct? If I wanted to run the mSATA as a big cache, what would I have to do to set that up, program wise, I'm fine with plugging memory into my machine?
     
    dukesucks, Jan 17, 2013
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  10. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Meaker@Sager, Jan 17, 2013
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  11. 0xsergy

    0xsergy Notebook Geek

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    Ah, but that's Windows 8 which based on all benchmark I've seen has considerably faster boots than 7(I'm still on 7 because of 8s poor cpu optimization abilities).
     
    0xsergy, Jan 17, 2013
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  12. Invincible10001

    Invincible10001 Notebook Consultant

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    I agree with you on that. I'm running Windows 8 x64 UEFI. So I get to the desktop in just about 10 seconds.
     
    Invincible10001, Jan 17, 2013
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  13. 0xsergy

    0xsergy Notebook Geek

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    NP9170 supports UEFI? Is it on the stock, unmodified, bios or are they custom ones? I've been wanting to try formatting and installing W7 in EUFI mode just because of the increased startup speed but I've looked around and haven't found information on if the NP9170 supports UEFI. Also, you installed using GPT, correct?
     
    0xsergy, Jan 17, 2013
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  14. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    The easiest way is to do a clean install UEFI booting the install DVD/USB stick.

    Be aware that the downloadable DVD from the upgrade assistant is broken and does not have UEFI boot options and you need to fix the ISO.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Jan 17, 2013
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  15. 0xsergy

    0xsergy Notebook Geek

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    I've tried following this( Installing Windows 7 in native EFI mode from USB - bit-tech.net Forums) guide but each time I boot in it claims that it's running in bios mode. I copied the files as stated, it's a fat32 format, etc, so i'm out of ideas.
     
    0xsergy, Jan 17, 2013
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  16. Invincible10001

    Invincible10001 Notebook Consultant

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    Yes, the NP9170 supports UEFI. Yes, installed using GPT. Look a few pages back, you'll see threads on UEFI & Windows 8 & Windows 7..
     
    Invincible10001, Jan 17, 2013
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  17. 0xsergy

    0xsergy Notebook Geek

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    I can only get the USB to detect as a UEFI device if I set OS to Windows 8. Has anyone else successfully got UEFI on Win 7?
     
    0xsergy, Jan 17, 2013
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  18. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    What do you mean by set the OS to windows 8?
     
    Meaker@Sager, Jan 17, 2013
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  19. 0xsergy

    0xsergy Notebook Geek

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    0xsergy, Jan 17, 2013
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