np8130 ssd help!

Soon I will be ordering my np8130 and I was wondering if it would be better to get the 500gb hybrid drive with 4 gb of ssd or just go with a 80gb ssd. 80gb may seem like little but I have an external drive for all my games music etc. I'm planning only on running the OS and important apps from he ssd. with 4gb be enough to hold anything? thanks for the help!

 

Are you going to run the games from the external drive?

That will run on USB 2.0 Bandwidth speeds.

Unless it is a USB 3.0 enclosure, I wouldn't want to run anything in that speed.

 

Ok so which one would you prefer? and why?

 

Unless you get at least 128GB+ of a SSD to install your games, apps, etc..

For a single drive, I recommend getting the Hybrid Drive.

When the sata controller gets a fix, then you can use a optical bay caddy to run a data drive, and its then when you should get a 80GB SSD + HDD to complement as your data drive.

 

With only 4gb of ssd will I still get all the benefits such as faster startup and load times?

 

USB 3.0 enclosures are like $50 now so thats an option too...

 

Sorry for being a noob but what is an enclosure?

 

enclosure is like an external drive casing that you can put your hard drive into and connect to the laptop via Firewire, USB, or eSATA.

The momentus XT w/ 4GB SSD will help you with your boot time and load times, but only for those that you often execute, as it "smart-caches" your most used items and loads them onto the SSD portion. You can't expect much out of a $100 500GB Hybrid, but it is better than a traditional HDD.

 

What advantage does the enclosure give you? What practical uses does it have?

 

Just for info.

The hybrid drive doesn't use the 4GB SSD physically; what I mean is, the most used games, apps and programs automatically gets cached inside the 4GB SSD of the hybrid, then uses this advantage to load these programs faster. Other data will be loaded from the platter of the HDD.

You don't see the 4GB as a separate drive; you'll only see the 500GB HDD in your OS. If you defragment your drive or reformat it, the cache gets deleted and you have to make the Hybrid "learn" again.

Windows essentially gets loaded in memory to begin with anyway because of the frequent startups you do. If you're short on cash or needed more space and faster load times vs other HDDs, then the hybrid drive is for you. If you just really want speed, overpowering the HDDs, then go for the SSD.

I personally want both , and have bought both infact haha.

 

Wow cool, since you have both, are the hybrid drives load times equivalent to the ssd's?

 

No, because if you open the Hybrid up, there's a lower amount of NAND memory (where the data is kept) in comparison to the SSD. HOWEVER though, it is still WAY faster than HDDs, maybe as fast or faster than 10K RPM drives out there.

It still takes time for the hybrid to learn your usage patterns as well. I won't suggest this because it might look stupid but, install your OS without anything else, then reboot like 20 times or something to get it to learn that the OS is the most frequent used item haha.

The point being, it won't be as fast as an SSD but it is definitely faster than hard drives; the difference however is not by a big margin between SSD and the hybrid (NAND memory), but the HDD part of the hybrid will still retain as the slower neighbour. SSDs will still be faster because the whole drive is NAND so basically EVERY program you have in the SSD will run in insane speeds.

 

Ok thanks alot, this may be the hardest decision ever XD. I think I might stick with the 80gb ssd... dam I'm not sure.... anyway thanks for the help

 

Enclosure is just like any external hard drive. It just to allow you to use any hard drive you want and connect it your computer for ease of use through existing external ports. Many people who upgrade from hard drive to SSD who only have a single hard drive bay, put the hard drive in an enclosure for backups or additional storage.

 

O ok I see, so it only useful if you have a hard drive thats not already an external hard drive. I get it ^^ thanks

 

I have been thinking of changing my Hybrid hard drive for a 68 or 80gb SSD, and replacing the optical bay with a 320gb HDD.

I have a question though. I have an external USB powered blu-ray player... Will this work normally if I plug it in? Or will I have to install something to make the drive work? (on a laptop that the optical bay is removed)

 

Nah it works automatically. I have a USB Samsung DVDRW that plugs and play. Most external disc drives are plug and play nowadays

 

ok, the enclosure topic is something I've been looking into also...

my laptop just broke recently, my guy told my mainboard and lcd are done, so I definitely wanna use my old HDD (SATA) as an external HDD via USB.

I was looking into the following product ( Newegg.com - BYTECC ME-535U3 Aluminum 5.25" & 3.5" Black USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Enclosure For SATA HDD/DVD), but the description right there confuses me a little bit.

Is this sort of a multi-all-in-one-enclosure? meaning, I can use this with an HDD or optical drive? not at the same time, of course..

Also, can I enjoy USB3.0 speed with such an old HDD, or doesn't it matter but only depends on the type of enclosure I have?


EDIT: one more thing, I guess it is kind of important to have a case that comes with an AC adapter.. but, do those depend on the adapter or can be operated also without?


thanks in advance..
cheers..

 

That's a 5.25" enclosure that requires external AC power, and will accommodate a desktop optical drive or 3.5" HDD, probably 2.5" HDD if you get an adapter.

For an HDD, what you want is more like this (fits 9.5mm thick drives only): Newegg.com - KINGWIN ATK-25U3-BK Aluminum 2.5" Black USB 3.0 External Enclosure

They also have enclsoures for laptop optical drives: http://www.amazon.com/External-Enclosure-Connetor-Notebook-included/dp/B00274HQY0

 

ok, so that means, I would need two enclosures for HDD and optical drive each?

also, I can use USB3.0 as long as the enclosure supports it?

thanks

 

EDIT: wrong topic, sorry for bump.