Considering this VAIO

Hi all,
I'm considering this Vaio and wanted to get some feeback from Sony owners:

Sony VAIO T Series Ultrabook 15.5" TouchScreen Laptop 8GB Memory SVT15112CXS - Best Buy

I mostly like the specs. It fits my requirements of:
- 15 inch touchscreen
- 1080 resolution
- Big hard drive

I don't care for:
- 5400 rpm hard drive.

So my questions are:
- I would be using this for work and in my situation that means this will get thrown in a bag every day for travel and be under heavy load for about 9 hours a day, 5 days a week. I've never owned a VAIO, will it hold up?
- I'd like to put a 7,200 rpm hard drive in there, can I upgrade the HD on this model myself? It looks to have one of those hybrid drives with a small SSD cache.

Thanks in advance!

 

I'm a big proponent of using business-class laptops for business use. They are better-built, more durable, and have better support. I would strongly lean towards something like a T530 or 8570p.

 

I'd skip the hybrid drive if I were you and just go with a good-grade SSD. Despite all the technological advances over the past century, a mechanical storage device is still prone to failure. Being a mobile system, you'd want as little physical tear as possible. SSD is thus the way to go if you're looking for durability. Get a good one, like a Samsung. Stay away from the Intel 520's as they are the worst of the lot when it comes to protection against burned out capacitators. Cheap, mass-produced, high performance, low durability - the 520's. The Samsung 840's a really good quality, both capacitators, memory chips and voltage regulators. It also has a low-voltage protection, making it unique in that regards - meaning that stealth EMPs can't knock it out. Its controller is on above par with anything else on the market and is Samsung exclusive. It is better than the Sandforce and the Intel ones, though using the same principle as the one Intel introduced with the 80-series SSDs, though, of course, highly improved. As performance degrades with write cycle usage, Samsung employs a technique called TRIM without using reserve space allocation, which means that all 'fee space' on the Samsung drive is in effect its buffer against write cycle wearing. This makes (note: this is the 840 Pro variant) the drive the most performance degradation resistant consumer ssd (2.5" that is) drive on the market today. Its read and write performance is factory-new over 500MBps read and over 400MBps write. - SATA600 mode.. Using an SSD like this you'll be safe from mechanical failure, low-voltage infusion as well as capacitation degradation, plus the TRIM is the best of the best, consumer market applied. And no, I do not work for Samsung, nor am I a sales rep, just giving you the lowdown that's all.

 

Intel SSD 525 is a good one too. I have recently purchased this from amazon and works like a charm. It uses a custom SF firmware built specifically for this SSD. Hence this has the newer firmware than any of the other SF-22xx SSDs. I must they they have improved on the performance issues which I used to face in my earlier Intel 335 SSD. As a matter of fact, gtk that SF is coming up with their 3rd gen controler soon & newer technology called M.2 drives. Just imagine the situation once these are launched, big bang can be expected in the SSD world and only the main technoholic can survive