New Z model with Intel Core i5 CPU

Amen emev!

*laugh*
I reckon we both want the same kind of Z.

I am aware that there isn't any 13.3" full HD screens out there.
But there ain't another thing like the Z either.

I have been selling the Z to so many people who've seen my machine. This is an absolute portable monster...

1) Super light. I can't think of any other design/brand at this weight to power ratio.
2) DVD burner. A lot of them shave 200 to 300 grams by omitting the DVD ROM. Only Sony has the intelligence to ensure it's still around.
3) Looks really good. I know I'm going to be hit by a lot of Apple fans here but the VAIOs look way better than the Macs to me. And it shows...after all, Apple copied the keyboard design of VAIOs on their macbooks.

The Z, to me, is the most wonderful product ever designed by Sony. I'm surprised that they even managed to do so since I was so sure Sony was on the way to bankcruptcy given their screw ups in the last 5 years.

 

The most straight-forward way is to physically disconnect the one of the two "sandwiches", create the RAID set and then connect the other sandwich.

 

Do you really burn DVDs so often that the need couldn't be met by an external USB DVD drive? And not for something that would be easier and faster to do over the network or to an external HD?

 

Nope. But they always come up to the rescue where you least expect it, and most require it.

I am a business user...and also a crazy computer geek too.

Many a time when I'm on a business trip in somewhere and we suddenly need information to be copied to others...people would suprisingly pull out a CD/DVD for me to copy data into.
That...or they would have some presentation videa burnt onto a CD/DVD for me to view/play.

Imagine requesting for an external DVD ROM during those kinda situations.

Also, I find that I'm still using CDs and DVDs to do a lot of installs.

If I had an external solution, the whole thing would weigh at least 600 grams more if you really push it and that's just silly considering how Sony did such a beautiful job of having it embedded in the Z. The Z is a wonderful machine like I was saying...I couldn't believe it when it was first launched and I still love it right now.

Not that everyone needs one of course...but I'm just sharing a reason as to why I'm still so much in love with the Z series. It's so light, powerful and portable WITH a DVD burner in it.

Amazing...

 

I do have to point out that the internal DVD burner in the Z isn't a particularly good reader.

When I'm in my own house and I'm having troubles reading a music disc into iTunes or something, the problem is usually solved by plugging my external burner into the Z. There are some irritating game software which has the same problem especially if they have some moronic copy protection embedded on the disc. [Gosh, if I really wanted to pirate your stuff, wouldn't I just download it off the net? You're like, punishing the very people who are supporting your software]

The whole external drive weighs a mega 800 - 900 grams though and it's HUGE. *laugh* I wouldn't consider bringing it with me on any of my work trips.

 

It's very difficult to format violas. The best you can do is replace the bridge and strings, and re-resin the pegs.

Your SSD, on the other hand, you can wipe with a special tool -- if the drive supports it, and the controller isn't in ACHI or RAID mode.

Um, no, the impact of an SSD that hits saturation point tends to be far worse than a HD that's heavily defragmented. That the average[*] speed remains faster than a HD is rather irrelevant when the random write speed hits the wall. Latencies of a second or more for every single tiny write can quickly stall normal use. Like web browsing, where you load and cache 50 web page elements within a second, as well as history entries for all of them. If you were to wait 50+ seconds for that, you'd curse the browser (as, indeed, many SSD users did with Firefox, incorrectly blaming the browser). Or opening a window and Windows generating thumbnails. Or simply the day-to-day housekeeping that runs in the background.
The symptom is that things stall. Unfortunately, the OS or application is almost always blamed. Few people know enough to see the correlation with random write speed latencies.


[*]: When reading benchmarks, if they only show averages, discard the whole benchmark as irrelevant. What you want to see are the worst case timings for all types of operations. Cause those are the ones that will hurt you. Especially for random writes, where on a saturated drive, the worst case becomes the average.

 

Um, no, with RAID 1, you would have the following options:

RAID 1 on 4 drives: 4*64 = 64.
RAID 1 on 3 drives + spare: 3*64 = 64
RAID 1 on 3 drives + single: 3*64 = 64 & 64
RAID 1 on 2 drives times two: 2*64 + 2*64 = 64 & 64
RAID 1 on 2 drives + 2 spares: 2*64 = 64
RAID 1 on 2 drives + 2 singles: 2*64 = 64 & 64 & 64
RAID 1 on 2 drives + RAID 0: 2*64 + 2*64 = 64 & 128

Very easy, but you'll lose all the data (except for switching in and out spares, or replacing a member of a RAID 1/10/5 array)

 

Companies adopt one another's innovations all the time. Praising Sony for the keyboard design that "Apple copied" sounds especially arrogant to those of us that have been tapping our toes for a year and half waiting for Sony to finally get around to ripping off Fruit's keyboard backlight -- a surprisingly useful feature that even Dell and a handful of trashy "consumer" grade Best Buy laptops have had the good sense to borrow.

Playing brand favorites is a great way to spend too much money, to get less than you need, or both. For me, the champion of the 13-inch space came very objectively down to whether Apple could offer a reasonable display resolution on the MacBook Pro, or Sony could light up the Z's keyboard. Since Sony delivered, the Z is the machine to beat. I just don't know if I can reconcile the pricetag with its single (for me) perk.

I still just don't see the Z as a viable purchase in this field of competitors if you're not dying for a high-rez 13-inch screen (and man, it's a tough justification even when you are). The Z's weight advantage is borderline-legitimate, but you can find lower-rez choices with a DVD burner and similar performance at much lower prices in the Studio XPS 13, the Latitude E4300, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Granted, we still have to wait for those systems to get their 2010 Core i5/i7 refreshes.

Given that the Z starts at 1900 bucks, I'd say we're looking at about a $700 premium for the display, the weirdo proprietary SSD, the ~1-1.5 pound weight difference, the aesthetics, and the brand name.

I wish Sony routinely slashed 50% off the price of their refurbs like Dell does with Latitudes, heh.

 

Piece of advice Arth, in international forums steer clear of playing with words, you never know when the other party will feel insulted just because they don't get the joke as their language happens to be something other than English...

uhm... looking at the existing (old) Z, the option to switch ACHI on/off is locked out of the bios so only with a hack we can access it.
I have a nagging feeling Sony's made it harder this time 'round.

Oh, and good point about the min-max and averages of benchmarks.

A neat solution would be to have two Raid 0 sets and only use one.
Once it saturates you image the entire set over to the other and keep working in 20-30 minutes time and then you have all the time it takes for the second RAID set to saturate to wipe the first one.
That sounds like the best solution for someone going for the 4x128GB = 512GB model like I will.
But for the 4x64GB = 256GB model it would work only if you don't mind there being only 128GB available for you to use.

 

There are a couple of ways to achieve that:

1: Use drive spanning. With "dynamic" disks, you can "Extend" them in Windows, meaning that they'll look like a single drive for practical purposes. This will give you the flaws of RAID 0, but not the advantages, so I wouldn't really recommend it unless you run out of disk space and have to extend a drive's space.

2: Instead of drive letter mounts, you can mount the drives to a path on your system drive (which is pretty much what Unix users always have done). The big downside is that Windows will only let you initially set this up for empty folders, so you can't do it for C:\Windows or C:\Program Files. But a common usage for this is your user folder. Log in as Administrator, move all the files from C:\Users\yourname to the external drive, then set the drive to mount at C:\Users\yourname (and remove the drive letter). A benefit is that if your system drive crashes, you still have all your documents and work.

 

But "voila" is French and "viola" is Italian, n'est-ce pas?

In that case, I'd rather use a RAID 10, and every now and then take a single drive out of the array, wipe it, put it back and let the array rebuild.

 

I for one would quite happily say bye-bye forever to the optical drive and VGA port. Anyone else?

 

Well, us Canadians finally have a pre-order page on sonystyle.ca... for the z112gds. Specs are:

i5-520 processor
4gig ram
1600x900 display
128gig SSD
Windows 7 Professional

All for $1999. No CTO option as yet.

-Peter

 

The VGA port is useful for business use - almost every projector in any office will support VGA and have a VGA cable available.

 

Bizarre - I just refreshed the page, and it disappeared. Hmmmm...hopefully they're putting up a CTO page...

-Peter

 

I thought of that, and you may be right as that provides an instant always available mirror... but.
But you have to wipe all drives involved to be back up and running at full speed.
In my solution you can postpone the wiping until you have the time to do it. ie: during the system's downtime.

Aaaah, all this talk about wiping and I can't help but quote Madagascar's King Julian. "Who wipes?"

So, yeah about the VGA port, the target user base for this laptop is business people. As such it is almost compulsory to have some means to connect to pretty much any possible presentation display with the least possible need of any adapters. Only solution? Legacy.

Now I'd rather have a dual link DVI in place of both the HDMI and the VGA port but that is for my VERY SPECIFIC needs.
I highly doubt Sony or any other manufacturer for that matter could make such a light laptop yet keep it modular enough to provide an infinite number of configurations to cater for every need.

 

*laugh*

I'm only a Sony fan because they keep making the only machines which satisfy what I need really. I'm not here to criticise Apple. Just like how Sony copying Apple's backlit keyboard is considered a tip of the hat to the fruit, I think it's very healthy to see it as how Apple has concluded that Sony has a winner in their hands for the keyboard. Competition is key to how everything improves. If you've looked at the other posts, you'd see me beating Sony to a dead beat over the numerous problems they have. [And I have enough of those VAIOs to show that it's universal...]

Honestly though, I have seen far more derisive remarks about how Sony compied Apple for the keyboard design when it was the other way round. Now that irks me...

Also...the premium for the weight is justified if weight is an issue to you and it is a big one to me. I've been searching high and low for a notebook of below 3 pounds in weight with similar characteristics and the only one around when the Z came out was the Dell. I simply preferred the design of Sony.

And how is the premium anything called expensive? Apples are 4 pounds in weight which is over a pound or pound and a half heavier. If you take that into percentage, we're talking about one and half a Sony Z. That makes a huge difference to me. I give a lot of respect for companies capable of shaving anything off without sacrificing performance in the low weight area.

It's similar to super cars...On 0 - 100km/h, you can get easy drops of 15 seconds to 12 seconds. But once you hit the 4 seconds and below territory, 0.1 second is a huge improvement.

I'm not here to convince anyone here not to buy Apples though. It's an Apples and Orange comparison.

I normally advice a person who doesn't use as many win32 apps as I do to look into the fruit. That something isn't for me will not stop me from suggesting that it's a better fit for someone else.

I love the iPhone. I have 3 of them myself. I couldn't "hate" Apple. *laugh*

 

I know there's a Z posted at the U of C Micro Store website for a little over $2000. I am not sure if that's the exact same configuration as Sonystyle's.

 

Yeah, this is almost the same issue as "Who burns DVDs anymore?"
I certainly don't...but I'm amazed at how many people in the world don't follow up technology like I do. *laugh*

I'd love dual DVI too...the blazing graphics card is just CRYING out loud for it.

Imagine 1366 res with two HDMI output for me to chuck 24" FullHD screens.

Perfect.

But just like you nutman, it's very specific for my own use and I wouldn't want it to be imposed on anyone else here.

 

*laugh*
You caught me with that typo.

But coming back to the topic, are you referring to the wiper tool by indilinx?
Doesn't that still basically require an SSD with TRIM? [Which further suggests that you should stay far away from one without TRIM and I'm basically screwed for my current VAIO TZ SSD]

You've convinced me further that if they don't have TRIM on these SSDs, you'd be paying premium for lemons. I didn't have stuttering issues on my TZ...it was just soooooo slow everything moved like a tortoise you wouldn't know the SSD was stuttering.

 

Yeah, looks like they are the same model number, though the UofC price was slightly higher (2033 vs 1999)

-Peter

 

My understanding from Arth1 comment is, you you get only 64 (not 128) out of RAID 1 configuration. Please correct me if I'm wrong

 

Ok, I must have missed something here. Why is random write speed affected more than sequential writes when the TRIM wall has been reached? (As I understand it, when all blocks have been written to once.)

Magnus

 

Optical drive, happily do away with (and did, with my order). VGA port, still want. It's still the standard port that's always available. Not every display out there has an HDMI port yet.

Personally, I would LOVE to have a RS-232 port on the Z.

 

I still use my TZ, with the 4200rpm HDD... I bet yours runs like a Ferrari compared to mine, LOL...

 

Because the drive can only erase larger blocks (a.k.a. sectors) at a time, usually 128-512 kB, depending on the drive.

Say you want to write 32 single 4kB blocks of data (random write access):
For each of the blocks, if the drive doesn't see any free sectors, it will need to free one. So it reads the 128 kB surrounding the data you want to write, writes it to a special temporary part of the drive along with your new data, then erases the sector it really wants the data to go to, then writes the entire 128 kB back. Repeat for the next 31 blocks.

But say you want to write a single 128 kB block of data (sequential write access). Then you only have to do the expensive copy-erase-write operation twice (the data is likely to span two blocks, since the data is unlikely to be aligned to a 128 kB boundary), not 32 times.

If the penalty for a copy-erase-write operation is 1 s, the first operation will then take more than 32 seconds, while the second operation will take a little over two, even though in both cases you write 128 kB of data.

For larger writes, the penalty becomes less, relatively speaking, because all the sectors except the starting and ending block will always be aligned and take just one penalty hit. Sure, it will still be a noticeable performance hit, but not compared to the horrific performance for random writes.

 

Ok.

Has anyone heard anything about this nCache thingy mentioned in:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/06/sandisk-ncache-ssds-subsector-remap-remapped.ars

Was that a viable solution or did it hit some other wall down the road? Perhaps Samsung has a similar solution in the Z drives? Questions, questions... The irritating thing is that no Sony tech will answer, unless they in 6 months time come up with a solution, in which case it will be advertised as an improvement, not a solution to a real problem.

 

Sorry if this has been addressed in the past few days - but when will these actually start showing up, for those of you who have ordered?

 

Without a bluray burner optical drive, built-in, I would not even look at a product like the Z.

Isn't that the whole point of the Z, and one of the primary reason for the big bucks they charge for it ? That you get literally a desktop replacement machine, including a built-in optical drive, in a 13" form-factor that weighs in at 3 lbs ? There are tons of "small looking" laptops available, with a bevy of extra-add-ons, including optical drive and a variety of other mish-mash devices that don't come built-in into the product.....I have carried those along in the past and have absolutely no intention to go back and do that again.

 

Thanks for the fix on my post, Arth. Youll have to excuse me as this whole couple weeks is the first time Ive ever heard of Raid or really anything to do with the indepth of SSDs. Work in progress!


Still havnt answered as to what you are going to do. Then again whos to say youre even buying the Z at all? But if youre not, then ill change the question to what would you do?

 

I second this as well. And on a separate note, I really am disappointed Sony is limiting the new Z to SSD only if we want our built in Blu ray ?

 

Haha, I was actually just thinking about asking arth1 that as well.

 

I have a much easier solution (for me at least). As the Z has SD/MS card readers, I will have a SD card always inside to copy all my important files (photos, psds, autocad dwgs, 3dsmax files, etc), so if something is lost from the SSDs in a data corruption, it will be only some re-downloadable stuff.

That way, I could use all the SSDs in RAID 0 without any concerns.

The only problem for me is to find a software to automatically sync files with the SD card (maybe something like the briefcases in windows but with auto-update?)

 

Thats basically what ive always done. My HDD has failed on me and ive lost all my data 4 times in all in my lifetime. Wasnt life crushing..Im nothing important and even the documents that ARE important ive always had backups on a USB or SD card.

Now with that said, whats your solution for the degradation issues that will be catastrophic due to lack of TRIM support?

 

I just talked to a Canada Sony rep (again). He said there will be 2 pre-configured models, and then the customizable options will be available to order next week on Monday (March 8th). He estimated that these should arrive March 16-19th.

Just keep in mind that he stressed this is all tentative, there could be delays, however this is the information he has been provided.

 

Actually I would have been okay with the SSD-only approach in the new-Z, if it was a standard fast SSD with TRIM support, instead of going with a RAID 0 approach. Even if there was an HDD option (in lieu of the SSD, like in the previous Z), I would simply replace it with a high-capacity aftermarket SSD that has firmware supporting TRIM.

But removing the optical drive for an HDD is not something that I would be willing to support with my hard earned money, since whether it is an SSD or whether it is an HDD, the fundamental purpose is mass-storage, which is distinctly different from the purpose served by an optical drive.

 

I use Dropbox. Instantly sync's your files to the cloud. If you work between multiple machines it keeps them all up to date. If you lose your machine it automatically brings down your files again.

2GB are free.

Stefan

 

I use Microsoft Live Mesh. Probably about the same functionality as Dropbox, but Live Mesh offers 5GB free storage.

 

Nothing "catastrophic" that you cannot remedy by spending an hour or so, once every six months or maybe once a year (depending on your usage frequency), by wiping out your drive and copying the data back in. The advantage being that you will get back all of that 600 MB/Sec read and 450 MB/Sec write speeds that the machine originally came with.

PS: The above is assuming that the Sony SSD solution *is* something that will degrade in performance like we expect, based on our understanding of how a normal SSD in RAID (without TRIM) is configured. However, I personally would not put anything over those Sony engineers, since they might very well have a solution already in place to remedy some of these degradation situations, to the point that it might very well be a non-issue.

PS2: However, the situation about needing to take regular backups of critical data is definitely a real thing with any mass storage device, whether they be HDDs or whether they be SSDs (whether in RAID 0 or not).

 

Since I bought my Z-590 in December a year ago, there's no way I can convince S.W.M.B.O. that I need a new laptop already.

If I were to get a new Z now, I would probably buy a HD version, take out the HD and put in a single SLC drive (like the Intel X-25E or OCZ Vertex EX)

Alternatively, get a TT through dynamism.com and put two 160GB X18-M drives in RAID1 on it. It'd buy me extra portability and drive space at the expense of CPU and graphics speed. The TT is the sexiest laptop Sony ever made, IMO.

Note, however, that I seldom play games on my laptop. I use my desktop computer and Playstation for that. Command line based development work, professional writing and (of course) browsing the intarweb is what I use a laptop the most for, and both portability and battery life are important factors. YMMV.

 

fair enough, I just have a problem with optical media...I want to smash it all...smash it with a hammer....

 

Been lurking here a while - very anxious to hear personal experiences with the z because I'm getting gibberish from the Sony reps I have called on 2 different occasions.

Firstly, I've been confused at some of the ambiguous wording on the USA Sonystyle site. I called to ask a few questions, but the answers seem to be contrary to what people here have been saying.

In regards to the SSD options, their website says that the 128gb comes as a 128x1 drive with raid 0 technology. I asked how, if it's only one drive, it could use Raid 0 which requires more than one drive. The rep said it was one physical drive, but the controller was configured to raid (as opposed to ide or ahci). He didn't know anything regards to the trim functionality, or whether or not the firmware supports it. (correct me if i'm wrong, but if you only have one drive, you could use Trim if it's supported by the firmware correct?) Aside from what this bloke said, I was under the impression that the 128gb drive was 2 64gb drives in raid 0. Am I wrong?

Secondly, the cheapest pre-configured variation is said to not have GPS, where as the other pre-configured options do (they have the verizon wireless internet option). The CTO option says all options include GPS, but verizon internet is an additional option. The rep had no clue about this one either, or the fact that the cheapest pre-configured variation offers an i5-520m where it's only the i5-540 or i7 on the CTO option.

Normally, I would just opt for the CTO, but i'm leaning towards the pre-configured becuase I can get it for <1800 with student discounts.

Anyone have any other insight?

 

Personally, I only use CDs/DVDs for a few things:

- Burning CDs for use in older cars.
- Burning Linux install DVDs for systems that can't boot from USB fobs.
- Ripping bought CDs/DVDs to VirtualCD, so I never have to look for the disc anymore.

My desktop computer does all of the above faster, so I never use the drive in my Z.
Even if I want to burn a CD or DVD from the Z, it's faster to burn a virtual one with VirtualCD, and then do the actual burning from my dektop.

 

Thanks for the opinion, Im satisfied! I personally wish I could just buy the Z with one big single 256GB SSD drive with TRIM support instead of four separate 64GB SSDs in Raid 0. Raid 0 doesnt impress me and I dont see how any normal consumer would need it.


Of course, Im not willing to take away my Optical drive and thinking of buying over seas isnt a very attraction option to me anyways. Optical drive is just important to me even if it may not be important to others. This is supposed to be portable; like others have said, carrying around an optical drive is just not very convenient.

 

Yeah, this part about the lack of blu ray bothers me.

I can understand some of the big fans of FullHD here as opposed to the camp I belong who's wishing for 1366. The screen is supposed to be fabulous.

But no BluRay?????

The Z has replaced my desktops. I no longer use any of my other 4 desktops from the past and they've all broken down in some way or another I don't have time to fix them or troubleshoot whether it was the ram or the mobo.

So the only real weakness was the graphics card which the new Z has solved.

Ditto on the weight. The Z is truly the only piece of notebook which commands so much power over such a light weight.

 

I have 2 file servers with 4 terabytes each running RAID 5.

Just like you, I've been burnt with the loss of data before and I don't like to take chances nowadays.

 

Yeah me too.

I now believe the whole quad SSD thing is marketing hype. I was sold on the idea at first because I came from a HDD RAID0 environment and it made a huge difference at the serious reliability cost.
Checking the OCZ/Overclock forums where the real hardcore guys are sorta gives me the very strong impression that none of them were impressed with RAID SSD. And these guys are hardcore...

The moment I saw the video on Quad SSD vs 5400rpm drives, I knew it was bollocks and Sony should really be kicked for that. We need someone who's brave enough to do 1 x SLC SSD vs 4 x RAID0 SSD by Sony for a real oranges to oranges comparison.

 

Arth,

I no longer use a desktop. For four years at least...
That's why our opinions differ when you were talking about why would anyone wish to have an optical drive on the Z.

Having desktops require a totally different equation when it comes to space/performance. I want something which is less than 3 pounds and does just about everything for work plus maybe some light 3D games. On the run too...I travel to different countries for work all the time.

 

Here's my plan:
1. Get properly configured Z with basic 128Gb Dual SSD
1.1. Sold SIM-card holder, unlock/replace WWAN modem and void warranty.
1.2. Replace Intel 6200 with Intel 6250.
2. Wait (~1 year) and then
3. Put 160Gb (or 320Gb) X18-M inside. Maybe even two Intels in Raid 0 (depends on Intel's raid controller drivers).

P.S. Of course if LIF -> MicroSATA adapter is possible.
(highly likely since all 4 SSDs are shown as separate drives according to screenshot in this thread)

 

Wiping the drives every 4-6 months is enough for me. I'm pretty much confident that Sony, Samsung or any other 3rd party is going to provide a wipe tool or even some kind of GC compatible with the Z in the next few months. If you aren't sure you have two options: wait (until that tool is released or confimation of trim in JBOD mode) or get the HDD version.

I need an offline & bigger solution

BTW, ordered a Z with i5 540m and Full HD screen. I will report on battery life when it arrives