New Z model with Intel Core i5 CPU

I can relate. My home machine has 4x 300GB WD VelociRaptors, RAID 0 on an Accusys 61010 controller with 1GB cache.

 

Hoping that TRIM will be available, my consideration for the quad SSD setup was the following:

OS/apps drive in JBOD to be able to use TRIM. This drive will be used the most (by the OS), so TRIM is important. I think SSD speed is good enough and putting the OS/app partition in RAID0 would not make too much of a difference.

Other 3 SSDs combined in RAID0 for data storage (documents, photos, music, etc.). This way I won't have to use all the letters of the alphabet for the different drives (just JBOD would lead to having 4 drives+memory stick+dvd+external usb HDDs/pendrives etc.) and I'll get good speed if I copy large files. I'll be doing of course backups of this partition.

 

Hi All - I stumbled onto this thread today and it has been very informative. I'm almost ready to pull the trigger on a new Z, but I wanted to see if anyone knew if the optical bay for the DVD player is a standard size drive. I'd like to go with the small SSD drive and then pull out the DVD and put in a HDD with an adaptor like this http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=page&id=7&chapter=0

 

I disagree. I think the OS drive is the most important drive to configure in RAID 0. Boot times would be faster at a minimum. Also, the hibernation file can't be used on any other drive but the system partition. Accellerating hibernation is very valuable.

 

Not standard size.
The optical drive (BD or DVD) is 9.5mm in height as opposed to the standard 12.5mm in most laptops.
Also, sony has employed the uSATA (aka microSATA) connector for the optical drive as well as for it's SSDs (not relevant to your request but saying it for future reference)
There is a way to connect a standard SSD of 9.5mm in height (pretty much everyone out there) but there is some risk involved as you will have to physically split the ribbon cable and cut through the connector, then mask 3 pinouts on the power connector of the SSD and that's it.
Other option is to wait a while for sparepartswarehouse.com to add parts of the new Z line and order the ribbon used in the version with a standard HDD and use that to install your SSD along with the Sony original HDD bracket to hold it in place.

 

Thanks for the answers, I think ive chosen for now.

I should inform you that Im stealing your set up

Your concerns, priorities and supposing uses are right in my alley. And I like the explanation. Particularly that this way, even once degradation occurs, it will only be extremely relevant on the Raid set ups. Since our OS/apps are in JBOD TRIM we can avoid stalls ups. I forgot you could Raid set up 3 drives!


EDIT: Its good to note that the right set up will probably vary depending on the user and how they use it. I do not care what so ever about boot times nor anything of that nature pertaining to speedy boot up or shut off.

 

Um..... Should I be excited or is this bogus?

Shipping estimate when I ordered the machine: 3/19
Estimate on the My Account order detail page: 3/4

I've never purchased a laptop from Sony directly before. Do the dates tend to be accurate?

 

Yeah thanks!
Short, sweet and straight on the point.

 

That's good news. By the way how long is the delay generally for the raid controller?

 

Thanks Nutman - I'll start looking in a couple months for the parts

 

I took the plunge and ordered the preconfigured one in Canada.

1600x900
i5-520M
128GB SSD
4GB
no bluray

 

What is your shipping date?

 

Ok so the Z is available for preorder in Canada; any idea how long one may expect the CTO or other preconfigured options to appear?

 

Don't get too excited. My date is showing 02/08/2010. It's normal for the date to show the day after ordering as that's when its processed by the pre-order system.

Stefan

 

People spend 2k on 15" Mac Book Pro's all the time. This Z has more oomph than a 17" MBP in a 13" pkg, that is...if we can get the 1080p screen in America

 

Hey, how did you preorder the Z w/the 1080p in your sig? That CTO option can't be ordered in America.

 

Well, I'm hoping more for the 1080p option. It would be really nice for development work and my photography hobby. I may have one of my Japanese-American friends who has family back in Japan order a CTO one for me and ship it to America. However, what are the power difference between Japan and America? Will a Japanese Sony Z work in America power outlets?

 

No, they don't. I have the fully configured VPCZ11FHX/XQ (yes, the same as yours with 512GB SSD, FHD, BluRay, etc...) on order for over a month. And for close to same period of time (and still right now), it says it will ship on 2/09/2010

I actually have a screenshot of it in an earlier post (and I won't send a new one since it still says exactly the same thing.)

 

so is the raised palmrest aluminium or camera grade rubber, or plastic?

 

for those interested, the base model Z in Malaysia is priced at RM6000 or USD1740 (with HDD), which is the cheapest so far i've seen among Asia Pacific countries, even cheaper than Hong Kong (which traditionally has been the cheapest for VAIOs in Asia).

 

The starting price for CTO in Japan is 153,800 JPY or 1,737.45 USD but it's very basic model indeed (no backlit keyboard, camera, fingerprint thingy etc..)

 

Based on the previous Z, is it likely that we will be able to change the RAID setup to JBOD in the BIOS of the new Z..? Earlier someone mentioned having to use a BIOS hack to get access to the controller...

 

If you don't need SSD, Japan is actually the cheapest in the world in terms of adding more RAM and changing a better processor.

 

True, especially with the current "campaign" for processor upgrades, which lasts until March 12th (upgrading to core i7-620M comes to only 6000JPY or 68USD), I hope to read some nice reviews soon, so I can decide on my CTO configuration and order next week...

 

Thanks for the info. Did you get the 10% discount? dhwlaw referred to it here. I'm going to call today. 500 bucks is 500 bucks.

This thread has reached a critical mass in size where it is more of a chat room than a message board. Might be nice if somebody summariezed the findings and started a new one.

 

Sony Customer Services: Hello how may I read from a script to you today?
Me: I need to trim my sandwich
SCS: Pardon sir?
Me: JBOD MY RAID!
SCS: Errrr...
Me: I presume you have read all 353 pages of the Z pre-launch thread?
SCS: The what of what?
Me: Vaio Z redesign, we need answers and we need them now
SCS: The what?
Me: Arth1 told me it isn't waterproof to 300 metres, won't cook my breakfast and is actually an optical illusion, is this true?
SCS: We have a designer bluetooth mouse on offer this month, only $348 with a complex pdf rebate full of typos, would you like me to go ahead and process that
Me: I'll take six

 

ROFL Unfortunately this is true for customer service at many companies...

 

I'm going to have another go at skinning my pre-ordered Z. I won't be doing the keys this time, but it is still a pain to do.

Before I commit to 2 hours of cutting and resizing, are there any Invisible Shield-type protectors available for the Z? All I could find were some printed leather/carbon/flower patterned skins on Ebay. I want the skin to be clear, preferrably from 3M.

If not, I'll just buy a few blanks and cut away.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/04/corsair-force-gives-us-another-sandforce-controlled-ssd-speed-de/

Why didn't sony put a couple of these in their new Z. I would love to take the plunge. I just need to wait to see if the build quality is ok. I just returned an M11x and vowed to never buy Dell again. I still have a 13" Aluminum Macbook which I love. It is a bit heavy and doesn't game. If Apple had better configurations and actually updated their dated line I would consider, but this Z is sooo sexy. I am just really put off by their proprietary SSD set up. Hopefully you early adopters can confirm their set up is the bees knees. If so I will pull the trigger faster than you can say .... Z.

 

For the sake of arguement, lets say that each of the 64GB or 128GB drives gets a throughput of 150MBps read and 100MBps write. Let's also say that overhead for RAID is 20%...

On a 3 drive RAID0:
360MBps read
240MBps write

4 drives:
480MBps read
320MBps write

Also keep in mind that these drive sandwiches are very small and you can get the full configuration in a svelte form factor with an optical drive.

This said, I purchased 2x OCZ Vertex Turbo's for my recently canceled Lenovo W510. I had planned to run them in RAID0 as well. Even with a machine as large as the W510, only way to get two regular sized 2.5" drives in the system was to stick the second in the ultrabay and sacrifice the optical drive.

I think Sony did good here.

Granted, having a single drive option for those turned off about RAID is a valid request. Maybe Sony will do this in future updates.

 

from what i've read i7 = ~5% performance increase but a bigger drain on battery life.

i'm sticking with the i5.

btw, are you ordering CTO from Japan or US?

 

Japan, I'm living here.

i7 vs. i5 duel is pretty inconclusive so far, I'd say oppinions are split 50/50 on this forum. Not very helpful

 

This was especially true in case of HDDs. But with SSDs, Windows boot time is around 30-40 sec, which is perfectly sufficient for me. I think RAID0 would not make it so much faster. How much could the difference be?

I'm happy that you liked my post But just as side note: I have used neither SSDs nor RAID until now, so I'm not an expert. I was just considering what the best setup for my needs would be, based on what I know and have read in this thread about SSDs, RAID and TRIM. I suppose, that if the OS+apps drive has TRIM (and the other 3 SSDs for data storage are in RAID0 and don't have TRIM), it can prevent significant stalls in case of SSD degradation.
Maybe Arth1 (or some other expert ) could say if my previous post was correct, or if I have overseen something.

 

Sony's folks told me there isn't Win7 Pro's dvd shipped with
new Z.
They told me I must do recovery cds.
It's very sad on circa 2000 Euro notebook.

 

no recovery disks since 2006.

 

Where are you getting the 30-40 second boot time numbers from? Even Sony's product specs for the Z show average boot times of 60 seconds.

The change in boot/hibernation times should be very noticable. Don't underestimate the performance bump RAID0 provides.

I'll attempt to quantify the speed differences when my machine arrives.

 

When I bought my TZ from my local Sony store, they were kind enough to provide me with a couple of blank Sony DVDs in order to burn my recovery disks.

I burnt my recovery discs, but when I came round to using them, having blown away the hidden recovery partition, I discovered one of them was corrupted..! I then had to order a set of recovery discs from Sony, which cost over £30..!! lol

 

I just registered to post this message...I have been reading this thread for at least a month....

Taiwan Sony just released the news about the almighty Z.

http://www.mobile01.com/topicdetail.php?f=258&t=1449100

If you look at the 4th post, it shows that PCZ117 will have fullHD with price NT$84800--> around US$2654, TAX included!! They also have a VPCZ115GW/BI for NT$59800 -->US$1871, this one comes with 500GB harddrive.

I almost pre-ordered Z the past Monday, but I wanted a fullHD screen for my photography, I am glad I waited. I am going to ask my family to order one and send it to US for me, they will have those machines next week(I know it is weird as in US it shows March 16th). Just to share my joy with you!!

 

ZoinksS2k - your ship date still says today? Anxious to see your real-world pics & unboxing...

 

It does, but they haven't debited my account for the funds yet. Apparently this is normal and the shipping date changes once it gets past the first stage of ordering.

I'm guessing it will ship around 3/19.

 

VPCZ115GW/BI
$59800.-
處理器：Intel® Core™ i5-540M
記憶體：4 GB DDR3 SDRAM
硬碟容量：500GB SATA 7200rpm
螢幕尺寸：13.1" (1600 x 900)
光碟機：選購
重量：1.42 kg (含隨附的電池
作業系統：Windows® 7 Professional 64位元


Is this a model that is configured with the a regular hard drive but still includes the optical drive or is this a typo of some sort, seeing the lack of any SSD ?

 

You can view it Monday, March 8th. This has been confirmed from a few sources inside Sony.

I read someone returned an alienware... I also ordered a Studio XPS 13 last November and returned it (vowing never to buy DELL again) .. this is despite my amazing history with dell (over 4+ machines in my house, including my current Quad core).. it's a shame the executives have let the company dry up so much trying to preserve the value of the stock by killing off North american plants/call centres... a real, real shame.

 

Hi emev and yellowfriz,

The setup is very valid if you understand that risks you are taking with your RAID 0 for you data.
If the premise is that you back up your data often and will not feel the pain if and when any one of the SDDs in your RAID fail, [i.e. Your backups are always there] then yes. It is a pretty good set up.

Just remember the risk you're taking with striping three of your SSDs for data. I'm assuming you can afford to lose your data.

Of course, if you read what I said above...then it pretty much sounds like quad SSD is suicide. I believe arth and nutman have been pointing that danger out in previous posts.

 

This is the WEIRDEST thing...
Could you perhaps share why you Dell guys are coming over to the Sony camp?
I have a lot of respect for that brand although I never bought them because I've always preferred VAIO's looks much more.

Cos I'm not sure if Sony has better quality or service. I normally point my friends who aren't technical in nature towards Dells.

I probably said it in another thread that my best support I've had for my VAIOs has been a website called www.notebookreview.com

 

I searched for SSD (vs HDD) boot times and found several articles, forum threads and videos. Some even stated <30 boot times, but my impression was that the average was around 30-40. Of course, this can be a very subjective value (when is windows booting completed?, how many programs are loaded etc.) and most of the SSDs were better ones (e.g. Intel and OCZ).
So I don't know how the Samsung SSDs in the Z will perform.
Regarding RAID, it was mentioned here earlier, that setting up the RAID array also takes some time during booting.

It'd be interesting to know how much difference there really is between boot times with RAID0, JBOD+RAID0 and pure JBOD SSD setup.

 

I'll be backing up my important data to an external hard drive. If I have these data separated from the system drive, it'll be even easier to backup if I wanted to use data synchronization between SSD and external HDD instead of doing images.

 

If RAIDs haven't changed much during the HDD days, then I can share from my experience that they normally add at least 5 - 10 seconds to your boot after your POST and before your OS loads.

Had the same thing for my RAID 5, and the Intel Matrix RAID setups.

If JBOD skips your RAID controller, then you'd shave off at least that much time.

 

I wonder if Sony will start offering the HD version in the US in a couple months after they move some of their 1600x900 supply. Thoughts?

 

Fantastic!

You can also consider that leaving your 3 other SSDs unstriped doesn't add a lot more hassle to you while it adds so much more failure security. [Plus you could just wind up TRIMing them.]

But yes, I know how nice it'd be to concat all the 3 drives into one large one.

 

No...the DVD drive is optional means you can order an external one.