US SVZ131190X model vs. EU SVZ1311C5E model

I am in the market for the latest Z flagship laptop.

I own a TZ with 64GB SSD and it is fully functional and speedy as at the fist day, I am very happy with it.

I see that at the US store the SSD option for SVZ131190X is stated plainly as 128/256/512GB SSD hard drive in 2x configuration, for example :

256GB (128GB x2) solid state drive with RAID 0 ​

,but on the european UK store the SVZ1311C5E has a "Gen3" statement, for example:

256 GB SATA Gen3 Flash SSD Store data and access files faster with the latest SSD Flash drive (3rd generation) ​

I spoke a technical person in SONY US tech support and clearly understood that the US SSD model is inferior to the European SSD.

Can anyone confirm the curious fact ?

 

No facts there friend. The US version is "Gen3" as well. SATA 3.0 6Gb/s

 

Maybe, but there was some post around here which stated that some models have Quad SSD and some have Dual SSD ni Raid 0. I guess that will make some difference.

So maybe the final conclusion can be drawn only if we see 2 benchmarks of both models.

Anyone can provide a benchmark for the SVZ131190X or SVZ1311C5E ?

with PassMark(TM) PerformanceTest 7.0 Evaluation Version please

 

The SVZ13 only has dual SSD, just like the VPCZ2 had only dual SSD. The quad SSD models are the older VPCZ1x models (last model that had the optical drive).

I love my SVZ13, CPU is a huge upgrade compared to my VPCZ2! Storage seems to be just as fast (512 gen2 ssd), both benchmarked at over 1000 MB/sec reading speeds. But having this quadcore is insane in such a thin body, vegas 1080p rendering is super fast

 

I think once you get to a gen 3 dual SSD in RAID0 any improvement from there would be hard to perceive. Still, I'm not sure why Sony stopped offering it. To my knowledge there's no cost or architectural reason it couldn't be offered given the way the Z's SSDs are formed; you can always create four logical drives among the individual circuit boards of NAND chips that comprise the Z's SSDs. Am I missing something here?

 

I think you're talking about the lack of 4xRAID0 configurations and the problem might be the lack of ports? In any case, internally SSDs are RAID0ed anyways, at least to the drive controllers. That's why larger SSDs have faster speeds (they have more channels)

 

Yes, I do mean 4XRAID0. Why would the Z2 and Z3 have fewer ports? Doesn't matter. I guess if could be done either Sony would do it or we could via Intel RST so I guess there is something constrained.

But again, can you even perceive a difference between 1,000 mb/s and 1,200?

 

Z1 series (2010): HM57 chipset (Ibex Peak-M) - provides 6 ports SATA II (3Gb/s).

• Z1 HDD configs use 1 port only (no ODD)
• Z1 dual SSD configs use 3 ports, 2 ports SSD + ODD
• Z1 quad SSD configs use 5 ports, 4 ports SSD + ODD
• If put additional SSD in caddy that replaces ODD, we have encountered some ACPI bug so CPU won't clock down and run on full clock (extensive battery drain)

Z2 series (2011): HM67 chipset (Cougar Point-M) - provides 2 ports SATA III (6Gb/s) and 4 ports SATA II (3Gb/s).

• Z2's only come with dual SSD RAID setups connected to the two SATA III ports, obviously no ODD
• Some early models' 2nd gen SSDs are also connected to the SATA III ports but bottleneck the interface (max seq speeds of about 600MB/s in RAID0)
• 3rd gen SSDs saturate the interface and reach seq speeds of more than 900MB/s
• Obviously 3rd gen SSDs should be of preference if possible - seems that Sony does not ship 2nd gen SSD models anymore

Z3 series (2012), Sony calls it "SVZ13": HM77 chipset (Panther Point-M) - provides 2 ports SATA III (6Gb/s) and 4 ports SATA II (3Gb/s). (99% sure that it's HM77, need confirmation)

• SSD configuration unchanged, compared to Z2 series
• Intel kept SATA interfaces the same to prev generation, so no end user upgrade possible

Final Z1 vs. Z2/Z3 comparison thoughts:

• Z1 has more volume to cram in SSDs, so Sony could stack two SSD pcbs into the body. Chipset also supported 4 SATA ports for use with high performance SSDs so Sony's quad RAID0 was born
• Z2/Z3 is thinner and only has two high speed SATA 6Gb/s ports available, so Sony was limited to two SSDs
• Sony and Samsung (it's Samsung SSDs in the Z2/Z3) did a great job performance-wise

Why is Z2/Z3's dual SSD RAID architecture superior over previous quad RAID?

• lower (half) RAID array failure probability
• faster initialization cycle on power up
• less CPU utilization on load (less data distribution work among RAID member drives)
• lower idle and full-load power consumption due to less NAND chips and SSD controllers
• the newer Samsung 3-core MCX SSD controller is a leap forward in terms of speed:
  They made Sony able to actually double the seq performance from Z1 to Z2 generation (SATA 3 to 6Gb/s) while using half the number of SSDs! Theoretically, that's a whopping 4x speed improvement per SSD.

I'm done.
Should we do a comprehensive Z1/Z2/Z3 tech facts thread?

 

Sounds good, a Z series bible. This would cover the storage section perfectly!

 

@pyr0:

I have ALWAYS admired your inputs to the forum man.

Thanks

 

I just bought an SVZ13114GXX and I was wondering if there are any upgrade options for the SSD, price not being an object. I would like to upgrade this. I am coming from an Alienware M11x and prior to that a Sony TT (Which I did modify the heck out of especially more SSD Capacity) If I am in the wrong thread forgive me, and if so please point me to the right one, as I have been searching for about 2 days for an option.

Thanks!

-L

 

#1/2

From my order confirmation email, although I doubt you are still wondering about this a month after the fact:

And yes, you should.

#3

From what I understand the SSD uses some sort of proprietary connector/form factor. However, I believe it is removable if you can find something compatible to replace it with...

 

The Euro SVZ also offers WWAN and the US does not.