Vaio Z: SSD or 320g 7200rpm

Hi, I am torn between a decision of purchasing the Z590 or the Z540 CTO.

Z590 offers 128 gb SSD options, premium carbon lid and 1600x900 (not of my liking)

Z540 offers no SSD options, no carbon lid and 1366x 7xx resolution (my liking)


Here is the deal, I really want a solid state drive to go with my vaio Z purchase after hearing that the SSD is quieter, cooler, faster.

I wanna know how much better will the SSD be over the 320 GB 7200 RPM harddrive in terms of performance?

Is the 128gb SSD also lighter in weight than the 320gb 7200? How much real time battery life would SSD save over the spinning drive?

In sony's website, z540 has a weight of 3.31 lb whereas z590 has a weight of 3.42 lbs. Why is that? What in the laptop accounts for the weight difference?

Also I noticed Z540 is subject to coupon codes and student discount, whereas z590 only has student discount. Price configurations differs by around 950 dollars in cart, mostly due to harddrive. But I'm assuming if after 3 yrs, the laptop retires, I can still take out the SSD and make use of them for my next, right?

Also, since I am not confident enough to exchange the harddrive myself and void the warranty, is there any certified stores that offer harddrive upgrading services?

 

upgrade the HD yourself...save yourself the money and get the screen resolution you want. Look around for a guide

 

The Seagate 7200.4 500GB is expected in a couple of weeks, it might be an interesting alternative.

 

Z540 offers both 250 GB SATA 7200rpm HDD and 320 GB SATA 7200rpm HDD.

Is there ANY difference between the two except the obvious capacity difference? Weight? Power consumption?

 

same weight, same power consumption, virtually same speed.

 

I wish SSDs weren't so expensive... -_-...

I wonder how long it'll take for their prices to drop.

EDIT:
Wow I killed my sig... better fix it.

 

Does anybody know the exact model of the 7200 rpm HDD in sony vaio z540 CTO models so i can research them independently myself?

thanks in advance

 

as I know, though the SSD is pretty expensive, its technology is not totally mature. there are the limit of maximum times of read and write to it. you can search and find some info.

 

The HD consume 800-1000mA and the SSD is around 300mA.
Your battery life can be extended.
You can buy te HD one and change to SSD by yourself when the price is reasonble.

 

Hey Phil do you have any extra info on this? looking to replace the current with a 500GB HDD, how much faster will the 7200 be over the 5400?

 

I've read a lot about SSDs and there's no limit to read but there is a limit to write. The limit is so high that it's not going to matter unless you are continually writing to the SSD 24/7. Your computer will become stone age before the SSD drive fails due to write limit.

 

I agree. With modern wear-levelling algorithms, the drive should be well past it's useful life when it fails. The bigger issue for me is that they're too expensive for their capacity, at the moment.

 

Does anyone know what the Vista performance rating is for the SSD vs any of the 7200 RPM drives?

 

5.9 for SSD, 5.9 for 7200.3 Seagate 320GB HDD.
I also have a 320GB 5400.5 Seagate with a score of 5.4
However, the SSD is much faster than the HDD, and the Vista performance rating doesn't do the SSD justice

 

Vista performance rating means very little.

For speed differences between SSD and a 7200rpm HDD have a look at this review: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/storage/intel-x25-m.aspx

It just showed up on Seagate's webpage: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/momentus/

For speed differences between 7200rpm and 5400 rpm refer to the laptopmag review above.

 

my Intel 80GB gets about 250MB@reading info, acording to some software that I tried to test it out. The writing I couldn't do with that software, not unless wiping out the whole hdd.

It's much faster than the regular 320GB/5400, Vista starts in about 1 minute all the way down to the desktop, with sidebar, yahoo msg, skype and some other small stuff. It was faster with just vista&drivers, but I need to turn on some stuff.. and 20 more sec it's no big deal.

I lost a lot of empty space but I do not use it anyway, right now I have about 45GB empty with all my software installed (like ms office, corel, etc) and no plans on what to do with it (won't fill up unless I drop some DVD images over there).

 

Actually the only situation in which the Intel SSD isn't that fast is booting Vista, like shown here: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/storage/intel-x25-m.aspx?page=5

In almost all other situations it's mind blowing fast. if you have the money it's the one to get.

 

How come its only about 2X better than the WD 250gb models? Aren't those 7200 drives? Why would anyone pay 6X price for only 2X performance?

 

In heavy multi tasking it's about 6x times faster:
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/storage/intel-x25-m.aspx?page=6

The Scorpio Blue is 5400rpm, Black is 7200rpm.

Some people value performance more than other.