Vaio Z3 (2012) upgrades?

Evening all,

Just a quick question, does the 2012 Vaio-Z (Z3?) permit DIY RAM and SSD upgrades or are those components soldered on?

Any advice appreciated.

 

subscribed and curious, about to place an order and trying to find out

 

2012 Vaio Z3 is the same as the 2011 Z2 in design and internals except the Z3 has ivy bridge CPUs (for all intents and purposes, as the chipset has changed too) That being said, the RAM is soldered on, not sure on the SSD, but most likely not as the Z1 was a pain to do it too

 

Z2 RAM is not soldered on, pretty sure neither is the SSD. Both are special module that you can only buy from Sony. Not sure whether VZ11 is the same or not, but most likely it's the same.

 

Frak.


I got all excited to buy a couple of Sandisk extreme SSDs

 

Damn and double damn!

I was hoping to spec a Z3 with the top CPU (which is free upgrade in the UK at the moment) but then throw in my own RAM and SSD upgrades as the Sony prices are extortionate.



Booger.

 

So is that the final word on the Vaio SVZ1311C5E ?

The RAM and SSD are Sony specials?

 

There is no question that RAM & SSD are Sony special for any VZ11, it's just whether they are soldered or not that is the uncertain part.

 

Don't forget the SSD from Sony will blow away any normal retail SSD because it is a raid0 setup with speeds over 1000 MB/sec

 

In US market, the only RAM option is "8GB (4GB x2 fixed onboard) DDR3-1600Mhz". By fixed, I guess it means soldered.

I'm also very interested in getting a VAIO Z3. And I'm considering swapping SSD by myself after purchase as well. However, I want to learn the SSD model Sony is using prior to making the decision. As I plan to buy the 3-year warranty with accident coverage, $736(after educational discount) for 2 256GB SSD is not extradinarily outrageous (compared to usual price of $600).

When do you plan to buy? Can you post SSD models after purchase?

 

Any 2 SSD will work at least as well in RAID0 setup. And I can't see why you can't make 2 SSD you swapped in yourself work in RAID0 setup.

EDIT: I was wrong. That's not 2 SSDs at all.

 

The RAM is not soldered on, but is proprietary.

The ram module is in the center of this image. It clips onto the mobo

 

Where are the two SSDs in that pic? And can you provide the SSD model?

 

The RAM is the piece in the middle of the board. I'm guessing the SSDs are above the right battery below the yellow cable. Looks proprietary.

 

I just wish there is a way to upgrade the SSD & RAM. I'm running on 4Gb Ram and 128Gb SSD. 8Gb is probably much better & 256Gb SSD would be more useable as 128 get filled up too easily.

 

Just got my new Z3/SVZ with 512 GB SSD. Ran a couple of 4000MB CrystalDiskMark and one Windows Experience Index and here's the results:





-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 899.197 MB/s
Sequential Write : 748.315 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 412.880 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 612.510 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 18.419 MB/s [ 4496.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 69.455 MB/s [ 16956.8 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 376.346 MB/s [ 91881.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 263.025 MB/s [ 64215.2 IOPS]

Test : 4000 MB [C: 10.2% (45.7/449.1 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/06/19 15:42:10
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)
-----

I'd say it's pretty good to put it mildly

It's right out of the box. I just uninstalled McAfee Backup before I stopped and thought I better do some test before doing anything else with the laptop.

I was going to run the same test with my current Z1 with C300 256GB SSD for comparison but I don't have it here at the moment. From what I remember though this is much better...

 

The test result shows an extraordinary seq, 512k, and qd32 benchmark (up to 2x best retail SSD). However, the most important 4k performance is about 2/3 of the best SSDs available.
On the whole, it's a satisfactory SSD. Hopefully, the 256GB one will be as good.

 

@genez: Just a little word to the wise, from someone who has been there with a Sony Z. I know they give you an additional discount if you buy the Sony extended warranty. Can you say how much discount you're getting on the SSD's? I couldn't tell if you were saying that Sony's regular price on the 256GB modules is $600 each. You're right that $736 is a very good price for 512GB of SSD when it is Sony proprietary. Plus, if you are buying it with 128GB SSD you can sell it for a pretty penny, making the 512gb even cheaper, at or below market price for a standalone 512GB possibly.

Thing is, Sony's extended warranties aren't worth much to you, as they are full of fine print loopholes and, in any event, Sony is known to try everything they can to avoid fixing things under wtty. It used to be that you could buy the wtty and avail yourself of the discount but you retain the right to cancel the warranty without having to return the discount. It has been discussed here in the past and some have riled against the idea of "intentionally cheating" to get the discount. Well, you don't even have to confront that. That warranty is expensive and a hard decision. That they allow you to cancel it for a pro-rated refund is a privilege of laying out the money for the warranty.

Oh, and if you decide in the end you want the protection but in retrospect there are too many knocks from experienced owners against Sony's service, I strongly recommend getting a Square Trade warranty with Accidental Damage protection. It should cost you some less than Sony's but most important, they commit to fix your laptop in something like a week (I've had several and they're fast, but I can't recall the number of days) or they write you a check for the amount of the original purchase.
Can you please clarify my question about costs of the RAM and just how you are planning to do this - ie, are you buying two at $736 net and selling the 128 in your purchased unit. Something to think about , by the way, is whether Sony requires that they install the SSDs to keep from voiding the wtty. If so, it would add cost and inconvenience.

My interest in this is part forum "citizen" but you have also intrigued me with this great idea. Since both Sony and Apple have lowered the price - high though it remains - on the Z and MBP15 "Retina" and I think you may pay about the same for an MBP with 8GB/512GB it makes a Mac, for the first time, mildly appealing to me. ("It's the display, stupid" if you're under 35 you may not know that's borrowed from the 1992 presidential campaign!). I'm an Apple hater with the best of them. But I gotta say, that display is beyond imagination. I'd recommend you take a look at before you buy if display is paramount to you, as it is to many Z buyers. There are other benefits to the Z over the MBP, including 1.5 less lbs, but this is the first time they compare component for component, except that the Mac has the quite powerful nVidia 650M to the Sony's Intel only, improved as it is. (the Sony PMD does not give you anything remote comparable; it's a rebadged AMD 6650 from last year vs. a mid-high Kepler hot off the nVidia press. Unless the Mac's weight is a deal killer, hard to look away from comparable specs, except one has a powerful discrete gpu and the finest laptop display on the planet - though glossy - for about the same price. I haven't looked at 512GB but the Apple is $2,199 with 8GB/256GB, which I believe undercuts the Sony with those specs, but with your creative pricing the Sony may come out better at 512GB.

Keep us posted.

 

Hej Magnus.

Is that with write cache on or off?

I got pretty much the same numbers, at least on seq read/write. It exceeds 800MB/s but not 1000 as suggested earlier in this thread. Perhaps that's for 4 SSD setups?

 

So does the Z3 use mSATA connection for the ssd?

I found this 1.8" 120GB ssd for £110. I'm think getting 2 of them to replace the 2X64GB on my soon to arrive Z3. Consider Sony asks for £410 for the 256GB upgrade, this looks like a good upgrade deal at 1/2 the cost.

Link to the ssd.

 

No, z2's and z3's come with proprietary LIF cables only. These are similar but not pin-compatible to the ssds used in early-2010 z11's.

 

Hey Pyr0!

I think he was referring to the SVZ13. From what I've heard, the SSDs are SATA III (no m) and are "more proprietary" than the modules from the Z1 series, which you could replace with the guts of a 1.8" SSD and possibly a cable change.

Can anyone confirm or deny what was mostly a guess on my part about the SSDs in the new Z?

 

That is with write cache on and flush writes to disk. If I turn off Windows cache buffer flush as well the numbers stay about the same except for 4k&4kQD32 writes which then go to around 270 MB/s.

I don't know why I see fairly low 4k values. It could have to do with what LegitReviews writes with regards to CDM "Note that CDM only supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ) with a queue depth of 32 (as noted) for the last listed benchmark score. This can skew some results in favor of controllers that also do not support NCQ."

writecache off gives the following result:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 911.310 MB/s
Sequential Write : 41.512 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 409.149 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 41.181 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 16.790 MB/s [ 4099.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.916 MB/s [ 467.8 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 365.827 MB/s [ 89313.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 4.173 MB/s [ 1018.7 IOPS]

Test : 4000 MB [C: 11.6% (52.2/449.1 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/06/20 21:04:38
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

Below is my results from my Z41 with a C300 256GB as a comparision. The disk is quite full which may or may not affect the results. Not sure since CDM seems to first create a testfile (in my case 4GB).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 266.627 MB/s
Sequential Write : 169.782 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 251.436 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 58.962 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 20.044 MB/s [ 4893.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 20.722 MB/s [ 5059.1 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 200.644 MB/s [ 48985.4 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 39.375 MB/s [ 9613.0 IOPS]

Test : 4000 MB [C: 96.8% (230.8/238.4 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/06/20 22:04:33
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

 

Hi All,

I'm also interesting by Z3 VAIO. Core I7 + 512GB SSD
Main use : Virtualization.
So i need more memory (16GB at least). French vendor advice to purchase 2 x 8GB in other store. But as i see below in a picture, it's not possible. Someone can confirm ?

If it's the case, it will be too bad. SSD performance are nice

 

You will have tough luck finding 8GB modules since the RAM is Sony proprietary parts and it doesn't seem that they have been released yet. Not to mention that the price will be astronomically high. Currently the price for 1 4GB module on Sony website is 160 USD/piece already.

I am also tempted to upgrade RAM on my Vaio Z2 but since the price of Z2 has been dropping sharply, it makes more sense to just buy the 8GB model and resell my current Z2.

However, if you manage to find where to sell those, let us know and we can help you check. I have already opened my Z2 so I know what those RAM modules look like. And yes, to the naysayers, the RAM is upgradeable so please stop the RAM-is-soldered BS.

 

Thanks for your reply.

I've searched on several site and unfortunately i've never found a reseller ... i'm still searching.