Possible upgrades for Dell Inspiron SE 17r 7720?

Oh ok i see what your saying with the caching compromise, thank you. I deff want to do the qygb ram so caching is out. Now my one questoon left is u say go with a ssd only and id get better performance but what if i where to get a 1tb hybrid with something like over 32gb for the ssd part like if i can find one with 64gb ssd or even 128gb, by going that direction it would give me 2tb worth of storage rather than just the 1tb but the ssd on the hybrid would it add the same kind or comparible performance as if i where to get your suggestion of the 256gb ssd obviously i probably wouldnt have as large of a ssd with the hybrid than if i went with just the ssd but speed wise for like startup and things what kind of difference if any is there between the hybrid vs the ssd by itself?cuz if the difference isnt that much i would rather have the more storage option of 2tb rather than the bigger ssd cuz really as fat as needing speed i really only need to improve my startup and maybe a few other things. Im into having many movies saved so whether they are on a hd or ssd i dont thonk it wouldbe any different cuz its not really dependent on speed unless i wher e transfering them all the ti. But something like 64gb would be large enough to make me able to download movies or whatever and then i could transfer them to the hdd drives jn the background and not need to worry about speed transfering cuz i could go on doing other things while they are transferinge

Yez i get that i cant do caching with anything over 32gb. Im not asking about caching. Couldnt i just use the ssd part of the hybrid as a regular ssd not try to use it for anysort of caching but that way i could have the best of both worlds the storage of the extra 1tb and the speed of the extra ssd that is part of the hd. Cuz yes i see what ur saying about just using a ssd 256gb that would give me speed better than any sort of caching scheme. But can u use the hybrid ssd part as just that a ssd and not a cache?

No - the SSD built into a hybrid drive (and you won't find any at 1 T -- there's a 750G though) are handled by the drive's firmware.  You cannot modify the cache.

The "best of both worlds" is to install Windows on a SSD and use the hard drive for storage (the cache on a storage drive won't matter much anyway).

Oh ok thats exactly what i needed to know thank u. Ya ove seen a 1tb hybrid with a 32gb ssd in it because my sister just bought a lenovo ultrabook u410 ideapad and thats what is in it. So ur saying it will only natively work as a cache and i cant change that and basically it will only be as fast as the hard drive? Ok ill go with the ssd only, but when looking for them to buy do i need a certain one to work with my system or just any 2.5" laptop ssd and any recomendation on a certain one for speed reasons or cost wise? Exactly how many expansion bays are there on my laptop is there space for an extra ssd and another hd or just one or the other? And u never told me what is a daughter board that u where sayinh i need to be able to add the additional drive? Or is that just a bracket ur talking about? And could u tell me where to gp to look at it and buy it or send me a link or something. Thanks for all the help. Oh and do u know if they make backlit keyboards for this. If not its not any kind of big deal just curious?

You cannot set up the caching with an mSATA drive larger than 32G.  And ANY caching scheme won't hold a candle to what you can get out of a native SSD for the boot operating system.

The only hybrid drive out there is the Seagate Momentus XT, which is 500 and 750 G - there is no 1T.  If the system has a hybrid setup, the cache is external.

You can install two 2.5" drives in the system.  You'll have to call Dell for the bracket.

You won't need the daughterboard unless you install an mSATA drive - in which case, see above -- call Dell.

For SSDs, Samsung and Intel are the two top makers.

What exactly is a msata drive and what is a daughter board?

Oh ok maybe it is seperate cuz i think i just was thinkin it was hybrid cuz it said it came with a 32gb ssd but it never said specifically that it was a hybrid. Sorry. You just said my system can have 2 2.5" drives in it is that including my current 1tb drive & then adding a single ssd making it two 2.5" drives in total or are u saying i can add upto two additional 2.5" drives and keep my 1tb hd totallying out to be 3 total dtives? Where would u suggest me buying a ssd for best prices. And if im looking for a ssd around the $100-$150 range what should i get intel, samsung, or seagate hybrid based on value with price.

No, the mSATA drive cannot be used as a boot or storage drive - it is a cache drive only.

Actually, according to ISR it is up to 64GB avaliable for caching. I don't know why everyone think that it is only 32GB max. Possible reason that is Dell made some kind of limitation but it is hard to believe in that. As for mSATA drives for Dell notebooks, it is possible to use more than 32GB, and most probably use it as bootable primary disk (there were successfull attempts from people). From the other hand, probably you don't want to buy pretty expensive mSATA disc if there is possibility of unseccessfull particular case with yours laptop.

@tommyboy660 : msata drive is a tiny circuit board ( about 1/3rd the size of a business card!) that holds some flash ram chips, and operates as an SSD (it is basically the guts of an SSD!)

the "daughter board" in this case is a little adapter card (installed internally, inside the case)  that goes between the notebook motherboard and the above-mentioned msata 'drive' ( the msata plugs into the daughter board, which is plugged into the motherboard...)

BTW, a DELL rep has assured me that we can use msata as the system boot disk (see this thread ...)

Oh ok i understand completely now thank you. So if im still think of upgrading my 5720 laptop with 256gb of ssd. What do u think i should go with the ssd or msata cuz ive found a really nice decently priced ssd from samsung 840 series thats 240gb for only $180 and the reason that appeals to me so much is cuz even when running it only pulls 0.07 watts and idleits like 0.04 watts where as other similar ssd's pull 1.6 watts plus its 7mm new type ssd. Or do u think it would be better with the msata, like what kind of speed difference am i looking at here. And are higher or lower iops better and what does that even mean? Thanks

@tommyboy660 ...

IOPS: higher = better (faster data flow)

I think the only ADVANTAGE of msata is that it leaves your other drive bay(s) free for future expansion.

** If anything, msata could be a little slower than your normal drive bays - I've seen RUMOURS that the msata adapter card used is only 3GB/sec as opposed to the drive bay sata which is 6GB/s. That card is upgradeable, of course - as are the LAN card and USB cards

My own plans for the 7720 are incremental:

next week - a 256G in the msata slot for boot and programs, and leave the 1TB drive in for data, 2nd bay empty. (Sell the stock 32G msata on ebay) :-)

near future - pull the 1TB drive (chuck it in a future external raid array, perhaps), and install an SSD (or two) instead. This should help the battery life a little...