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.
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.
I'm debating buying this machine, wish a DELL tech was around to answer questions. :-)
I'll pile on to this thread and ask:
Can the 32G mSATA be configured to use as a system BOOT DRIVE ( not a cache?)
That would be grand if we could use it for Win8 system drive ( or even a larger mSATA card - i do understand 32G is max for caching... but if that could just be a raw drive in the BIOS, maybe we can use a bigger one?)
I'd love to boot off the mSATA, and fill the other two "normal' sata drive bays with SSDs...
@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...)
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
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...
sweet thanksfor the info.now onto another question: how do i use the turbo function of my processor cuz i believe it said it can go upto 3.2ghz with the turbo feature in use, is this something done via bios or is this like a software based?
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
December 27th, 2012 12:00
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).
tommyboy660
10 Posts
0
December 27th, 2012 12:00
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?
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
December 27th, 2012 12:00
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.
ejn63
9 Legend
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87.5K Posts
0
December 27th, 2012 14:00
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.
tommyboy660
10 Posts
0
December 27th, 2012 15:00
What exactly is a msata drive and what is a daughter board?
tommyboy660
10 Posts
0
December 27th, 2012 15:00
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.
090909
41 Posts
0
January 3rd, 2013 00:00
I'm debating buying this machine, wish a DELL tech was around to answer questions. :-)
I'll pile on to this thread and ask:
Can the 32G mSATA be configured to use as a system BOOT DRIVE ( not a cache?)
That would be grand if we could use it for Win8 system drive ( or even a larger mSATA card - i do understand 32G is max for caching... but if that could just be a raw drive in the BIOS, maybe we can use a bigger one?)
I'd love to boot off the mSATA, and fill the other two "normal' sata drive bays with SSDs...
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
January 3rd, 2013 03:00
No, the mSATA drive cannot be used as a boot or storage drive - it is a cache drive only.
090909
41 Posts
0
January 5th, 2013 22:00
@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...)
090909
41 Posts
0
January 5th, 2013 22:00
BTW, a DELL rep has assured me that we can use msata as the system boot disk (see this thread ...)
tommyboy660
10 Posts
0
January 5th, 2013 22:00
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
090909
41 Posts
1
January 6th, 2013 01:00
@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...
090909
41 Posts
0
January 6th, 2013 01:00
counting the days now :emotion-1:
tommyboy660
10 Posts
0
January 6th, 2013 01:00
sweet thanksfor the info.now onto another question: how do i use the turbo function of my processor cuz i believe it said it can go upto 3.2ghz with the turbo feature in use, is this something done via bios or is this like a software based?
090909
41 Posts
0
January 6th, 2013 04:00
Turboboost is a CPU hardware feature which you cannot normally enable or disable.
Its activated whenever the OS requests for it. (SEE THIS LINK)
Download the Intel® Turbo Boost Technology Monitor from here and see when this features gets automatically active on the Notebook.