Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

Yes, Smart Response is only used when you want to use the mSATA device as a cache for a spinning hard drive.

 

ok thks learned some stuff today

i keep you informed on the evolution ...just placed the order for a 250Gb msata evo , wanted to go for a 1TB or 500 Msata but heat made me think twice , better having big storage in a regular 2.5" format

thks again

By the way , do you suggest using the dell utilitary software for the windows bootable device or windows one ?

Dual boot and windows 8 , do i have to know some specific versus what i used to do with 7 ?

 

Hi Tolga, many thanks for your answer!
Cheers, Andy.

 

I don't think heat is a good reason not to buy an mSATA SSD. In fact if you open up most 2.5" SSDs, they typically just have a board inside them that's about the size of an mSATA unit anyway. Of course that does mean that the board inside the 2.5" version has some extra open space around it for heat dissipation, but most computer components (including SSDs) can safely operate at extremely high temperatures. For example, the GPU can reach temperatures of up to 90 C when it's working hard (even with its cooling from heat sinks and fans), and that temperature isn't an issue for it.

For making a bootable Windows installation flash drive, I already said earlier that I recommend an application called Rufus, and I included a link to a guide that shows you how to create one using that application. Once again, if you're going to ask for advice, then please take the time to read the responses you get rather than glossing over them and asking questions that have already been answered. The downloadable tool that Microsoft provides doesn't create a bootable device that works properly on UEFI systems. And there isn't a built-in Windows tool for this purpose. The only tool built into Windows is the one to create a rescue device that you can use for things like repairing your computer; it does NOT let you create a bootable device that you can use to install Windows. If that's the tool you were using when you were complaining that booting from it only have you the option to repair your computer rather than install Windows, then that's why that happened.

For dual booting, what operating systems do you plan to use? Generally speaking, yes it's very likely that you'll need to do things differently on this system compared to before because this system is UEFI, and dual booting UEFI doesn't work the same way as dual booting on a BIOS-based system. That has nothing to do with running Windows 8 rather than Windows 7; it has to do with the system motherboard. But at the very least, if you'll be using any operating systems OTHER than Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012, at the very least you'll need to disable Secure Boot in the BIOS. Alternatively, I think some Linux versions actually support Secure Boot if you go through several steps to make it work, but that can be a hassle, and again, not all Linux distros support it. And Windows 7 doesn't support it either.

 

Thks

Sorry if i wasn't that clear , yes i'm getting a msata 250 , just don't want to try to go 500 or 1Tb ...., i already own a 1TB regular 2.5 ssd EVO ... so instead of putting only the msata at 1TB , i thought it will be better to not put that concentrated memory in the small area that get already hot in the computer , just a thought ..

For the dual boot , i'm planning to use 2 Windows 8 boot , one optimized andcleaned for pro audio, the other for general uses ...

Yes i'm gonna *RE read your posts , but i suspect that some have been edited cause believe me i have read those , maybe my english isn't that great so i will double check those

thks again for the time ...

zo

 

Got it. Fyi, higher flash memory storage density doesn't necessarily mean higher temperatures. Just for future reference.

If you're dual booting two separate Windows 8 environments, you won't need to do anything special, and you'll only need one set of the "special" partitions, not a separate set for each environment. So basically either clone your existing Windows 8 drive over to the SSD (or do a clean install if that doesn't work), then shrink your first OS partition down to create available space for the second environment. Format that new empty space as NTFS, then run through the Windows installer again. This time choose a Custom install (not Upgrade), and tell Windows to install onto that new empty NTFS partition you created. The Windows installer will set up the dual boot configuration properly.

Fyi though, unlike in the past, you will NOT get a boot menu every time you start your computer asking you which OS you want to load. The system will always load whichever Windows environment is configured as the default. That will be the most RECENT instance you installed, NOT the first instance you installed, though you can change the default by using bcdedit in Command Prompt. And when you want to switch to the non-default OS, the easiest way to do that is to hold the Shift key when you click Restart. That will take you to an Advanced Boot Menu where you can choose to load the non-default operating system once. If they're both Windows 8.1, they'll both have identical names, but you can again use bcdedit in Command Prompt to rename one or both of them.

If you're curious why you can't get the boot menu when the system starts anymore (like pressing F8), it's because Microsoft intentionally removed it. The reason is that modern computers boot so fast that you'd have less than 200 msec to press F8 and get the boot menu, plus having that available slows down the boot process, and Microsoft knows people want their systems to boot as fast as possible. But on a fast SSD like you'll have, the default Windows environment will load in about 5 seconds anyway, so you won't lose much time waiting for that to load before you can select the other environment.

 

Thks , alot of great infos from you , priceless !!

one more thing , i'm trying to delete partitions and some are labeled oem and i have zero option to erase those exept "help" , (this is in windows HDD manager) , do i have to do it via a 3rd party software ?

 

Be careful what you delete in there! Some of those partitions don't allow themselves to be deleted that easily because as I said, there are several partitions that are required for Windows to boot properly in addition to your actual Windows partition, and if you wipe those out, you'll end up with an unbootable system. The OEM partition you see is probably only about 40 MB. Fyi, that's the Dell Diagnostics partition (though on UEFI systems like this, the diagnostics are on the motherboard anyway) and 40 MB is a completely insignificant amount of space, but if you absolutely insist on deleting it, you'd have to do it with diskpart in Command Prompt. The command you'd need after selecting the appropriate partition is "delete partition override".

 

it's on my test HDD i'm trying everything before the real ssd , i used dsikpart , cause i cloned the hdd to a test drive and some of my own partition are labeled oem !!

 

Just wanted to say that disabling on the bios the intel option on sata to come back to ACHI mode , make booting on regular impossible here ? i tried also on the boot menu every option (legacy ect ....) : no go

somebody got a clue ?