E6520 Owner's Thread

I tried plugging into that port with the same mSata Drive and nothing... am I doing something wrong?

 

How did you get it to fit properly?

So, you -
Made sure all SATA ports are enabled in the BIOS?
Made sure the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver is installed?

Scott

 

Scott - I thought that port still didn't work for mSATA drives yet(if ever)? Does it now work? Can we boot from it?

 

9cell battery does stick out. I actually like it as it provides a nice handle to help hold the notebook when transporting by hand.

no idea on noise. I have the I5-2520. It's very quiet- too quiet as I'm trying to figure out how to bypass BIOS fan control and have it cool down when playing things like LOTRo....

don't have the FHD screen.

HP vs. Dell - you'll get a million answers. I've actually had good experiences with Dell's, my wife and daughter both have them, and I like the fact we can share PS's if we need to.

 

I have not tested the mSATA slot myself since I use and prefer a secondary HDD in the media bay. I have tested the small 2GB and 4GB mini PCI-e Intel Turbo-Memory cards and they seems to work OK as long as a SSD is not already installed.

In the future, I may test a mSATA in the E6520 to see what the deal is. Right now, I am mainly on the M6600 which has been tested to work great with the mSATA cards. It can even boot to them.

Since the chipset in the M6600 and the E6520 is the same, it must be an individual BIOS limitation if anything is stopping the use the mSATA in the E6520.

Scott-

 

Hrrm..

Thanks for the quick response. I'm sure you're familiar with erblemoof's long and dismal success in trying to get these to work on his E6520.

Aren't the transfer speeds of the mSATA devices faster than the mini-PCIE? Just curious.

I need the extra 3cell battery as I go long stretches without plugin access so my ideal setup is a ~30-60GB boot mSATA drive with my storage drive in the HDD slot.

 

It seems to be a Dell Bios Issue... there is no place to "enable" the other ports in the Bios.. ( I've looked like a million times). I have gotten the dell folks to say both Yes it is capable and should work and No it doesn't (mainly because I claim a problem). Is there a way that you can put the M6600 Bios in this thing if it is the same MB? then I would be able to use the mSATA? just spit-ballin' here. BTW can I just whine for two seconds about proprietary bios that takes away functionality... {end whine}

If you have any "hacks" that might make this work let me know. is there a BIOS that is pre-dell-touch that might work?

Thanks for your replies

 

ohh and Does the mSATA work in the WWAN slot on the M6600 or is it just the SATA-Flash Slot?

 

That would be nice, we need someone like PR3ACHER or what not to create a custom/hacked BIOS. I remember for my I8600 that the D800 shared the same BIOS and with some customization(?) people could convince their i8600's that they were a D800....

 

Yes, the mSATA cards are basically SATA-II SSD boards. They draw about the same power as a 2.5" SSD drive. The mini-PCIe slots in many of these laptops is basically a USB 2.0 interface regardless of form factor. Still, the mini-PCIe flash memory cards can offer faster latency times so they can add a boost to traditional HDD perfromance if used as a data buffer. This is where the "hybrid" drives like the Seagate 500GB/4GB came from about 18 months ago. Now, with SSD pricing falling, hybrids are no longer cost effective in the long term and companies like Intel and Dell stopped promoting the little flash cards that can be used as instant-ON and Turbo-Memory.

A standard SSD will give you the same extended battery times as a mSATA card and you can get more for your money with the 2.5" SSD. Plus, the E6520 will suupport SATA-III on ports 0 and 1.

Scott-