M4700 Owners Thread

Hey everyone,

Really tried hard to find out this info before posting it, but I am now a proud owner of a m4700. I wanted to clear up a few bits of info so I can optimize the system to my preferences.

Again, I apologize if this has been discussed before, I searched as well as browsed this thread without finding the relevant info I was looking for.

I hope to have the primary OS on one of the 3 drives (Plan on swapping out the OD with a Caddy) and a RAID 0 on the other 2. Would I be correct in assuming I would RAID the 2.5" bay and the Mini Card, while keeping the OD Bay as the OS? Ideally I would like to have the Mini Card be the OS and the 2.5" bay and the OD bay be the RAID. Is that possible since a RAID 5 is possible with all 3?

Second Question, is the Mini Card SATA II or SATA III, and is the OD bay SATA II or SATA III? Theoretically I would need to be applying a RAID to 2 SATA II drives if the OD is only SATA II.

By the pictures, I also assume the 1394 port is 4pin with no bus power correct?

In summation, what I hope to find out is the possibility of RAID'ing the 2.5" bay and the OD bay together in RAID 0 as well as if that RAID would be SATA II limited (so to say) or SATA III. I also would be interested to find out if the Mini Card slot is SATA II or SATA III because that would influence which card I purchase.

Thanks!!!

 

You can set up RAID pretty much any way you want between the three ports (regular 2.5" bay, mSATA, and optical drive port) if you have three drives installed.

In the M4700, the only SATA-3 port is the regular 2.5" bay port. The optical drive and mSATA are SATA-2. With that in mind, if you're only going to RAID two of them, it seems to make sense to choose the two SATA-2 ports so that your SATA-3 drive can perform at its highest level. However, if you prefer the OS on the mSATA drive and attach high-capacity drives in the other ports, you can set up RAID between the main bay port and optical drive port, no problem.

And yes, the 1394 port is a 4-pin no-power port.

 

Aaron,

Thank you so much for your quick response. It answers everything I needed to know.

Much appreciated.

 

You can have identical drives in HDD bay and OD bay, so it would be most logical to make RAID0 from them, leaving mSATA for system. So - yes.

To be honest, I don't think that you will notice performance difference between mSATA SSD on SATAII and SSD on SATAIII. Both will be very fast.

Yes. Powered 6pin is only on m6700.

 

What happened if i install a Crucial m4 mSata on the Dell Precision M4700 msata II slot?

Will i get the maximum 500MB/s read speed?

 

Hi
I have received mine 2 days ago
Great machine!!!
I have a stupid question for you
Is it possible to use the precision connected to an external display via hdmi and close the lid?
I don't understand how to do...

 

Hi All, please forgive me if I am not allowed to ask the prices paid for m4700. I got he following quotes: need to know whether good or bad? Many Thanks

Deal 1. Dell precision m4700 ($1727.00): Specs: 3rd Gen Intel Core i7-3740QM, 16.0GB, DDR3-1600 SDRAM, 4 DIMM, AMD FirePro M4000 Mobility Pro Graphics with 1GB GDDR5, 256GB 2.5" Dell Mobility Solid State Drive, SATA 3, 7MM, 15.6" UltraSharp FHD (1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare, Premium Panel Guarantee, Slot Load DVD+/-RW Drive, Bracket, Optical Drive, Integrated HD video webcam and noise reducing array microphones, Dell Wireless 1504 802.11g/n Single Band Wi-Fi Half Mini-card, 6-cell (65Wh) Primary Lithium Ion Battery, (2.8Ah) , No USH, No Fingerprint Reader and No Contactless Smartcard Reader.

Deal 2: Dell precision m4700 ($1498.00): 3rd Gen Intel Core i7-3740QM, 16.0GB, DDR3-1600 SDRAM, 4 DIMM, AMD FirePro M4000 Mobility Pro Graphics with 1GB GDDR5, 320GB 2.5" 7200rpm Hard Drive,15.6" HD (1366x768) Anti-Glare, Slot Load DVD+/-RW Drive, Bracket, Optical Drive, Integrated HD video webcam and noise reducing array microphones, Dell Wireless 1504 802.11g/n Single Band Wi-Fi Half Mini-card, 6-cell (65Wh) Primary Lithium Ion Battery, (2.8Ah) , No USH, No Fingerprint Reader and No Contactless Smartcard Reader.

 

yes it is.
just hold the fn button next to the windows button and press f8 (there is a small icon with a display)
you can chose then what kind of setting you want..the one you need should be the last on the list.

 

SATA-2 is 3 Gbps (384 MB/s) so the speed will be limited. However, you still get the no-seek benefit so it will seem waaay faster than any SATA-2 hard drive for most use cases.

This should be possible. Make sure you have the machine set not to sleep or something when you close the lid (in the Windows power settings). Use Windows key + P to set it to "external display only" and then close the lid.

 

Hi, You need to change the power settings to allow the lid to close without turning off the machine.

No. You will get maximum SATA II speeds (theoretical 300 mb/s). Your drive will still have the great other attributes of your ssd.