New Latitude 5470

One nice thing with UEFI is that you can just format a USB stick and copy the contents of the ISO image onto it -- UEFI will read the EFI folder on the USB drive. There's no special tool required the way there was with BIOS/legacy boot where there needed to be a bootable MBR.

For Windows 10, I've used Microsoft-provided images, either MSDN (before 1607) or using their free downloader (since).

 

I've received 2 units with 512GB NVMe M.2 SSDs: one with Samsung PM951 and one with LiteOn CX2. Which one is generally the more desirable one? The official specs are:

Samsung P951
Sequential Read/Write: 1050MB/s / 560MB/s
Random Read/Write: 250K IOPS / 144K IOPS
http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/products/flash-storage/client-ssd/MZVLV512HCJH?ia=831

LiteOn CX2
Sequential Read/Write: 2500MB/s / 1200MB/s
Random Read/Write: 230K IOPS / 200K IOPS
http://www.liteonssd.com/product/client-sata-ssd/cx2-series.html


On paper it looks like the LiteOn CX2 should be faster, but just wanted to see what you guys think.

 

Two suggestions: Run CrystalDiskMark for ech SSD so you can compare the actual performance. You might only get the full performance if you have a quad core CPU (see here and subsequent discussion).

Check the notebook power drain when running on battery (use BatteryInfoView) with identical operating conditions (eg idle + minimum brightness) to see if there is a significant difference which is probably attributable to the SSD. If you want to go one step further in measuring the relative SSD power consumption then, for each notebook, measure the reduction in battery charge when running CrystalDiskMark on battery. This will give an indication of the power drain under load conditions (you can also see the increase above idle power drain). Another aspect to check is heat under testing. Use HWiNFO and enable sensors before running CrystalDiskMark. After the test look at the maximum SSD temperature. Anything above 70C (possibly less) is likely to result in the SSD performance being throttled to limit the temperature.

Personally, I would probably opt for the Liteon unless it shows poor power / thermal behavour (ie getting too hot). It's a low profile company which has been making SSDs for several years and doesn't make the headlines for the wrong reasons (ie problems). This is the first mention I've come across of Liteon producing NVMe SSDs and should stimulate a downward trend in pricing.

John

 

John, thank you so much for the advice. I did not have enough time to run through everything, since I had to give the laptops to their owners. I ran a quick Crystal Disk Mark and got the following results:

Samsung PM951
Read[MB/s] Write[MB/s]
Seq Q32T1 1665 598.9
4K Q32T1 661.1 584.8
Seq 1239 595.5
4K 39.26 196.8


LiteOn CX2
Read[MB/s] Write[MB/s]
Seq Q32T1 1598 1241
4K Q32T1 623.3 485.6
Seq 1314 830.6
4K 42.2 130.4

so while the 4K write speeds on the Samsung are a bit better, the sequential write on the LiteOn is much faster (almost double at times). I do recall reading somewhere that the PM951, while being NVMe, was not that impressive seq writing-wise.

 

Thanks for posting the info.

Overall, there's not a lot of difference - nothing which is likely to be noticed in everyday usage.

John

 

Hi Yelreve,

I got the same problem. Just bought refurbished E5470 and upgraded Bios to 1.8.3.
I put Transcend 256GB MTS400 2242 SSD into WAN slot but it can not recognize it.

Have you got any solution?

Thank you!

 

Both of you guys got a 256GB MTS400 and have problems?

Maybe that's the issue? No idea




In other news, who's interested in paying $1299 for a 2TB pcie x4 m.2 2280 ssd? Lower power rating too, helps with heat/battery life

(Samsung 960 pro)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10698/samsung-announces-960-pro-and-960-evo-m2-pcie-ssds

 

Interesting drive, but with 32GB of memory I don't find the difference in SSD speeds to matter much; I tend to either be running all out of cache or network limited for things I care about speed on.

I've got my eye on the cheaper 2TB 2.5" drives (MX300 and 850 EVO) although neither is quite inexpensive enough to want to move up from 1TB.

 

Anyone else have this odd issue? I have an E5470 with Core i7-6820HQ quad-core, 32GB RAM, 512GB M.2 PCIe SSD (LiteOn), Intel integrated graphics. The system works fine, but whenever the display turns off (due to power saving setting) yet the system remains on; the fans start doing this weird "pulsing" behavior. It sounds like its starting and stopping rapidly. When the screen is on, I do not hear this.

I can hear the weird sound best from the left side of the computer by the fan vent. Thank you.

 

Thanks for this thread, I still have to re-read it again with calm.
I´ve just ordered an E5470 with i5-6640HQ 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD disk. I would like to add a cheap 16GB RAM module (for a 24GB config), but it´s not officially supported. I have seen several of you with a 32GB configuration: what models of RAM module are you using, please? (to avoid buying something that doesn´t work).

I still have to investigate the chance of using the included 256 SDD with an added 2,5" HDD, but I still have to learn about M.2 disks before understanding your posts about it (I´m from the old happy days of spinning disks).