New M6500 Discussion Thread

Updating the order time-line for my laptop. Hopefully production will ramp up in speed as more are built.

Ordered Dec 2nd 2009 (est ship date of 12/16)
Expedited Dec 3rd 2009
Production Stage Dec 3rd 2009 (est ship date updated to 12/23)
Testing Stage Dec 15th 2009
Boxing Stage Dec 23rd 2009 (est ship date updated to 1/4)
Arrival in Nashville TN Jan 2nd 2010
Fed Ex Picked up Jan 4th 2010
Fed Ex Delivery slated for Jan 6th 2010

 

Hey Bokeh, was your order configured with DDR3 1600 ram? Thanks.

 

Mine hasn't been delivered yet; however, there is very strong evidence that Dell is using Samsung SSDs. I ordered the 256GB unit. Unfortunately, for some reason the salesman specified the "encrypted" version and I didn't catch it until a day later (which was too late to update the order without cancelling and reordering.) (The encryption means that I won't be able to "clone" a backup of my system drive. Well, I could clone it, but the clone would be useless. This option also "delayed shipment" of my system.

As far as I know, Samsung is the only vendor that is currently shipping a Full Drive Encryption (FDE) SSD. The Samsung drives are specified at Sequential read 220mb/s, sequential write 200mb/s and should match the specifications and performance of the Corsair drive specified here:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233085 This SSD performs fairly well, with very low power, and runs cool. The newer versions also have a "garbage collection" feature that maintains the drive while it is idle in order to improve write performance. (Without this garbage collection feature, the performance of the drive would decrease significantly over time.)

(The Dell SSD prices seemed to be fairly well in line with industry prices, unlike what they charge for traditional spinning platter hard drives.)

I'll verify the make and model of the SSD when I receive the system.

 

I maxed all options except RAM, HDD, and Blu-Ray. I went with 4gb of the 1333 on the order. I will be upgrading the RAM and HDD myself.

 

If I understood well, the "garbage collection" feature is actually the TRIM functionality? Does anyone know if Dell ships the M6500 with the newer versions of SSD's (TRIM enabled)?

 

Thanks Bokeh, I'm glad your order is finally shipping. I think it will be a while longer for me though, I suspect they still don't have 1600 DDR3 in stock.

 

Congrats Bokeh... At last, it seems you are just 2 days away...

 

It is my understanding that the "garbage collection" feature performs processes similar to "TRIM" however it is implemented differently. TRIM (as implemented by Windows 7) automatically "maintains" the drive (prepares sectors with deleted data for a future write operation) "on the fly" whenever files are erased. Because TRIM wasn't implemented in Window 7 when Samsung developed this generation of SSDs, they came up with an "in house" solution that performs this maintenance on the drive while it is idle. As far as I know, the only currently shipping SSDs that enable the Windows 7 implementation of TRIM are Intel "generation 2" SSDs with updated firmware, and specific models of OCZ SSDs (vertex) with updated firmware. Samsung will probably update the firmware in their drives soon to enable the Windows 7 TRIM function, but it doesn't appear that they have done so yet. (Samsung SSDs do not have user update-able firmware, Intel and OCZ do.)

 

GC and trim are totally different. I was trying to find a link to provide some information but I gave up. In its most simple terms, if trim is enabled (by default in windows 7) it will clean the cells as soon as the files are deleted (or removed from the recycle bin). GC will only clean the cells when the drive is in an idle state (preferably computer on and logged off). More importantly, trim will only be available with AHCI enabled in the BIOS (forgot what the RAID option is called in Dell's laptop BIOS) and MS drivers. If Intel's new matrix storage drivers (or whatever they are called) are installed, it won't work.

 

The encryption is not turned on by default, and you never have to turn it on it you don't want to. This way you should still be able to backup your image.