New M6500 Discussion Thread

Thanks for your quick update -I too am looking forward to your review (any idea when that might be ?)

 

I have dual 500GB Seagates in mine (upgraded myself, though), and I don't see any issues.

 

I wouldn't call a disk score of 5.9 exactly "poor". Of course, SSDs will be an order of magnitude faster, but that's not really a fair comparison. Once I can afford dual-500GB SSDs, I'll go there, too...

 

Ok i take that back, 5.9 for a machine that retails for about £4000 is poor perhaps

 

Thumbs up from me also.

 

There is only 1 feature on that spec sheet that makes the 6300 any different than the 5300. That's the increased bandwidth for multiple streams which will have absolutely zero impact on the M6500 unless the wireless infrastructure supports it where you are at. I am talking enterprise level stuff.

Now granted I understand that people would want the latest wireless card but it won't make a bit of difference to 99% of the users.

 

The first generation 7200RPM 500GB Seagates have a bad reputation all over the web. Also the fact that Western Digital only has a 5400RPM spindle speed version of their 500GB makes me extremely worried about the reliability.

I would just make sure you back up every month just to be sure.

 

Honestly I think the RAID is there mostly for RAID1. I would not bother with it in a RAID0. I had horrible luck with the M6400.

We already know you can't really run SSD's in a RAID because TRIM does not work win Windows7.

 

Yeah, but that first generation was mostly bought up by OEMs, and for a couple of months you couldn't by any of those drives at all. I have their second-generation drives, and they're fine.

That's why I have set up a matrix RAID configuration, with system partitions on a RAID0 voulme, but my original user files are on a RAID1 volume. Very nice feature.

Interesting to know. Maybe it'll work by the time I will buy dual-500GB SSDs...

 

Just a heads up. I am having an issue with the *thin* 210w/240w power adapter.

Under a heavy synthetic load on both the GPU and CPU the thin adapter will shut itself off. Its not that hot and it resets itself to normal working status after unplugging from the wall and computer for 10 seconds or so.

This does not happen with the full sized 210w/240w brick and comes with the dock.

Swapping the two adapters does not change the outcome. The thin will shut down under very specific conditions with the dock or standalone. The brickmaster 5000 (fat adapter) does not shut down under any scenario.

Neither brick has any issues with any real-world conditions.

I may just have a defective thin adapter, but wanted to give people a head's up on this. Will let you know when I get a replacement adapter. Dell thinks the adapter is defective and is sending a new one.

I am also going to run the machine through a Kill-A-Watt to see what the wattage being pulled is.