Precision M4500 Owner's Lounge

Dang... I was hoping for something. I don't want to slide something in and out of the laptop all the time... it's easier just to unload to the network I guess. I'm just looking for some more working room. The 512 gig SSD's are still pricey.

Could I mirror my current samsung 256 SSD to a samsung 512 SSD and just throw the new SSD back into it? or it's probably not that easy. I think the 512's are getting far enough down in price now to justify this. I just don't want to reinstall anything. It is perfect as it is... I just need more working space that is FAST like this SSD... it is a work of art I tell ya.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/newsView.do?news_id=1166

I can't find a place to source this thing yet though.

 

Agreed that these machines are blindingly fast.

I got the newmodeus drive bay caddy thing, which is your only option if you want true internal expansion using a full size drive. I guess for most people this is fine because they havn't got an internal bluray drive. Another theory is that you get an external case for the bluray drive to live inside, so then you would have your newmodeus caddy inside on a permanent basis, and the optical drive would only be connected when you needed to watch a movie. I didn't but the bluray from Dell because I thought the prices they were asking were a bit cheeky, and will go for an external one instead.

Newmodeus also sell an eSATA/USB connector which gives you the full performance too. This is the lower USB connector on the LEFT hand side of the M4500, in fact it's labelled eSATA on my machine. I'm not sure if that's a more appealing option, as you get to keep your bluray inside.

Failing that, you have 2, possibly 3 more options for an internal drive, I *think* but I'm not 100% sure about these since I havn't done them. Furthermore, they do not allow you to fit a full size 2.5" drive, only special SSDs which may not have comparable performance. Worse, their capacities are not that high.

In the WWAN (mobile broadband) internal card slot, I believe it's possible to fit a special 64GB SSD in its place instead. Indeed, Dell sell M4500s with these pre-installed. I believe Samsung is the only option at present for this particular slot, and they're hard to come by - at one point only via an ebay supplier in Poland, if you didn't have it fitted by Dell already. I don't believe Dell sell them on their site for manual fitting. But the topic has already been discussed in this very forum thread!

The other 2 options are to use your card slots. There is a modern small "express" card slot on the left of the M4500 (next to the camera card slot), and a larger traditional PCMCIA card slot on the right of the M4500 (above the optical drive). Manufacturers sell SSDs cards are available for both slots, I don't know about PCMCIA capacities but the smaller express cards seem to go up to at least 64gb. Ideally you want one that fits flush with the case rather than sticking out. I also don't know about the performance of these so it's worth doing your research.

 

I believe I'll go with the "taking the blueray/cd" out and putting a drive in there. then I'll just keep the BR-D in the laptop case.

Thanks for this information. Very helpful!

 

and yeah its of course hot swap so you dont need to reboot when u exchange

 

The bottom port on the left is actually a USB/eSATA combo port that combines USB buspower and eSATA connectivity. The "problem" is that bus-powered external eSATA disks are kinda rare I think (?). But that would be your fastest option without having to carry a power brick around...

 

Thank you for your response. I had no internet for 3 days and just had it fixed recently so I apologize for the delay in my response. The noise is not loud but its audible in a perfectly silent room. I wont worry about it.

Thanks again

 

I did not get this with my set-up, but can you boot of it, or is it just for storage as they seem to imply?

 

The m4500 is Dead. Long-live the M4600:

Dell Updates Its Precision Mobile Workstation Line with Two New Sandy Bridge Models - Softpedia

I heard this was coming out on the TWIT network and Googled it.

Sandy Bridge (microarchitecture) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

These are basic specs:

Precision M4600

* 15.6" White-LED and RGB-LED LCD options + Touch-Screen option
* Graphics card options are as follows:

AMD FirePro M5950 1GB GDDR5
NVIDIA Quadro 1000M 2GB GDDR5
NVIDIA Quadro 2000M 2GB GDDR5

 

So this issue with audio/video drop-outs via Displayport from the laptop continues for me, even with a different cable.

Is anyone else using Displayport from the laptop to a TV without any problems, with the ControlPoint software still installed?

 

yeah yeah i saw that already. i was hoping that dell would just do like a revision of M4500.. does that mean M4500 is gonna be discontinued in Q1 2011?? i just got the laptop....