Precision M4500 Owner's Lounge

The Vertex LE will waste a C300 in a notebook. If you have SATA III (which no laptop does so far as I know) then the race gets closer, but I would definetly recommend the Vertex LE. Cheaper, faster, better support.

 

5150cd,

Curious to your statement, do you own any of these drives?

Be aware, this is a tricky question

 

I own two Vertex LE's. They've been flawless, very fast. I run one in my Core i7 desktop and I also run one in my Lenovo W510. They fly. I've also owned about every type of flash drive since they came out (Vertex, Intel Gen 1 & 2, multiple Jmicron models). I have yet to own a C300, but that's just because I don't have anything that has SATA III, and they don't look near as good without that. The Vertex LE so far has been the fastest, and I think it will only get better as new firmware versions come out. If you have any other questions please let me know.

edit: I'm an IT manager, so I have to "test" these drives before I put them in another employees notebook.

 

I've got them all as well and I'm currently running the LE's in raid-0 on one of my workstations.
I agree that the LE is fast but the performance is variable due to the compression algorithms on the controller.
All in all they are pretty close performance wise but the C300 is the better allrounder for now, even on the 3Gb/s interface.

Well, this isn't the place for debating SSD's, I do most of my testing on XS.

 

I wouldn't touch a C300 with a 10' pole right now. Way too buggy and they have been since launch.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2974/crucial-s-realssd-c300-an-update-on-my-drive

If they get the bugs ironed out, it could be a stellar drive, but I wouldn't trust my data on them right now.

Edit: I know there are a few people that have bricked Vertex LE's as well, so I know they're not perfect, but I am far more impressed with OCZ as a company than Crucial. Just my opinion.

 

I'd rather have mainstream reliabilty over bleeding edge bugs and speed.
We are talking data storage devices the most critical item in your PC.

The LE is an ultra niche product that was way to volatile of a design for mainstream use, maybe worth the risk for testing or secondary drive only.

The C300 needs firmware work.

 

More like notebooks need SATA III, I would take SATA III over USB 3.

 

That will most certainly be true after another year or two when drives start hitting read write speeds of 500MBs.

I think however it will start to be a wash in terms of real world usage after they hit levels that high.

 

My notebook is coming with a 250gig 7200rpm drive. Can someone link me to
1) an option to replace the 250gig drive with an SSD down the road
2) an option to add an SSD in addition to the 250gig

 

The only guide for replacing the HDD, is the M4500 manual from Dell Support. It's fairly simple and straightforward, just open the chassis and swap. As for your 2nd question, please read the sticky:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=347870