Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

From my research the mSATA connector in the M4600 is a SATA II port only. I put a Runcore T50 SATA 6 Gb card in my laptop (along with the OEM (Samsung) 256 in the hard drive bay). Crystal Info sees the card as a SATA 6 disk (as expected) but the Intel Rapid Storage info shows it as running at SATA II. Apparently there is still some real life performance gain by using a SATA 6gb card (can't confirm) but I admit that I did not do my homework and might have saved some money and gone with a SATA II card instead. At least the Runcore comes with a neat adapter to use it in a regular bay so I can always use it in my desktop or put it into some other regular 2.5/3.5 bay.

 

Not sure I think it still SATA2 and not SATA3. I think someone asked about this in the M6600 owners thread.

 

Yeah been messing with it all day!



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I decided to disregard everything I read online, and installed an SSD like this:
Backup a system image.
Install windows 7 on the SSD.
Use installation CD to repair from the system image on an external hard drive. All the original partitions are on, and it works well. Alignment seems good too.

 

So far after 2 days with the m4600 I have to say what a beast! Granted its no alienware but it maxes the games I play and the keyboard is amazing. Its a cross between the xps 16 and vostro 1700 and I would say damn near perfection. The only draw back I would say is the mice. Still alot missing in that department. The point stick is still way far behind lenovo's trackpoint. But Im hoping its just the rubber that came with it as I have some new ones coming. The touchpad on the other hand is pretty decent and much better then my old m4400.

All in all I will say this laptop is worth every penny I spent on it.

Ill have to try this. When I can afford an mSata drive and if my current install is still healthy Ill be imaging the drive to go on the mSata. No sense in killing a good install especially with all my data and configurations I have.

 

Thanks for your response, Chris. It's nice to see someone who is interested in what I am who knows enough to answer such a specific question. many people don't care about the gamut in a laptop screen...let alone percentages on a very specific unit that consumers don't even buy..

What did people say you could/couldn't do?

When you buy a SSD preconfigured from dell, do you know if that is that the OS and programs drive?

What SSD did you end up using? mSATA card or the ordinary HDD bay?

 

In the M4600 the mSATA is connected to port 1, which is a SATA 3 port, so it should support 6gbps.


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My Active DisplayPort -> VGA converter arrived, i have used it for couple days, it's been working quite well. Now I've got two external monitors with M4600, I feel great!

 

Oh wow this is good to know!

 

Unless I have some options in setup I am not aware of, the Intel Rapid Storage Tech application on my M4600 is showing the mSATA on port 2 at SATA 3Gb/s. The drive is a Runcore T50 (SATA 6Gb/sec). I'd be really happy to find out that I have something set up incorrectly (like there are two msata ports and I used the wrong one!!).