Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

'Deal Barker'

Bahahahaha

 

Oops... :-D

 

If an M4600 was purchased with just a single hard drive, can an aftermarket 128GB mSATA mini-SSD be added, to make a two drive config with the mSATA mini-SSD as the boot drive (just like if I purchased it with Dell's offering)?

If so, can anyone recommend specific models of mSATA SSDs that will work? How about these:

MyDigitalSSD 128GB 50mm mSATA (Mini SATA PCI-e) SSD - MDMS-50128
Renice X3 50mm mSATA Mini SATA 120GB RCM120-PX3M

Any others?

Finally can anyone point me to a reliable vendor with such a drive in stock at a reasonable price?

Many Thanks in Advance,
Paul

 

After reading through this very long thread, it looks like I can order an M4600 with minimal 4GB SDRAM and a minimal hard drive, and upgrade them myself.

For RAM, I would remove the 4GB 1333 and replace it with 16GB with two of these (4 modules total):

Kingston Technology HyperX 8 GB Kit (2x4 GB Modules) 8 Dual Channel Kit 1600 (PC3 12800) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX

I can get that for about $150 (Dell would charge me a whopping $715 for 16GB of 1333). I know the 1600 isn't necessary, but it's the same price as 1333 where I was looking.

Any comments or problems you see with that RAM upgrade?


For a hard drive, I would remove the cheapest one I could get from Dell, and replace it with one of these:

Seagate Momentus ST9750420AS 750GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive

I can get one of those for about $90 (Dell would want about $470 for a 750GB drive).

Any comments or problems you see with that hard drive upgrade?


If I can do those two things, I can save some serious coin -- like around $700-$800.

Any other issues I should consider, like will doing that void the warranty or hardware service plan?

Many Thanks in Advance,
Paul

 

you can get 16 gigs of ram for $100 shipped at Newegg . I am not sure why anybody wouldn't go with an SSD drive if you needed more space you could add a drive caddy for around $50

 

I am running 2 x Kingston HyperX 8GB Kits (2x4GB), PC-12800 (1600MHz) for a total of 16GB. No problem in putting them in and it is much better then buying memory from DELL for some reason I do not understand.

With my order I got the cheapest HDD and then I upgraded to an OCZ 120GB Vertex 3 - IOPS Edition SSD for my system drive.

Have you ever used a SSD?

Once you have gone to a SSD you will never want to use a HDD again for your system drive.

 

Thanks for the reply! Looks like the RAM upgrade will work fine.

Yep, I have used SSDs.

If you saw my other message, I'd like to buy the M4600 with the cheapest HDD, and then add a 128MB mSATA mini-SSD as the primary system drive (if I can find out what aftermarket drives work and where to buy them).

I want a very large amount of storage on my laptop (at least 500GB), and it seems pretty pricey to get larger amounts of SSD storage. Are there larger ones for low prices that I'm missing?

Thanks,
Paul

 

What RAM are you seeing for $50 for an 8GB kit? The cheapest I see on Newegg is $65 for regular Kingston 1333. I can get the Hyper X 1600 for $70, so not much difference there.

Per my other message, I wanted to add a 128MB mSATA mini-SSD as the primary boot drive (if I can find where to buy a compatible one).

I want a large amount of storage, but I don't want to carry extra peripheral boxes or have to swap out the DVD/CD drive to use another hard drive, so I wanted an internal large secondary storage drive. Speed isn't that important for this one, and the price difference between a large SSD and a large HDD is significant.

Thanks,
Paul

 

Sorry, must have missed your earlier post.

When I ordered mine, the 500GB/7,200rpm HDD was the cheapest on offer, so I still have that to use for extra storage.

Just need to buy a Drive Caddy HERE if I want extra internal storage and don't mind ditching my Optical Drive.

 

The only thing that was a negative in upgrading to a SSD was I found that I had to buy a separate copy of WIN7/64bit-Pro to install as I could not successfully clone DELL's OEM system drive.

Maybe others will have more luck.