m14x R2 SATA speed confussion

So I just ordered an m14x a few weeks ago and it's been sitting here waiting for my next paycheck so I can upgrade the drives. I've upgraded from the m15x (which was a beast in itself), so this is my second Alienware. With the m15x I removed the optical drive, put in a standard 7.2k spin drive, and an SSD in the main HD bay. I plan on doing the same on my m14x R2.

I've been trying to read up on the speed of the main HD bay on the m14x R2. It seems (from the threads I've read) that the R1 is SATAII even though Dell claimed it to be SATAIII. I couldn't read through the entire epic 40+ page thread, but there was speculation in it that this would be resolved in the R2. Now I'm trying to find out if the R2 has SATAIII on it's main HD bay or not. The closest thread I found was this ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m14x/663431-msata-m14xr2.html) but even that one didn't have a solid answer.

Basically, I want to know if the m14x R2 has SATAIII or not on it's main HD bay before I plump down some cash for a Corsair Neutron GTX SSD.

Cheers.

 

OK, sounds good

Yes, AW has told me directly via anonymous engineer that the mSATA and primary bay are both SATA III :] ODD bay is SATA II max. Storage speed and capacity will be critical to staying relevant for this notebook, so thank goodness they fixed things in the r2.

Yes, the r1 was gimped at SATA II, though some users would get it working using hacked firmwares. But then they would run into boot problems, etc.. I had to file a BBB complaint for Dell to upgrade me to the r2, but they did :]

There are reports of certain drives being incompatible, but the actual SATA speed should never be the issue

 

my m14x R1 runs stable at sata III and many others too. it supported sata III but it was so buggy that in the end they constrained it via bios to sata II speeds. I would say they fixed that with the R2 but just from a pretty safe guess. others may help to confirm.

 

yeah, that's IMO unacceptable for an "elite" computer, hence my action. i don't enjoy having to frankenstein my brand new electronics.

 

Whew! Thanks! I was scared for a bit there that I would have to return the m14x R2. +rep

Where can I find which drives are incompatible?

 

Wish I knew. Just google stuff like "alienware m14x r2 ssd not compatible" and read around. When you're on the cutting edge of consumer gear, you have to find your own way much of the time... but that's why we help one another!

I went the safe route and got an older Kingston (m)SATA II 64GB SSD for the boot drive, which frees both the HDD and ODD bays for storage :] :] All I was worried about was if it would run stable and be compatible, as I will go SATA III later when they are huge capacity. Put a 750GB 7200RPM drive in the primary bay for my VJ media and storage, kept the ODD for now.

HTH

 

Congrats on your 100th post btw. Since the mSata bay and main HD bay are both SATA 3, while the optical drive bay is SATA 2. I think it makes more performance sense to put an mSata SSD (256gb), with the 7.2k drive in the main bay. This will give me both drives at Sata III.

Unless there's a large speed difference between the mSata and Sata drives... ah too many choices

 

I think we're talking about the same thing, just different flavors. I currently am booting off the mSATA SSD and storing everything on the primary 7.2k HDD. I think I will prob put a huge 5400RPM HDD in the ODD bay one day. Imagine the media you could carry around...

But yeah, the next step is to put full SATA III SSDs in both the mSATA slot and primary bay. Some users have even set up SSD RAID by using the same capacity drives. So you could have 1Gbps SSD performance and put a slow, cool HDD in the ODD bay. HAHA! It makes the mind boggle :]

 

BTW last reports were that companies were starting to miniaturize thieir regular SSDs for the mSATA format, but I have not seen many good products yet. I think Crucial might offer both mSATA and SATA SSDs in the same capacities? That would allow the RAID shenanigans. My ideal would be to have 512GB SSDs in both the full-speed ports, and just move my crrent 750GB 7.2k drive to the ODD. That is powerful. Maybe get a $20 external CD burner for the two times a year when I need one ;]

 

Good luck on that quest . Just to give you the official word guys the mSATA and the main port are SATA III as stated above. You should have no problem with those upgrades. Good luck to you as well!