mPCI-E SD/SDHC/SDXC in WWAN slot? The answer inside!

Hello All!

I know this has been a popular topic and I’ve been studying it a while now. The WWAN does not have a controller as we know, it's tied to the USB controller so I did some testing and found a working conclusion...so i thought I would post it here!

INFO: I have a m11x - R1 with 160G Intel SSD main drive with a 16G SD card modified to be flush mount in the card reader but wanted more space for simple storage! Soooo... I just received this and tested it working:


I ordered this from this site and it took about a week to deliver:
MR15 (Dual Micro SDXC/SDHC/SD Cards to mPCIe Adapter)

I also ordered the optional Metal Baffle for full height and screws.

For testing i just used a 2G MicroSd SanDisk card i had laying around but now plan to order 2 - 32G cards.

Here is the On Computer Shot
Here is the inside Computer Shot

Any questions let me know and ill try to answer them!
-Branden

 

+rep! I'll be putting my order in this next pay check.

 

I just placed an order. What micro SDHC cards do you recommend? Figure if I get two 32gb, I can use one for mp3's and the other for pictures and that will give me more space on my ssd.

NewEgg Micro SDHC Results

 

Looks like the class 10 32gb cards are getting poor reliability ratings. For use in the m11x would it be ok to step down to a lower class? I assume it will still be faster than a physicial HDD right?

 

I am just waiting on my adapter to arrive but this means I'll be getting the sd card sooner now!

 

I usually stick with SanDisk. But for the price im thinking i might get two of these and see how they work:

PROVANTAGE: PNY Technologies P-SDU32G10TEFM1 32GB Hi Speed Micro SDHC Class 10 for Tablet PCs

 

Might try the patriot LX series of SDHC.

 

That's a great price! Thanks!

 

Posts like this make this place worthwhile. +1

 

I ordered a 64gb Transcend Class 10 from eBay for $125.

read/write up to 25MB/S, speed of 10MB/S is guaranteed
- From Amazon's description

 

anyone tried SDXC cards with the adapters? the comparison PDF has them as "workable"

 

Bootable? for a same linux build?

 

I just bought a Patriot LX series 332gb SDHC card and managed to format it to NTFS no issues on my m11x (through the provided card reader). now i am just waiting on the adapter to arrive to complete the process.

EDIT: I think i'll put some non-essential apps like openoffice and gimp and probably a few games to help free up the space on the SSD.

EDIT2: do a quick test to see how big of a difference the load times are between an SSD and an SDHC card so will report back later.

 

I'm really looking forward to see how this works.

It'll be a great way to gain a bit of extra space on my SSD.

 

I did a quick test of loading a checkpoint from the menu in portal 2. it took my SSD 13.53 seconds to load the checkpoint while it took 38.64 seconds to load the same checkpoint from the SDHC (class 10) card. so it took nearly 3 times as long to load from an SDHC card than SSD but still well under 1 minute.

and putting the empty slot to good use with an additional storage option.

EDIT: I did a few more tests on 2 more games in total for 3 and...

Portal 2: 13.53s (SSD) - 38.64s (SDHC)
Crysis 2: 25.46s (SSD) - 51.6s (SDHC)
Dead Space 2: 10.83s (SSD) - 10.34s (SDHC)

there doesn't seem to be any pattern between the games as each are loading differing amounts of data into RAM but I find it strange that Dead Space is slightly faster if not about the same on SDHC than SSD.

either way i think SDHC for games is viable idea if not for simple less strenuous applications like office suites etc.

 

For the cost of the adapter, and the Micro SD cards, you could simply increase your hard drive space, of if you have an SSD you could simply jump up to the next size SSD practically - for obviously MUCH faster r/w.

Just thinking out loud. I liked this idea at first, but too much money for "hidden" storage.

 

True he could, but he can still upgrade his ssd and still have this extra storage too.

 

I agree - but the cost of the storage is still just a bit too high to make sense.

 

i just like the idea that i can make good use of the slot for data storage because an extra 32gb can definitely go a long way!

 

aioka-

Can you "eject" the sd cards in windows so that it does not show up anymore untill you reboot?

Would be kinda nice if I could load up files, but still be able to turn off the cards so no one can see them.

 

i just tried it and the SDHC card does reappear after reboot. though i am curious if you can hide them but still be there for windows to access.

 

That's a good thought but I were to jump from a 240gb ssd to any higher, the prices would be much higher than if someone upgraded from a 120 to 240. I bought the 64gb card which I will use to store my music and the mpci-e micro sd to store my pictures. That way I can free up space on my ssd and since I don't regularly access my pictures and music, I don't have to really worry about the read write times.

 

Do you by chance have a regular HDD to compare with? I'm curious to know if running World or Warcraft would be faster on a class 10 card than a 7200rpm HDD. I'm guessing not.

 

i don't have an OS install for the m11x on a HDD. i could do a test on a desktop but then it's a different spec of course.

 

Hmmmm, the thing I'd like to know is are these bootable from the slot because if so, then BackTrack Linux would go nicely on one...

 

It might be bootable to the same effect of booting from a USB stick (since its tied to a usb port)

But, I dont know if its going to be something very fast.

Somthing like this might work

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

 

is that it's own distribution or does it take a current distro like ubuntu and "convert" to a pendrive friendly OS?

 

Not sure as I am not too familiar with linux, I mostly just know osx and win7

 

No, if the bios is seeing that for wwan only. It wont boot from it.

However, you could make a lilo or grub partition on another drive the bios does see and then point to the usb stick.

So it sounds like other than the bios not seeing it and being a usb limited transfer. There is no real why not to get a cheaper ssd versus a sd? Or am I missing something?

 

Interesting concept. Very interested. +rep for testing it out for us.

Quick question about SD cards: Can they crash like Hard Drives? I'm curious because I'm sitting on about 10gb of files that if I lost I'd be in a hole. If can't or at a lesser rate than Hard Drives then this would be worth my time.

 

I dont think they can crash like a hdd since there are no moving parts that fail. But they can become corrupted. I think your best bet is going to be to do as I do, buy a few drives to backup files on.... I have my music collection backed up on 3 hdds plus on the computers drive.

 

when my adapter arrives i'm just gonna dump about 1-2 games + a few apps to help clear up the SSD in wake of a few other games.

 

Yeah I have a few externals its just that Im constantly altering these files. Mmm.

Edit: Just out of curiosity how fast is this compared to the SD card slot on the side of the 11x? Or is it all SD card dependent?

 

Usally its the card thats the bottle neck. most class 10cards i have will write about 8-12mbs for like 5sec then it starts going down to about 2-5mbs. i notice most of them get too hot to touch during a transfer of a minute or longer.

I can see how people with SSDs could benifit from this but to me id rather hard wire a hub off the mobo and run a SDcard that way. This way you ciuld boot from it which is prob the main benifit someone could get from a setup like this. standard HDDs are soo cheap nowadays. i mean a 32gb Micro card cost about 1/2 of what a 1tb HDD cost...

+1 for the info OP. my friend wanted a solution like this. his gonna be happy now that he can go this route and run the 60gb SSD he already purchased.

 

Tom's Hardware did benchmarks on 2011 MicroSDHC cards

Benchmarks 2011 micro SDHC Charts

 

Since we have more than one thread on all this. Here are some voltage and wattage info.

"All SD card families must power-up at 3.3 volt and use 3.3 volt logic electrical interface, though SDHC and SDXC family cards can step down to 1.8 volt after receiving specific command"

Secure Digital - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

". CF devices operate at 3.3 volts or 5 volts, and can be swapped from system to system. "
CompactFlash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Power Consumption 16gb mini pcie ssd
$40.8 Free Ship KingSpec 16GB Mini PCI-e SATA SSD - Wholesale US$36.27


Micro SD:
3.3 volt initialization
1.8 volt idle

Compact Flash
5? 3? Volts? Have to ask manufacturer of adapter.

SSD
Input Voltage 3.3V
Idle 0.5W max
Active 1.5W max

So as I thought, if your after battery life, the ssd is still your best bet. It sounds like heat as well. I understand there isnt a direct correlation from voltage to wattage as wattage also includes amperage. However, I have a sneeking suspicion the card readers draw more.

So my opinion. If you are just storing data in small files that wont be accessed much. You can get away with the sdhc. However. If you are storing active data and a variety of files sizes. Like everything from your page file to your temp directory and downloads folder. And actually plan on using it with the battery.

Stick with a cheaper end mini pci-e ssds. Their transfer rates are below usb 2.0 speeds making them not a waste of money.

 

OK i received my SD card to mini pcie adapter today so it is getting installed now.

EDIT: it's giving me a code 43!

EDIT 2: No luck with the adapter on my M11x R2

 

Which one exactly did you get?

Also, did you try disabling and enabling the wwan port in the bios?

Edit. Like this one?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/580898-pci-e-ssd-possible-2.html#post7534863

I wonder what would have changed between the revision 1 versus 2 for it to not work now?

 

I bought the MR-04 and yes the wwan option in the bios is enabled. windows just sees it and says code 43.

probably a dud adapter or something.

 

There were a couple of threads/posts on the MR-04 adapter last Aug/Sept timeframe.
I don't think anyone ever got it to work with the R2, including myself. The best I got, was to install the adapter, boot into windows and insert the card. The R2 saw it and it worked great, but as soon as I rebooted, the card was no longer visible unless I removed it and reinserted it.

 

Hmm. Well thats the one I bought for the R3, so I guess I'm the guinea pig for that version.

What we need is a bios mod, but I know nothing about the Dell flash. I have only worked with Phoenix, and failed thus far at what I was attempting (a server seeing a newer cpu).

 

as in plug it in when the OS was on?

 

Yes, that's it.

 

Very interested to see how it turns out. Despite the costs being a bit on the high side (more likely upgrade to a 256gb SSD) this is a pretty cool idea

 

Anyone know if the MR15 will work in the R2 or R3?

 

Just got my PNY 32GB MicroSD that aioka suggested. I installed the MR-15 with the microsd card. Upon boot it detected the card and installed the drivers automatically and it was ready to go. The transfer speed is pretty good, ranging from 8-15mb/s and I'm in the process of transferring my music which will free up 18.9gb from my ssd. Since everything is working, I am going to order a second 32gb card.

 

I got the MR15 installed today along with two 32GB PNY cards but am having a problem. It's taking FOREVER to get past POST now. I mean nearly 60 seconds. It's almost like the system is trying to determine if it can/should boot from the flash cards. Anyone else experiencing this?

Edit: This only happens on a cold boot. If you reboot the PC after Windows has loaded it passes POST very quickly.

 

I'm not having any problems with the one card. My second card has been shipped and it should be here in a couple of days. I'll see if it's because of two cards.

 

Ok I've narrowed it down to card slot 1. With any card in that slot POST takes forever. Slot 2 works fine. I'm going to see if I can get a replacement MR15 but I bet I'm screwed.

 

My thought is either the mr-04 is screwy or the R2 is just botched when it comes to using these cards!