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Is it really necessary per se to swap out my T420's hard drive for an SSD? I understand the speed benefits, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily a reliability thing.
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Jan 30, 2016 20:14
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Teddybear posted:Is it really necessary per se to swap out my T420's hard drive for an SSD? I understand the speed benefits, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily a reliability thing. Solid state memory is generally wayyy more reliable than a spinning platter especially in something that's going to be moved around and/or dropped. Plus it's pretty drat hard to use a 5400rpm hard drive after using a solid state for a while.
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Jan 30, 2016 20:21
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What's the best bang for the buck on upgrading the T420 teddy and I bought? SSD or RAM?
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Jan 30, 2016 21:19
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nwin posted:What's the best bang for the buck on upgrading the T420 teddy and I bought? SSD or RAM? SSD by far.
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Jan 30, 2016 21:21
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nwin posted:What's the best bang for the buck on upgrading the T420 teddy and I bought? SSD or RAM? SSD by a landslide. You can survive with 4 gb of RAM. Working on a computer without a SSD is a nightmare. Grab the 850 EVO. Around $80 for 250 gb, $140 for 500 gb.
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Jan 30, 2016 21:22
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Cat Army 
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SSD makes an even bigger difference on laptops. Old, rotational laptop hard drives are gimped with slower rotational speeds, slower spin up speeds, and due to the moving parts being constantly jostled in your lap, car, train etc, their seek times get worse and worse over the years. Where a desktop rotational drive might be 7200, 7800 or even 10,000 RPM, most laptop drives run at 4200, 5400 and sometimes 7200rpm. They have undersized drive motors to reduce heat and power consumption, which slows down spin up and seek times. Every time you jostle your mechanical drive more than X, it will park the heads and wait for the movement to stop. It sucks. Hard drives are a loving modern miracle that they work at all, particularly in a device like a laptop. SSD on the other hand, what goes in to desktops goes in to laptops, there are no mechanical parts to wear out, and is not impacted by being dropped, slapped, kicked. It is totally immune to all motion and is unlikely to wear out in your lifetime. Calling it a generational improvement in laptop technology would be an understatement.
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Jan 30, 2016 21:27
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nwin posted:What's the best bang for the buck on upgrading the T420 teddy and I bought? SSD or RAM? NewEgg has mSATA EVO 850's on sale that would be perfect for a T420 - you could put it in the mSATA slot and keep your hard drive for storing movies or whatever 120GB SAMSUNG 850 EVO mSATA SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-M5E120BW) $64.99 promo code AFMSSD0125F 500GB SAMSUNG 850 EVO mSATA SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-M5E500BW) $146.99 promo code AFMSSD0125H
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Jan 30, 2016 21:43
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enraged_camel posted:I'm in the market for a new laptop. Specs I'm looking for: I got bottom page'd so I figure I'll post this one again.
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Jan 30, 2016 22:15
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Maybe a dumb question but do all modern laptops have the ability to swap in a SSD?
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Jan 30, 2016 22:30
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Krime posted:Maybe a dumb question but do all modern laptops have the ability to swap in a SSD? I'd say all laptops do, to varying degrees. It just depends on the form factor of the SSD. Modern laptops generally use 2.5" SATA, mSATA, or M.2 drives. Old laptops can even take Compact Flash cards via an adapter. Certainly not your typical SSD, but definitely an improvement over old PATA platter drives. smax fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jan 30, 2016 |
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Jan 30, 2016 22:33
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Older SSDs came in 9mm heights, but I don't think anyone sells a new SSD taller than 7mm height anymore, which seems to be the new standard. So there's a possibility of an incompatibility, but it's unlikely.enraged_camel posted:I got bottom page'd so I figure I'll post this one again. Refurb T530? 16GB out of the box is going to push you over 1000 on any 13" laptop, and a 1080p 15" screen will certainly push you over if buying new. You can pick up a T540 for about $750, and then just swap in whatever RAM and SSD you need and probably eek in just under $1000. If you switch down to T530 it looks like they are going for about $400 and are about 95% as powerful. An i7 T530 would be as powerful as a new i5 T550, easy.
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Jan 30, 2016 22:56
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Sorry, one last clarification. On the T420 is there a space I can slot the SSD and have that be my main drive while keeping the regular disk drive for, I dunno, backups or videos or whatever? Or would adding the SSD require me to remove the hard disk.
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Jan 30, 2016 23:15
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Teddybear posted:Sorry, one last clarification. On the T420 is there a space I can slot the SSD and have that be my main drive while keeping the regular disk drive for, I dunno, backups or videos or whatever? Or would adding the SSD require me to remove the hard disk. Depends! If you get a mSATA 850 EVO you can keep it while retaining the Hard Drive, though you'll want to be sure to install windows onto the SSD instead of the hard drive! Booting to desktop in less than 8 seconds is pretty rad and only possible if you install windows on your SSD. If you get a 2.5 inch 850 EVO then you'll have to replace your HDD.
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Jan 30, 2016 23:26
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The Iron Rose posted:Depends! If you get a mSATA 850 EVO you can keep it while retaining the Hard Drive, though you'll want to be sure to install windows onto the SSD instead of the hard drive! Booting to desktop in less than 8 seconds is pretty rad and only possible if you install windows on your SSD. Okay, good to know. It won't need anything more fancy than a screwdriver or whatnot to install, I reckon?
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Jan 30, 2016 23:30
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You could probably do it with a dime or paperclip, but yeah a screwdriver is plenty to get open the hard disk flap.
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Jan 30, 2016 23:32
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I've never tinkered with a laptop before, only desktops, so this is new territory.  So: EVO 850, mSATA. Used/new make a difference for these?
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Jan 30, 2016 23:40
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Hadlock posted:Older SSDs came in 9mm heights, but I don't think anyone sells a new SSD taller than 7mm height anymore, which seems to be the new standard. So there's a possibility of an incompatibility, but it's unlikely. Hmm, OK. There's a refurbished T530 i7 with 8 GB RAM for $660. Maybe I can get that, stick in another 8 GB and also put in my 500 GB SSD.
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Jan 30, 2016 23:47
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Teddybear posted:I've never tinkered with a laptop before, only desktops, so this is new territory. No reason not to buy new when they're so cheap.
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Jan 30, 2016 23:54
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Okay. I'll grab the EVO 850 250GB msata and install that, then go about making that the main boot drive and whatnot. Thanks y'all.
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Jan 31, 2016 00:01
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enraged_camel posted:Hmm, OK. There's a refurbished T530 i7 with 8 GB RAM for $660. Maybe I can get that, stick in another 8 GB and also put in my 500 GB SSD. That sounds good. Keep in mind that often (2 x 4GB) = 8GB, so adding 8GB would be (1 x 4GB) + (1 x 8GB) = 12GB The W530 is loving beefy as poo poo and has 4 SODIMM slots allowing up to 32GB. The T530 only has two SODIMM slots.
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Jan 31, 2016 00:11
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Teddybear posted:Sorry, one last clarification. On the T420 is there a space I can slot the SSD and have that be my main drive while keeping the regular disk drive for, I dunno, backups or videos or whatever? Or would adding the SSD require me to remove the hard disk. I'm planning to clone the main drive over to my SSD using the samsung software and a usb-sata enclosure. If you want 2 drives then you can take out the disc drive and put in an ultrabay caddy.
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Jan 31, 2016 00:15
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MixMasterMalaria posted:If you want 2 drives then you can take out the disc drive and put in an ultrabay caddy. Oh yeah, this is a thing with older thinkpads. In a T420 you could therefore have 1 mSATA drive, 1 2.5'' drive in the regular slot and 1 2.5'' drive replacing the DVD drive. Though in reality with any old thinkpad you'd want to have an ultrabay battery rather than a second/third hard drive and having a platter drive in a laptop even as a backup is flat-out inconvenient (just buy the next bigger SSD and put the platter drive in a cheap case).
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Jan 31, 2016 00:35
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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enraged_camel posted:Hmm, OK. There's a refurbished T530 i7 with 8 GB RAM for $660. Maybe I can get that, stick in another 8 GB and also put in my 500 GB SSD. That's a good idea, though frequently you'll get 2x4 gb in the laptop so you'll either be stuck with 12gb or you need to buy 2x8. Make sure you don't get the model with the poo poo tier screen though.
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Jan 31, 2016 00:38
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blowfish posted:Make sure you don't get the model with the poo poo tier screen though. Which one is that? This particular one says "FHD (1960 x 1020) Screen Resolution"
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Jan 31, 2016 01:21
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quote:Help me, knowledgable goons, you're my only hope   incomingI have an acute case of analysis paralysis in trying to select 1-2 (similarly configured) new work laptops1. I work for the state and there are reasons why Dell is preferred over other vendors.
This thread (at least the OP and the few pages I've ready) has me considering XPS-13s in a way I wasn't before. My biggest motiviation for buying an e7450 (w/ i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, no discrete GPU) over an XPS-13 (or anything else) is the price; $1,750. I think it will be sufficient. How much extra money is it worth spending to pickup an equivalent (or slightly less RAM/disk space) XPS-13 or an e7450 with a discrete GPU? The only XPS-13 w/ a 512GB SSD (based on my premier account) is fully maxed except for 8GB RAM (no 16GB RAM option available). It's $2,715. It feels wrong spending an extra $1K on that machine, especially if it isn't fully stocked. Of course, lesser XPS-13s are available. I'm comfortable purchasing RAM/SSD from a 3rd party and replacing them myself if it significantly reduces the cost (except that you can't add RAM to the XPS 13). In tribute to my OCD I've compiled a Google Spreadsheet w/ detailed system configurations and pricing information (via our Premier account) Comparing the CPU options across the models I'm considering doesn't help me cut through mental clutter. I assume the TDP line is the most useful for comparing battery consumption rate between the models. Background Information What do I [need to] do with my laptop?
What features am I looking for?
1 The laptop for my co-worker is Windows-only and the most demanding program will probably be Google Earth. I believe 256GB SSD and 8+GB RAM are sufficient. Discrete GPU is nice but I don't think it's mandatory 2 A Latitude e7450 w/ i7, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and no discrete GPU is $1,370
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Jan 31, 2016 01:34
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enraged_camel posted:Which one is that? FHD is good but that was never a resolution available on the T530 (or anywhere else really), it's probably 1920x1080. The other options were 1600x900, or, even worse, 1366x768. blowfish posted:Oh yeah, this is a thing with older thinkpads. In a T420 you could therefore have 1 mSATA drive, 1 2.5'' drive in the regular slot and 1 2.5'' drive replacing the DVD drive. Though in reality with any old thinkpad you'd want to have an ultrabay battery rather than a second/third hard drive and having a platter drive in a laptop even as a backup is flat-out inconvenient (just buy the next bigger SSD and put the platter drive in a cheap case). On Sandy and newer laptops the 6 and especially 9 cell battery provides very decent battery life, like 8 hours of office work. And what exactly is inconvenient about having a mechanical drive as secondary storage? I'm now using an old 320gb platter drive as primary in my T520 and have no desire to drop $100+ on an SSD even though my desktop and work laptop both have them. Yes SSDs are great but goons tend to get a bit carried away about them IMO.
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Jan 31, 2016 01:46
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If I were to buy a refurbished laptop, am I probably going to end up finding one with a HDD with years of previous use, "value" memory, and a battery that lasts only a half-hour?
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Jan 31, 2016 03:20
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dbcooper posted:
I dunno what you need a fancy GPU for in your laptop. If you really want an i7 XPS13 with 16GB of ram, call up dell and get a quote on a BTO (build to order) option. I'm pretty sure that's an option. If the laptop is your primary source of income maybe look at a 13" retina Mac Book Pro? Spending $2500 on a laptop you use 40+ hours a week for work is not unreasonable. We do mostly linux development at work but also support windows so I'm always spinning up 2-3 windows VMs for testing active directory stuff, etc. If you want to get crazy you can always dual boot in to Windows. My device is an i7 with 16GB RAM and it works pretty well. I think the 15" rMBP comes with a much beefier true quad-core i7 but half the office has the i7 13" variant (it's BTO of course) and nobody complains about the laptop being too slow for dev work. Hadlock fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Jan 31, 2016 |
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Jan 31, 2016 03:33
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blowfish posted:Oh yeah, this is a thing with older thinkpads. In a T420 you could therefore have 1 mSATA drive, 1 2.5'' drive in the regular slot and 1 2.5'' drive replacing the DVD drive. Though in reality with any old thinkpad you'd want to have an ultrabay battery rather than a second/third hard drive and having a platter drive in a laptop even as a backup is flat-out inconvenient (just buy the next bigger SSD and put the platter drive in a cheap case). I forgot about the mSATA slot, awesome! From what I understand the T420 doesn't support an ultrabay battery unfortunately. I've seen stuff like this 9 cell recommended as an alternative if you need more on-the-go juice. http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Battery-Models-0A36304/dp/B0085MPGZY
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Jan 31, 2016 06:33
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dbcooper posted:
To be honest, getting a discrete GPU in a laptop probably isn't beneficial unless you know of a particular reason you need one. Since Sandy Bridge the Intel GPUs have been not bad and they've improved noticeably with each generation since, with Skylake iGPUs being comparable to low-end discrete desktop chipsets. Discrete GPUs definitely won't help with your goals of lightness or long battery life either. Other than that, you should probably keep in mind that manufacturers love to increase their margin with storage and RAM upgrades. I would suspect that the Latitude models you're looking at make RAM and drive upgrades easy so if that's an option it could help you make your desired price point. I don't know if the XPS 13 allows 16GB at all, even in a custom build. If you aren't doing this already make sure you check Dell Outlet coupons and available systems. They have really deep discounts there sometimes, on the business and consumer systems both. Eletriarnation fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Jan 31, 2016 |
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Jan 31, 2016 07:20
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MixMasterMalaria posted:From what I understand the T420 doesn't support an ultrabay battery unfortunately. Lenovo 
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Jan 31, 2016 12:33
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mobby_6kl posted:And what exactly is inconvenient about having a mechanical drive as secondary storage? I'm now using an old 320gb platter drive as primary in my T520 and have no desire to drop $100+ on an SSD even though my desktop and work laptop both have them. Yes SSDs are great but goons tend to get a bit carried away about them IMO. Sucks power, more sensitive. I kill platter drives in about 1 year in every laptop because all my laptops get knocked around a lot while the drives are spinning.
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Jan 31, 2016 12:37
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Tip from another lazy government worker: Never ever buy from your premier page. Shop in the regular business section and talk to your rep. The state contract prices are almost always well above retain and right now I'm seeing a full tricked out XPS13, i7, 16gb RAM, 512 SSD, and the super high rez touch screen for 2129 retail. So the state store is tacking on $600. On the bright side that's a bargain compared the the worst mismatch I've found in my career--identical model and configuration server that was $5500 on the state site and $650 on the small business side.
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Jan 31, 2016 16:22
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Size measurements for laptops correspond to the diagonal of the screen, right?
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Feb 1, 2016 01:12
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C-Euro posted:Size measurements for laptops correspond to the diagonal of the screen, right? Yup
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Feb 1, 2016 01:18
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Teddybear posted:Okay. I'll grab the EVO 850 250GB msata and install that, then go about making that the main boot drive and whatnot. Thanks y'all. I'm going to be picking up an msata SSD and doing the same thing here. Can anyone offer any tutorials up about making the SSD the main boot drive? Never done anything like that before-all I've ever done is install RAM.
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Feb 1, 2016 01:23
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Huh, I've guess I've been using a 15" laptop and never realized it. Hooray for an extra numpad!
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Feb 1, 2016 01:24
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Boot into the BIOS (hold F10 or whatever it says when you're booting up the computer) and then it should be there in the configuration options.
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Feb 1, 2016 01:26
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numtini posted:Tip from another lazy government worker: Never ever buy from your premier page. Shop in the regular business section and talk to your rep. The state contract prices are almost always well above retain and right now I'm seeing a full tricked out XPS13, i7, 16gb RAM, 512 SSD, and the super high rez touch screen for 2129 retail. So the state store is tacking on $600. On the bright side that's a bargain compared the the worst mismatch I've found in my career--identical model and configuration server that was $5500 on the state site and $650 on the small business side. Did the state pricing include extra support and all that? I could sort of see that if they included tech support that actually speaks English and knows what they're doing.
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Feb 1, 2016 01:59
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Thanks, everyone! To clarify, I'm buying this laptop using work funds. I won't be using it 40 hours a week but depending on meeting/after hours time can spend 10-20 hours a week on it. Based on the feedback I've narrowed my choices to a Latitude e7470 and XPS 13 1. Is it reasonable to assume ~1 hour extra battery life in Skylake (e7470) over Broadwell (e7450)? I'm ignoring the discrete GPU option available on the e7450/e7470. Is it possible to add RAM and add/upgrade the SSD to the e7470 after purchase? Crucial's website doesn't help. Hadlock highlights the XPS 13 for build quality and IPS display (among other things). Anyone know if the e7470 has similarly robust build quality and an IPS display (1080p)? As long as it's solid I don't care if it's clunky (Thinkpad). As far as pricing goes, I've run into obstacles when trying to take advantage of a Dell deal (sale price or buying through home/small business portal) in the past. The PO has to pass through several levels of bureaucracy before it actually gets submitted/paid including a technical review by the organizational IT department who can/will shoot down computer orders that don't conform to minimum requirements (TPM, 3 year warranty/accidental damage on laptops, etc.). ---- 1 I'm avoiding Apple b/c occasionally I need connect directly (via a USB or USB+RS-232 cable) to hardware devices that only have Windows software available. For this reason I can't go 100% VM for my Windows needs (AFAIK). When I've tried to setup hardware port/USB pass-through in the past it's been a PITA. Besides, running something other than Mac OS X on an Apple device is sacrilege
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Feb 1, 2016 02:12
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