*HP ENVY 17 & 17 3D (3XXX series) Owners Lounge*

[gunny5821]

If I ordered the recovery DVD... any point in keeping that partition?

If you have the disc's you do NOT need the partition, especially if you need the HDD space. However, if HDD space is not an issue the recovery partition does make it easier to do a recovery, since you will NOT need to swap out the disc's. Plus you can start the recovery on startup simply by pressing the F11 key (I believe that is the correct key)... So I guess it comes down to HDD space and convenience.. Me, I still have the partition and I have the Disc's as well....

[theoptimusdime]

If you have the disc's you do NOT need the partition, especially if you need the HDD space. However, if HDD space is not an issue the recovery partition does make it easier to do a recovery, since you will NOT need to swap out the disc's. Plus you can start the recovery on startup simply by pressing the F11 key (I believe that is the correct key)... So I guess it comes down to HDD space and convenience.. Me, I still have the partition and I have the Disc's as well....

I currently have 1.5TB so I guess I'll just leave it...

[chichagof]

what's the reason for the price difference in these configurations?

910GB 7200 rpm Dual Hard Drive (SSD 160GB+750GB 7200 rpm) With HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
-$60.00

830GB Dual Drive (80GB mSATA SSD + 750GB 7200 rpm HDD) With HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection

double the SSD size costs $60 less??

[Deihmos]

Well one is an msata. I find it much cheaper to buy your own ssd. 120gb SSD is all I need and I can get one on Newegg for 120 with no tax. I think the pc comes with 640gb which will be for music pictures and other junk .

[YodaGoneMad]

Keep in mind brand name matters in SSD's, and you really get what you pay for. If you find a SSD that has the same capacity and performance as another one at half the price, then something else is missing. They used cut rate NAND, they used a crappy controller, they didn't put in redundancy for failed NAND clusters, etc etc.

You hear a lot of people who have trouble with SSD's dying or having problems, I firmly believe the cheap "great deal" SSD's are to blame. They are not built to last, and cut corners to be the cheapest. Intel SSD's, the ones used by HP, have a 5 year warranty and industry leading reliability.

Again, you get what you pay for.

[gunny5821]

So what is the difference between an MSATA SSD and an SSD?? New to the SSD scene, so a laymens terms explaination would be most welcome...

Thanks!

[YodaGoneMad]

mSata is basically a little card that goes into a special SATA slot that looks like a PCI-E slot. Think of it as a mini SSD that is much smaller in size and capacity and has no case.

An SSD is a larger HDD in a normal case that hooks up with a normal SATA connector.

[gunny5821]

mSata is basically a little card that goes into a special SATA slot that looks like a PCI-E slot. Think of it as a mini SSD that is much smaller in size and capacity and has no case.

An SSD is a larger HDD in a normal case that hooks up with a normal SATA connector.

Thanks for the info, so which one is better and why??

[Deihmos]

SSD is better. For one it supports higher storage and it also is much faster since you have 6gb.

[YodaGoneMad]

Thanks for the info, so which one is better and why??

One isn't really better than the other.

MSata is normally used in smaller laptops. An MSata drive does not take up a drive bay so you can have another HDD or can make the laptop smaller like with netbooks.

A normal SSD is used in larger laptops with multiple drive bays or when it is the only drive in the computer.

You might be able to argue an SSD is better, since if your laptop dies you can swap a normal SSD out to any other machine, but an MSata requires another machine with the special MSata connection to work.