Alienware: which SSD and RAM to get?

[JMorton6]

Hey guys, I wanna expand the RAM and get an SSD - which ones should I grab off NewEgg? It's for this baby I just bought:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230718629974

 

[rcpratt]

I can't believe people spend that much on refurbed laptops.

 

[JulesMaximus]

It has 8GB of RAM. What do you need more for?

As for the SSD, get the biggest one you can afford. Typically you can't have more than one hard drive in a laptop so you will be limited severely by the size of the drive. I've been using an SSD on my home computer for almost 2 years now, it is 120GB and it is about half full. I do have a 1TB internal drive that I use for storage though so I'm only loading programs on the SSD.

 

[JMorton6]

Routinely have 50+ Chrome tabs open. This eats up a full 6 gigs on my current laptop. If I wanna be able to use Photoshop, etc, without having to close fucking Chrome every time, I need 10-12 gigs.

I've never bought or installed RAM into a laptop before (million times for PCs though) - helps!

Also, I've never used an SSD drive or installed a drive into a laptop. Do I just get any SSD drive off NewEgg - will they all fit?

It has 8GB of RAM. What do you need more for?

As for the SSD, get the biggest one you can afford. Typically you can't have more than one hard drive in a laptop so you will be limited severely by the size of the drive. I've been using an SSD on my home computer for almost 2 years now, it is 120GB and it is about half full. I do have a 1TB internal drive that I use for storage though so I'm only loading programs on the SSD.

 

[Aikouka]

Typically you can't have more than one hard drive in a laptop

The Alienware m17x has two hard drive bays.

 

[paperwastage]

Routinely have 50+ Chrome tabs open. This eats up a full 6 gigs on my current laptop. If I wanna be able to use Photoshop, etc, without having to close fucking Chrome every time, I need 10-12 gigs.

I've never bought or installed RAM into a laptop before (million times for PCs though) - helps!

Also, I've never used an SSD drive or installed a drive into a laptop. Do I just get any SSD drive off NewEgg - will they all fit?

use Opera... i open/close 100 tabs daily, doesnt use more than 2 GB ram

look for a manual (owners/operating/service) for your laptop... or google, might find videos on how to replace your ram

check what size 2.5" drive your laptop takes... most likely, it'll take 9.5mm drives(the default/max size).... some laptops/ultraportables only take 7.5mm drives

RAM: the m17x R3 should have 4 RAM slots... listing said 2 DIMMs used, so buy 2x4GB DDR3 1333 SODIMM

 

[JMorton6]

I can't believe people spend that much on refurbed laptops.

Wow you're right, I'm an idiot. I just found the 100% same exact laptop, brand new on the official site for 50 bucks more. O_O Ebay seller will not be pleased.

 

[JMorton6]

The Alienware m17x has two hard drive bays.

Oh fuck, sweet. So what size SSD do I get, I guess 120gb if it's just for Win 7 and software?

 

[JMorton6]

use Opera... i open/close 100 tabs daily, doesnt use more than 2 GB ram

look for a manual (owners/operating/service) for your laptop... or google, might find videos on how to replace your ram

check what size 2.5" drive your laptop takes... most likely, it'll take 9.5mm drives(the default/max size).... some laptops/ultraportables only take 7.5mm drives

RAM: the m17x R3 should have 4 RAM slots... listing said 2 DIMMs used, so buy 2x4GB DDR3 1333 SODIMM

Wow, really? 100 Opera tabs = 2gb? That's beyond amazing. Are you sure?

Thanks for the other advice - very very useful!

 

[paperwastage]

Wow, really? 100 Opera tabs = 2gb? That's beyond amazing. Are you sure?

Thanks for the other advice - very very useful!

its for you to try what browser you like.... for me, opera never slows down with any amount of tabs I open

maybe you'll find firefox or chrome to be better, but I like opera

EDIT: 70 tabs, 1.2gb.....

 

[JMorton6]

its for you to try what browser you like.... for me, opera never slows down with any amount of tabs I open

maybe you'll find firefox or chrome to be better, but I like opera

EDIT: 70 tabs, 1.2gb.....

That performance is fucking unreal. With Chrome, 70 tabs is around 7.5gb. Wow. I love Chrome, but for this I might switch... Is there an extension that lets you scroll tabs with a mousewheel, and an an extension like Session Buddy for Chrome, basically that lets you save all windows and all tabs and restore later?

 

[Aikouka]

Oh fuck, sweet. So what size SSD do I get, I guess 120gb if it's just for Win 7 and software?

Just as an addition, he isn't wrong though. It's mostly 17" and larger laptops that have two hard drive bays. There are a few 15" laptops with two bays, and sometimes you can replace the almost obsolete optical drive with another bay.

I looked it up, and I can actually replace mine using a $25 adapter... sweet. If only my 2.5" HDD didn't die on me.

 

[JMorton6]

its for you to try what browser you like.... for me, opera never slows down with any amount of tabs I open

maybe you'll find firefox or chrome to be better, but I like opera

EDIT: 70 tabs, 1.2gb.....

Wow thank you thank you thank you. Opera is AMAZING. I re-opened all my Chrome tabs (3 windows / 60 tabs) and when before I had 50mb free, I now have 1.6gb!! WOW. And it has so many features that Chrome doesn't. How did I not know about this before... Opera to Chrome is what Chrome is to IE.

 

[JMorton6]

Oh fuck, sweet. So what size SSD do I get, I guess 120gb if it's just for Win 7 and software?

Gonna the laptop directly from Dell - it's actually cheaper than on ebay lol. What size SSD should I buy in terms of storage capacity - 128gb? Also, what physical size - I can't seem to find the info anywhere on what size SSD will fit into an Alienware M17x.

 

[Aikouka]

Gonna the laptop directly from Dell - it's actually cheaper than on ebay lol. What size SSD should I buy in terms of storage capacity - 128gb? Also, what physical size - I can't seem to find the info anywhere on what size SSD will fit into an Alienware M17x.

The normal 2.5" SSD should fit it fine. Not many laptops that I've seen use the smaller 1.8" size drives (and if they do, they're super small laptops).

As for storage, that really depends on what you want to put on it. Since you can have two drives in there, you don't necessarily need a super large drive, but you may have your own preference as to what you want to put on it (OS, all apps, favorite game or two). For the most part, an 80GB or 120GB drive would be fine. I use a 120GB drive in my old XPS M1530.

EDIT:

Also, when you order the laptop from Dell, you may want to consider boosting the original HDD's size up a bit and just using that as the secondary.

 

[paperwastage]

That performance is fucking unreal. With Chrome, 70 tabs is around 7.5gb. Wow. I love Chrome, but for this I might switch... Is there an extension that lets you scroll tabs with a mousewheel, and an an extension like Session Buddy for Chrome, basically that lets you save all windows and all tabs and restore later?

if you hold rightclick + scroll wheel, it works that way fro scroll tabbing.... get used to using mouse gestures (right click + move the mouse a certain direction to close/open/refresh tab)

Opera defaults saves your tabs on your original window, but not multiple windows. Try doing Menu->Tabs&Windows->Sessions->Save this session etc

To save more mem, might want to enable plugin-loading on demand(Settings->Preferences->Content->Enable Plugins On Demand)... that way, stuff like Flash/Youtube will only show up as a white arrow, only load when you click on it

Wow thank you thank you thank you. Opera is AMAZING. I re-opened all my Chrome tabs (3 windows / 60 tabs) and when before I had 50mb free, I now have 1.6gb!! WOW. And it has so many features that Chrome doesn't. How did I not know about this before... Opera to Chrome is what Chrome is to IE.

yeah, but a lot of people complain Opera isn't open source, and don't use it

what I like is that Opera gives me everything I need out of the box (instead of installing extensions).. so far, with all the new versions that Opera comes out, I've only needed to tweak some settings out-of-box to make it what I want (the settings above and how tabs work)

Gonna the laptop directly from Dell - it's actually cheaper than on ebay lol. What size SSD should I buy in terms of storage capacity - 128gb? Also, what physical size - I can't seem to find the info anywhere on what size SSD will fit into an Alienware M17x.

I'd say a 60GB is cutting it (unless you install your games/programs on the HDD)... 96GB minimum, 120GB would be definitely enough

 

[JMorton6]

Who gives a shit if it's open source or not - it's free, and it's a better piece of software. Honestly I'm absolutely LOVING it - it's so customizable and so fast: I don't think I'm ever gonna go back to Chrome unless they fix the memory issue and add a TON of features. Thanks a lot for this man - for me a browser change is like a 3 times / decade thing, so this is a big deal for me.

For the HD, the Alienware laptop I just got (refurbished direct from Dell - thank you guys - actually cheaper than eBay!!) has a pair of 320GB SATA2's, so I'll swap one of em out for a 128GB SSD (and I can sell the other one lol). Sounds like a sweet setup!

 

[bryanW1995]

The Alienware m17x has two hard drive bays.

My dv7t has 2 hd bays as well. I'd assume that this is standard for 17" laptops. I'd still recommend a relatively large ssd, however. That 320gb hd is pretty tiny. And why do you need 50 chrome tabs open at once???

 

[Subyman]

That performance is fucking unreal. With Chrome, 70 tabs is around 7.5gb. Wow. I love Chrome, but for this I might switch... Is there an extension that lets you scroll tabs with a mousewheel, and an an extension like Session Buddy for Chrome, basically that lets you save all windows and all tabs and restore later?

Chrome sand boxes every tab, which is why it eats up the memory. I do not think Opera does this. This makes chrome a marginally safer browser and keeps the entire session stable if one tab locks up.