MSATA Caching Drive

[mbreslin1954]

I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 13Z 5323 laptop for one of my daughters. It has a 500 GB HDD which is rather slow, but it also has an mSATA port which is currently empty. I plan to purchase an mSATA drive to speed it up, and was wondering what is the best size to get. The two choices seem to be 32 GB and 64 GB. If there won't be much speed boost going from 32 GB to 64 GB, then I'd rather save the money and get the cheaper one. Does anyone know if 32 GB is all that's needed for a caching drive?

 

[kenrivers]

The speed of the mSATA drive should not be impacted by the size of the drive. If you are considering the 64GB drive you need to make sure the laptop will support it. You may need to make a change in the BIOS to get the drive recognized as a cache drive. This link - http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19463226.aspx - does not apply to the model you are asking about but contains information that you may find useful.

 

[mbreslin1954]

Thanks! I wasn't concerned with one being faster than the other, just that possibly the smaller one might be too small, and hence performance might suffer because maybe not enough could be cached in just 32 GB, or perhaps the drive would wear out earlier because it has less space.

 

[mbreslin1954]

Best answer selected by mbreslin1954.