[Tech Addiction]

Has anyone tired this yet? I am curious as to what size drive the guy in the video used. It's obvious that it is the new Crucial SSD which is realy fast. If anyone has tried this can you report back how fast it made the machine for copying files or navigation in general? The guy in the video says it will boot up from cold to logon screen in 21 seconds. This should help battery life tremedously. My XPS M1330 was a completely different laptop going from a 300gb 5400 to an SSD. the battery life almost doubled on this machine so i'm curious what the affect will be on the Duo. Mine comes tomorrow or today depending on Fedex. They take forever to update the progress of the shippment..

YouTube - Dell Inspiron Duo SSD Installation Tutorial

YouTube - Dell Inspiron Duo SSD Installation Tutorial

[mickyp]

I took a slightly different approach and installed a Momentus XT SSD hybrid drive. This only costs around £100 for 500GB but performance is excellent - my boot up times are around 21 seconds to the logon screen and about 40 seconds before the desktop is useable.

I think this is a good compromise for cost/performance and capacity - it was easy to fit (just need to remove drive cage as it won't fit in it) - and performs really well.

It won't give you the battery boost that an SSD will but it doesn't cost the £1000 a 500GB SSD drive would.

YouTube - Seagate Momentus XT

YouTube - Seagate Momentus XT

[Tech Addiction]

Thanks, so does the Duo copy files considerably faster then the oem? Any other noticeable improvements?

[lousiefer]

I just performed this upgrade (but I used the Crucial 128gb SSD) and it works great. It was exceptionally easy.

I did similar SSD upgrades (with runcore SSDs) to my Mini 9 last year and I found that the clips on connectors for the 3-4 ribbon cables on the Duo make me less hesitant to crack it open again for future upgrades.

I installed the "Intel WiFi Link 5100 - Network adapter - PCI Express Half Mini Card" in my Mini 9 back in August and it works great. While I had the Duo open it looked like it would fit nicely in here as well. It is my most likely next "upgrade" target as the current WiFi card seems slow (unless someone has a reason why I shouldn't do this).

---------- Post added at 07:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:11 PM ----------

I see why I wouldn't do this...

The current card in the Duo is a combo Wireless N/Bluetooth card. I'll have to find another combo card to replace it with.

[Boozley]

lousiefer,
Do you notice any particular change in how long the battery lasts with an ssd in there? ive seen conflicting arguments an whether or not it will save you battery or not so im kind of on the fence about the upgrade.

[lousiefer]

Originally Posted by Boozley

lousiefer,
Do you notice any particular change in how long the battery lasts with an ssd in there? ive seen conflicting arguments an whether or not it will save you battery or not so im kind of on the fence about the upgrade.

Yes. There is a difference. Yesterday, I used the Duo (exclusively on battery) on and off all day while I puttered around the house. I had it on battery for a good 6+ hours. This included a solid 3 hours of WiFi web browsing, 30 minutes of Solitaire, and ~60 minutes of Slingbox viewing (had to sand and paint a bookcase in the garage but couldn't abandon the Steelers/Ravens game). At the end of the afternoon it still said there was 17% battery left.

Admittedly, my power saving settings are tuned aggressively. On battery my screen is set to a very dim setting. If there is a glare or something I'll manually brighten the screen (I brightened it while using the slingplayer). The screen is set to dim in 1 minute and turn off in 2 minutes. The Duo should go to sleep in 15 minutes.

So I think my experience is a mix of the drive and tuning the power settings. It should be noted that the Slingplayer also buffers quite a bit of video so you can pause and FFWD/RWD "live" video like a DVR. So disk usage was high during the hour in the garage.

Lou

[jonny4]

Originally Posted by lousiefer

I just performed this upgrade (but I used the Crucial 128gb SSD) and it works great. It was exceptionally easy.

I did similar SSD upgrades (with runcore SSDs) to my Mini 9 last year and I found that the clips on connectors for the 3-4 ribbon cables on the Duo make me less hesitant to crack it open again for future upgrades.

I installed the "Intel WiFi Link 5100 - Network adapter - PCI Express Half Mini Card" in my Mini 9 back in August and it works great. While I had the Duo open it looked like it would fit nicely in here as well. It is my most likely next "upgrade" target as the current WiFi card seems slow (unless someone has a reason why I shouldn't do this).

---------- Post added at 07:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:11 PM ----------

I see why I wouldn't do this...

The current card in the Duo is a combo Wireless N/Bluetooth card. I'll have to find another combo card to replace it with.

I had a HP Envy 14 Beats Edition for a bit and it had a Intel Wifi card with a,b,g,n and Bluetooth built into it, It might be what you are looking for.

[Boozley]

I'm thinking about replacing the HDD in my Duo with this. Its a damn good price for an SSD and im not fussed that its a little slower than others out there. one of my main concerns is whether or not this will actually save battery power. I currently have the 7200 RPM Hitachi Drive in there.

[strider_mt2k]

I have to say that I love the idea of replacing the HDD with an SSD, however I'm also really in love with the idea of all the onboard capacity!
I got by with a 32GB SSD on my Mini 9, so the stock 300+GB HD in the Duo was part of the attraction.
I don't think I'd want to go below 128GB, but I also remind myself that the way I'll be using mine is primarily at home where I have a server to handle media storage.

That 64 doesn't look too bad, and I'm sure it's still faster than the RunCore that was in my Mini 9.

Food for thought, folks.

[Boozley]

Ive been having a look and decided that 64 just wont be enough for me so im thinking of getting the 128GB version.
Also the 128GB OCZ Onyx is that price range and appears to have a much lower power consumption although it is a little slower. I'm not majorly fussed about the difference in speed though. Especially if it gives me a little more juice.