Alienware M18x Laptop Review (with i7-2960XM Extreme Edition)

Dell don't mention if the M18x is a SATA 6Gbps capable system, nor do they mention which 256 GB SSD they supply in their configuration tool.

They are using the Samsung PM810 drive, which is a capable solid state drive, but it is limited to SATA 3 Gbps speeds.

A very important part of overall system responsiveness is down to hard drive performance. We use two of our favourite benchmark utilities Crystalmark X64 Edition and HD Tach to rate the Samsung SSD from the onboard SATA controller.

Performance is solid enough, if nothing groundbreaking … scoring around 250 MB/s in the sequential test.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

Similar performance results, indicating maximum performance parameters around the 250-265 MB/s mark.

We decided to try a little upgrade of our own, and we took out the drive bay and added a Patriot Pyro 128GB SSD drive, which we reviewed over here.

Massive performance increases from the Sandforce SF 2281 powered Pyro drive. In hindsight, we would ship the M18x with the lowest priced mechanical drive to save money. Then buy one or two SF-2281 SSD drives, mirror the install with Acronis Drive Image and swap them over. Raid 0 with two of these drives would be stunning.

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