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Previous versions of the EDGE systems we have reviewed have all featured very slow 5,400 rpm 2.5 inch hard drives which have ruined the performance. The whole point of the Barebones product we are reviewing today is to give the user their own choice of hard drive and memory. You no longer have to pay for an ill performing bundled hard drive or memory.
We feel that someone buying memory and a hard drive for this system will be working to a budget of less than £150, on top of the price of the EDGE VS8 barebones.
We had to get a Solid State Drive for the EDGE VS8 because the Windows operating system is so much faster with one installed. While we could have saved a little extra cash and opted for a 64GB Solid State Drive, we feel that 120GB is an ideal size as there is plenty of space to install a plethora of programs for media, photo editing and even a handful of games.
In the end we opted for the Samsung 840 Series 120GB drive, which is priced at £77.99 on Amazon, with free delivery for Prime Users. This drive has excellent read and IOPS performance characteristics.
With the hard drive sorted we needed to look at getting some new memory for the EDGE VS8. This system doesn't take standard DIMM memory, instead utilizing smaller SO-DIMM's found in laptop computers. We know that the motherboard in the EDGE VS8 is limited to 1,333mhz speeds, so there is no need to buy expensive 1,866mhz+ rated SO-DIMM memory.
This time we decided to buy some Kingston HyperX Plug and Play DDR3 memory, rated at 1,600mhz with fairly tight CL9 timings. When you buy an EDGE system from Sapphire they always ship with 4GB of DDR3 installed, so we wanted to effectively double this to see how performance may increase during our testing.
A dual channel 2x4GB kit was only £33 inc vat when we bought it last week, although we noticed the cost has increased slightly to £40 inc vat this week. Still, this is great memory and ships complete with little heatspreaders to help improve cooling performance, important inside such a small system as the EDGE VS8.
The total cost for the fast SATA 3Gbps rated 120GB SSD and 8GB of high grade DDR3 memory is less than £120 inc vat.
Sapphire include a little sheet of step by step instructions showing the user how to install the memory and hard drive. We will go over it all today however as the guide doesn't mention a few things.
Firstly it is worth pointing out that the barebones unit already has the screws removed and these are supplied inside a little clear plastic bag. You will need these when you complete the installation, to seal the chassis. There are also some screws to install the hard drive.
Removing the chassis can be fiddly, you have to pull back on the case while holding the other side firmly. By the time you finish, the chassis will be very messy with fingerprints, as shown in the images. You can clean these off later, but for now, lets get the hardware installed.
When the outer shell is removed we get access to the internals of the EDGE VS8 system. If you are unsure of which side of the chassis you should be pulling, you can see from the images above that it is the side with the power switch which disengages from the main body.
Everything is easily accessible, and we can see that the AMD A8 APU is cooled by a small heatsink with heatpipe and fan.
Installing the hard drive, or Solid State drive looks straightforward although we noticed a little problem immediately.
Ideally we would want to slide the Samsung SSD into the connector, and line up the screw holes perfectly and bolt into place.
It is impossible to screw the 2.5 inch drive in place from the side shown in the image above as part of the VS8 shell is in the way. Unless you are happy holding the drive in place with two screws (on the other side), this bay will need detached from the motherboard. The instructions are not very clear on this and they read as if the hard drive bay is actually an accessory in the bundle, already detached.
There are four screws holding the drive bay in place, two on either side as shown in the image above. Make sure you don't misplace any of the screws as there are no spares in the box.
Use four of the silver screws supplied in the little bag to attach the drive to the bay. When this is finished, it is time to refit the bay onto the motherboard.
Carefully line up the drive in the bay with the SATA power and data connector on the motherboard (above left). The drive should click into place and the screw holes should be perfectly lined up (above right). When you are satisfied, screw the bay into place with the four screws you removed previously.
Unpack the memory and get it ready for installation.
If you have never upgraded a laptop before, then SO-DIMMs use a slightly different install method. There are two slots, so focus on the lower slot first.
Check the slot and align against the memory module, they will only insert in one direction so check they match. When ready, angle the memory ensuring the connector is fully inside the slot as shown above. Push down vertically on the memory module until it clicks into place.
If you bought a dual channel kit, which we recommend, then repeat the process for the upper slot, shown in the image above.
When everything is in place, it should look like the image above.
Locate the cover you removed earlier and angle it above the disengage point. When it is in place, it will slide back into place and lock. Take your time with this.
The image above right shows how dirty the EDGE chassis will look after handling it during the install phase. A cleaning cloth is a must afterwards!
