So my E7450 (wildmage, currently shown with the Samsung) I have 2 hard drives for it, can't decide which to go with (can't put both in)

The first is a mSATA Samsung 850 EVO 1 TB.
Second is a Kingston E50 (Enterprise Class) 480 GB SATAIII (currently installed with Arch Anywhere).

The Kingston is slightly faster, and has MUCH better warranty, much better reliability specs (rated 1,000,000 hours & 487 TB writes vs. ??? hours & 75 TB), but of course the Samdsung has ever so slightly more than double the storage capacity.

Thoughts?

I would use the smaller for the system install and use the larger as a drive for system backups etc.

Well it doesn't matter which one you put in. Your probably not new going to throw the other one away

Me? I'd probably go with size since I don't have good internet. But most people don't have that problem.

Another factor is that it is easier to clone a hard drive if the source is smaller than the destination.

That is a hard choice. Let us know what you decided.

Not an option. Cannot have 2 installed drives, this is a "ultrabook" style laptop, so only enough space and connections for 1.

And I already have a 2 TB backup drive, so neither would I bother using for backups. Although really that means it backs up my resume, and music, and that's it. Everything else I dont' bother backing up because none of it's important (I'm very cloud oriented).

I figured it was a laptop and that that's why you couldn't install both. But external hdd/ssd cases are cheap. But as you just said, you already have a backup drive, so no need.

Being as you are "very cloud oriented" and if the storage space is of no concern, you might as well go with the smaller, faster drive, as I imagine you might appreciate the speed more.

That's kinda where I'm leaning. And I think I'd have an easier time selling the Samsung if I decided to sell it.

I have a coin I could toss for you if you want.

It depends, imo, mostly on whether you need the additional storage space. With my predilection for Science Fiction films and VirtualBox VMs, I upgraded my main drive from 5OOGB to 1TB a while ago and it was like a breath of fresh air - before then I had spent quite a lot of my time concerned with reducing storage usage so that I could cram everything on my drive. Now I don't need to worry at all, and that makes more difference than you realise.

That was, ostensibly, the reason for the 1 TB, VM's. And since I've had it (over a year), I've had a total of...1...vm on that machine, and I haven't even had that in 8 or 9 months... Totally overestimated how much I run something in a VM.

if your laptop doesn't not have a DVD-hdd storage slot pull the DVD slap in the HDD then I'd go with the biggest HDD and get a cable to hook of the other one via USB

Nah, no optical drive slot at all, one of the "thin and light" business class ultrabooks.

I have Arch installed on both drives now, and I was swapping back and forth between them to do some testing. WHile the E50 wins every benchmark I can throw at it, the "feel" speed isn't any different. So I'm actually thinking I might just stick with the 1 TB drive since it's larger and lighter.

too if you balance out how much stuff you'll be putting on that hdd and convenience of it being right there when you need it vs having to plug in that external to get at it every time you need it. Well, that is why I just said use the 1TB and the other with a cable -- side stepping that which one is faster question.



I got two hdds in my laptop and with all of the extra drives in cables in a bag it gets heavy for sure. the laptop is 5lbs to begin with. 1TB gives you plenty of room to store without having to plug in anything to get to it. even with a sdd I added for /sda and a 1TB secondary drive for data storage, . I never put it on a scale, but it is still has some weight to it.

you can also make that extra a bootable off USB if the hdd is an internal hdd, that is easy enough if you need two OS's just cuz.

I liked them thin look laptops then when I found out they are thin because they have no fan to keep the cpu cool I immediately stayed away from that, I'd end up burning it up because I am always using mine to resample sound files and moves to I get my CPU temps up to 100C and need a fan for that.

so yeah, you can always get a cable for your extra drives. I like using laptop internal drive because they are little and less expensive then buying the cased external drives, though the size limits are smaller, I think they've gotten up to 2TB maybe 3TB for laptops but most laptops even the one i got cannot deal with the thickness of a 2TB laptop hdd. not to mention yours being a thin one.

and I too see that the cased external drives do not have SMART whereas the internal laptop drives do. so its size in thickens as well as MBs (TBs) vs SMART if needed to see when its going to die. etc...