Earlier today, we began offering a 256MB solid state drive (SSD) drive available as an option on our high-end i7 processor XPS 15z configuration. It’s one of the things that customers like STLsailor and blogs like Ubergizmo asked for since we first unveiled the XPS 15z notebook last week.
Why does this matter? Short answer is speed, reliability and energy efficiency compared to traditional hard drives like the 7200 rpm ones that come standard in all XPS 15z configs. In my experience, you’ll notice a speed improvement in a couple of ways: first, quicker startup and shutdown times. Second, applications will load much quicker. A few months ago, I added a 60GB SSD drive to my Studio XPS 7100 desktop, and have been thrilled with the results. I’ll share more details when I blog about that later.
SSDs drives are great options for laptops from a reliability standpoint because there are no moving parts. This also means they run cooler, and contribute to longer battery life. To be fair there are two “gotchas” compared to traditional hard drives: cost and capacity. Even with that, more folks are finding the speed, reliability and energy efficiency gains worth it.
The SSD drive that we’ll ship with the XPS 15z is the 256GB version of Samsung’s PM800 MLC drive. As with most “new” component options, we need to ramp up volume, so this will add a week or so to your ship date. If you choose the high-end configuration from Dell.com, you’ll see a $560 option for the 256 SSD drive. Click on the image below to see a larger version:
Based on current pricing, that means you get a new laptop with a second-generation i7 core processor, the 1920 x 1080 HD panel, an NVIDIA 525M 2GB graphics card, 8GB DDR3 RAM and a fast 256GB SSD drive for just over $2,000. Not bad versus the competition.