Sequential Read/Write only important for those doing transcoding videos in massive amounts, other than that, 4K is for daily usage where smaller files Read/Write is much frequent than you reading couple hundreds of MBs.
The higher capacity provide better speed but that's all depends on each person wallet as well, if you can afford those high-end units, then you can enjoy those freaking high speed, but in the end, 4K read/write and access time is utmost important in any situation, be it massive workload, or daily usage.
Anyway, those doing massive transcoding will use RAID0 to compensate the sequential read/write speed, this is where normal users (over 95%) does not really needs.
I'm darn happy already after 2 weeks with my new SSD+HDD, no need to head for tea when booting up my laptop, no need to sweat while turning off my laptop, just click Shut down, close the lid, pack everything up, it's just that fast. Oh... few more, loading apps is just... so fast that I'm tapping the table using other users laptop. (Waiting can be frustrating... )

For me I would choose single SSD, replace the original HDD so you won't feels the HDD heat coming from the top of your keyboard space.
As for the mSATA, it has RAID, you can use it for mSATA RAID SSD but you probably won't notice the difference of single vs RAID0 performance so it's up to you if you wallet can afford.

Or... just buy both options and become SSD King.

All listed are 2.5" SSD, very hard to find 1.8".
You can try your luck at garage by searching "1.8 ssd", the only 1.8" SSD I found is Intel X18, pretty old model.
As for reliability, Intel is known for it but lifespan wise will vary from luck and usage, speed wise Samsung and Crucial could top the chart right now, but most of it is 2.5" size SSD.

Yes for its price, value for every performance that you'll get from it.
If you need just that little extra performance then go for the latest Crucial, very fast, price also very "fast"

This post has been edited by wildwestgoh: Aug 29 2013, 01:30 PM

What will you be using it for? Benchmarking numbers?

Only for boot up?
Just get any SSD that suits your budget will do, the only differences probably only up to 2~5 seconds different, or maybe you won't even feel it cause you won't even have time to pick up your cup of coffee after you turn your PC on and it's already at the desktop.

Don't think create partition will do any wear down harm, I did mine like 60/59 (119GB formatted) to keep my other portable programs + documents in another drive for easy OS re-installation.

Just wonder if create partition will actually impact the overall performance, that's the real question here, hope some sifu here can answer this, doing this myself is kind of time consuming.

Yes, you can do that if you want to, you can retrieve your data from the other HDD after you have installed your Windows 8 but beware that sometimes Windows may detect another active drive (boot partition/volume) at your other HDD if connected on the same board (SATA) and it may just add up to your boot up list.
Anyway, you just need to install Windows 8 using just the SSD along to prevent something like above happen then plug-in your HDD into your system after you have installed the OS, not sure if it'll still detect the active partition or not but worth a try
After that, well, just continue copy data from that HDD, wipe the HDD clean then re-format and use it as normal HDD.

You can, if you don't really utilize the RAM for extreme purpose such as photoshop huge image and I mean seriously huge (couple of mega-pixels with tons of effects) and plenty of them all at once.
Gaming wise, there's already a game (Lost Planet 3) require 8GB RAM so I'm not too sure if leaving pagefile-less would crash it? (Sifu please continue....)

Check the BIOS for every single available drive when you bootup with all drive plugged-in.
Btw, what's your PC? Desktop? Laptop?
I haven saw such event where one drive will disappear unless it's the PATA era (Master/Slave jumper) where you must set the jumper carefully.
Please also do some camera shots for all the drives list, so we do know what's exactly happened inside your BIOS, with everything plugged-in of course.

Have you tried steps below? (Please use AS SSD in all benchmarks)
1. Latest chipset drivers on the SATA port that you installed.
2. Tested with optimization yet? Benchmark 1 before and 1 after to rectify if it helps.
3. How about benchmark on Intel SATA?
Also, please list your exact mainboard model (revision if available) + others hardware installed if possible.

Please provide the AS SSD benchmark screen shot then we can go further.
Also please do the test on Intel SATA2 port as well, well make it 2 test then one on your SATA3 and one on Intel SATA2, and lets Sifu here judge if you should just use the Intel SATA2.

Ok, use Intel SATA2, no need to think too much, you'll never utilize that high sequential read in daily usage so don't worry too much about SATA2 speed, it seems the 3rd party chipset is not optimized.
When you see the access time, it's obvious Intel chips is a clear winner, access time is 2nd to 4K read/write most important point to consider your SSD setup, it'll determine how much time to write data back to SSD which will eventually affect the 4K write, the Intel SATA port even has better access time for 4K read and access time, so there's no more doubt if you want to continue using your current system.

Intel SATA FTW!!

I wonder if it's BIOS issue in certain board, just like certain server BIOS of which it'll boot into removable drive even with the HDD attached, and some BIOS even has trouble setting the HDD as the default boot drive.
I'm not too sure about your mainboard settings so you might need to takes time to dive into every single possible settings to find out about certain keywords as below:
Boot removable drive
Priority boot
Delay boot/start
... that's all I can know of.
Try different settings such as disable Boot removable drive (USB/DVD drive??), Priority boot the normal drive boot setup, Delay boot/start to delay few seconds to allow system to fully detect other hardware before start booting.

Good luck!

128GB is enough for OS only, you can also install most resource hungry programs in it.
But if you plan to install Games on it as well and plenty of them, then go for 256GB if you can afford it.

Yes you can, but I can't be sure about the hard disk height on that model, is the 750GB 9mm in height? If so then you can install almost every SSD in the market right now, if 7.5mm will need to fork more for some models, wonder why they tend to be much expensive.

This post has been edited by wildwestgoh: Sep 5 2013, 09:09 AM

I'm surprise you call up Dell to install 3rd party hardware into your laptop.
Dell does not responsible for 3rd party hardware installation nor will they help you install it, it's beyond their scope of technical assistant and some (very strict one) will probably mark your unit as void of warranty due to user's fault, but most will still service them.
Either way I installed the SSD myself, so darn easy, just careful with clip base where you have to use some plastic to pry instead of using steel screwdriver (taught by one of the Dell engineer).

Second hand only if you're desperate and can afford the aftermath, otherwise it's better to just go for new one.
This is a wear and tear product, you're not sure if the product has been stressed to a certain degree.

You can't go wrong with either Plextor or Crucial, both value for money as of current market price.
You can even convert your conventional HDD to DVD drive slot if you can't spend over RM400 for SSD and needs the space constantly on your laptop, like I what have right now, 120GB SSD + 1TB HDD on my laptop, both speed and space.

There's some articles on the first page, read them if you have time, I took around 3 days to read and understand, plus just follow this thread, you may found interesting stuff going around and way to solve them, optimizing SSD, etc.

This post has been edited by wildwestgoh: Oct 31 2013, 04:53 PM

I have the HDD caddy bay myself, the HDD is the original from the laptop itself, I have yet seen drop by 10 seconds.... still boot up within 15 seconds to the login screen (sometimes much less than 10 seconds), just a tad few more seconds to the Metro Start screen after entering the password.
If you notice the decrease of boot speed probably due to the fact that the whole system have to wait for the HDD to spin up, detect and start booting it up.
Do you use UEFI for your OS? Or do you switch to legacy mode?

With your budget, you can get a 120GB easy, or does your local store jack up the price so high you can't get it within RM400?

Erm, my next company database server storage will change course, "switch to Samsung", hehehehehe , get the "Pro"!

Samsung Evo series is the sweet spot right now for the speed and IOPS, shocking high vs the Intel counterpart.
But if you just need a program/OS speed up, I think any SSD will do, just a tad 1~2 seconds different in real-life feels, buy with guts .
Btw I chose Plextor and no regret!