I'm beginning to settle on the Defiance 15.6" but am trying to establish whether some information on the PCS configurator is correct.
The configurator and another review site suggest you can only fit two 7mm 2.5" disks into the model, whereas the post below (from a notebookcheck review of the Sager NP8652 / Clevo P650SG http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/sager-np8652-clevo-p650sg-with-980m-initial-impressions-and-review-by-htwingnut.767349/) suggests you can certainly fit at least one 9.5mm device.
I'd like to be able to run the OS from a single M.2 SSD and get two 1TB mechanical disks to store the remainder. I'm under the impression that there's more choice of 1TB mechanical disks in the 9.5mm size, at a lower price point.
The configurator and another review site suggest you can only fit two 7mm 2.5" disks into the model, whereas the post below (from a notebookcheck review of the Sager NP8652 / Clevo P650SG http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/sager-np8652-clevo-p650sg-with-980m-initial-impressions-and-review-by-htwingnut.767349/) suggests you can certainly fit at least one 9.5mm device.
I'd like to be able to run the OS from a single M.2 SSD and get two 1TB mechanical disks to store the remainder. I'm under the impression that there's more choice of 1TB mechanical disks in the 9.5mm size, at a lower price point.
This laptop can house up to four HDD/SSD's in total between 2.5" and M.2 form factor combinations. There is a 2.5" drive bracket which can house one 7mm or 9.5mm drive along with a 7mm drive below it, unlike the NP8651 which can only house one 9.5mm or two 7mm height drives. This is thanks to the slightly thicker lower panel of the NP8652 to accommodate that added thickness. Two 42, 60, or 80mm M.2 SATA SSD's or one M.2 PCI-e drive (x4) can be installed as well. M.2 drives are supposed to be much faster and move the upper performance limit over SATA III, but at this point in time unfortunately very fast M.2 SSD's are hard to come by and the one's available are also expensive compared with mSATA drives. Although there are more budget level M.2 SSD's like the Crucial M550 that can compare with the mSATA counterparts in performance but are still generally a bit more expensive.