Hi 090909, Yes you can use msata as a boot drive. Dell usually ships a 32GB msata with its systems. I recommend you to get a bigger msata like a 128GB or 256GB as the operating system will not fit into a 32GB msata drive. Before installing make sure you goto BIOS and change the SATA operation from IRST to AHCI.
That's my question, can we use the mSATA as a little BOOT DRIVE rather than a cache?  If I buy this machine, i will pull the mechanical HD and replace it with an SSD anyway, would rather not waste the mSATA. If we can configure the BIOS so that we can install win8 onto mSATA and then boot from mSATA... well, then i would consider upgrading to a LARGER mSATA :-)  so... whats the scoop, DELL?
install Windows 8 on 7720 (Inspiron 17R (SE)) and BOOT FROM THE mSATA ??