1.8" ZIF PATA SSDs available

with driver do you use for the ICH8M in windows7?

and which for the graphics?

thnx a lot.

 

These are the #s for the SuperTalent ZT2 60gb installed in my D430, U7700, 1.33GHz, Win7 x64

Unfortunately the drive is OOS at superbiiz but they currently have a $15 off with coupon HELLO2011.

Keos2000

 

Hi Keos2000,

Can you post a CrystalDiskInfo screenshot of the drive to give some clues on the firmware string and thus underlying controller? Try the ICH8M tweak to get faster write performance as confirmed on a MX-Nano+D430 here.

 

here is the diskinfo for the zt2, will try the tweak in a day or so.

 

Great. The VATE1511 string confirms the SuperTalent ZT2 is a EWS720-based SSD. My Renice K3VLAR-E has the VATE1523 firmware, so is a slightly newer. I'll update the first post with this finding.

 

Great - thanks for confirming. I just did the tweak with bar-edit, set the field to 1033 but my seq write speeds only went up slightly, now at 41MB/s. Wonder if there is anything else I can do to get them up further. Thanks!

keos2000

 

You have the 60GB version which has 33% slower writes than the 120/240GB version. Not much can be done other than do a manual Tony Trim or sdelete as outlined on the first post if you find write performance becomes unsatisfactory. So far I have not have to do any of that with my EWS720-based 60GB K3VLAR-E. My sequential writes are b/w 50-55MB/s. A 120GB unit will have 70MB/s+.

Can you update your previously posted benchmarks with the 0x1033 results?

 

70MB/s+ for 120GB with EWS720-based is far to high.

with the mx-nano 120GB i notice a limit by 60MB/s. and from the Benchs in here i can see that the nano-ssds are a bit faster than the others.

 

BTW, I just downloaded and installed the VATP1522 Photofast G-Monster V4 1.8 ZIF firmware (from the photofast.se site) on my ZT2 drive, it works all fine, did not wipe the data but the speeds are unchanged. By enabling 66mhz writes on ICH7, seq write speed is now 42MB/s, still far below what others are posting for the other EWS720 drives.

Keos

 

is there a way to use a 1.8 ZIF drive in a laptop with 2.5 sata slot as internal boot drive?

 

See item 3 in the notes on the first post for a ZIF-to-2.5" sata enclosure.

 

This ... DealExtreme: $18.61 ZIF SSD to 2.5" SATA HDD Converter

Nando4 beat me to it

 

thnx

will this work too?

1.8 ZIF/LIF HDD Hard Disk Drive SSD to 2.5 SATA Adapter bei eBay.de: Cables Connectors (endet 31.01.11 04:58:17 MEZ)

 

Yes - no problem.

 

On second thoughts I believe those DX enclosures are for 1.3" ZIF modules so would not work with 1.8" drives. Would need this instead:

ZIF CE 1.8 to SATA ATA HDD Adapter 4 Toshiba Hitachi - eBay (item 190388441216 end time Feb-05-11 20:30:14 PST)

Size comparison: 1.8" ZIF HDD versus 2.5" sata HDD

 

ok i see. but the zif port on the converter is on the side. on my zif ssd at the front. is that a problem?

 

any ideas?

 

Hi all!
I have Compaq/HP 2710p (Vista, 4Gb RAM), want to upgrade it's 1.8" PATA ZIF HDD to 60...120Gb SSD and switch to Win7/x64.
What will work faster in my case: native PATA SSD (like Renice K3VLAR), or a combination of SATA SSD + some PATA<->SATA converter?
Speed is more important than battery life (this is a home/office machine).
I can handle DIY solution if there is a significant advantage in either speed or money.
The total budget limit is about 300$
I see people here having the same netbook as mine. Anyone tried many options and got the best?
Please advise!

 

The DIY.US$15 adapter uses a JM20330 sata-to-pata bridge which I found could not transmit WIn7 TRIM signals correctly. If you don't mind disabling TRIM then could do the DIY.US$15 adapter + US$280 120GB 1.8" Renice X3 (SF1200) SSD. A 120GB SF1200 gets 30MB/s 4kb reads on native AHCI setups as shown.

If wanting a simpler solution then I'd advise getting the Renice K3VLAR which has (i) the Marvell sata-to-pata bridge and (ii) no TRIM issues and (iii) is the fastest MLC ZIF SSD available atm.

Lastly, it's worth reviewing the changeover cost going from a 2710P to a 2730P to see if that may be a better route to get the faster SSD performance.

EDIT: you could ask Renice to consider making a 120GB SF1200 1.8" ZIF unit.

 

Nando4,

Thanks for fast reply.
SF1200 looks great on chart, but as I'll have to hook it to IDE anyway, how much bandwidth you think I'll get finally from some decent 1.8 SATA SSD - can it be close to K3VLAR? What disk you'd advise to use?

Though, as remove TRIM means extra performance downgrade + shorter SSD life span, I am not sure this is the best solution, unless it is much faster than anything else.

Thinking of Renice K3VLAR... I also see Runcore Pro IV is almost the same for money and specs... Could you plz explain why you considered Renice a step ahead in your earlier post here - http://forum.notebookreview.com/6797812-post39.html 15-Oct-2010 ?

 

As per the linked message:

The big difference is the K3VLAR uses the Marvell sata-to-pata bridge chip for better performance AND compatibility (inc TRIM and no standby/resume issues). The ProIV uses the Jmicron JM20330 so we see it has a stack of issues on their support forum related to TRIM and standby/resume. So I advise the K3VLAR as being the most compatible sata-to-pata bridged ZIF SSD atm and the fastest MLC ZIF SSD on the market.

 

Nando4,
Thank you very much again for your clear explanation.

It seems that 64GB K3VLAR E (K3 E), aka RN-K3E-Z1864, $139.99 at mydigitaldiscount.com, which you reviewed, is a pretty good option for me.
I see its drawbacks comparing to 64GB K3VLAR (RN-K3A-Z1864), as slower write speed and lack of Win7 TRIM support. The last might be a cause for first, but I see it a reasonable trade-off for better power consumption and lower price.

Question:
- Are there other known or possible issues with K3VLAR-E (as opposed to K3VLAR) that worth taking into consideration?
- Do you think TRIM could be enabled in future for K3VLAR-E with a different firmware or unofficial patch?
(If there is a chance, it may make sense to shell off more for 120Gb drive, otherwise I'd stay with 60Gb.)


What'd be your advice?

 

No issues I'm aware of with the K3VLAR-E. In fact it's native PATA controller ensures higher compatibility. I saw one user replace their K3VLAR, which was being set to UDMA2 speeds by the bios, with a EWS720 unit with no such problem.

I don't think the EWS720 units will ever support TRIM.

A K3VLAR-E is a substantial performance improvement over any ZIF HDD. It's low power consumption making it a better choice than the K3VLAR for use in ultraportables where battery life is important. It's lower price sweetening the deal even more.

 

Hi all,
has everyone ever tried an SLC based Kingspec zif SSD?

I have seen only one or two sellers on eBay who stock slc versions.

Performance rates are stated as below:

I can't find an original spec sheet, so I'm doubtful of these rates.

 

I got the super talent duradrive for the Dell d430. Works great!

 

After flashing to 2030 firmware on my Pro IV few months back there has been no hang up/freezing from standby/resume. I use it daily.

 

The SLC-based drives should perform just fine - the JMicron controller was horribly broken with MLC flash, but with SLC flash it doesn't suffer the same issues.

This one seems something of a bargain for an IDE-only machine - 2.5'' Kingspec PATA IDE SLC 32GB SSD Hard Drive Disk - eBay (item 180623889293 end time Mar-11-11 17:37:03 PST) - it's affordable, yet big enough to run a modern operating system (ie, Windows 7).

It's a 2.5" IDE unit though, so it won't fit a 1.8" bay.

 

Here are my benchmarks. ZT2. Dell D430 1.33ghz core 2 duo. XP 4k writes seem slow. I aligned my drive with gparted, after installation. AS SSD benchmark says the blocks are 2048.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 85.914 MB/s
Sequential Write : 53.945 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 79.858 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 14.614 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 10.923 MB/s [ 2666.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.666 MB/s [ 406.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 14.132 MB/s [ 3450.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.072 MB/s [ 261.7 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 56.9% (31.8/56.0 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2011/02/11 9:45:07
OS : Windows XP Professional SP3 [5.1 Build 2600] (x86)

 

I don't need plenty of storage space, I just want to load Fedora or Ubuntu on my Latitude D430. A 16GB SSD is acceptable, and a 32GB is perfect for me.

• KINGSPEC ZIF2 SLC 16GB $96 (P&P included)
  
• Renice K3VLAR (Indilinx) 32GB $150 (P&P included)
  
• Runcore Pro IV 32GB (same price as Renice)

What of these do you think has the best value to price ratio?

 

I would get the cheapest rather than the $/GB. i.e. Kinspec.

You can always supplement it with external drive/usb flash if size is a concern.

Beside, it is SLC based.

 

Hello

Just for your info, i have purchased Transcend (TS32GPSSD-M) ZIF SSD (32GB) for my Dell D420 and its not being recognized, not compatible i guess...

 

From the looks of it you want the highest performance SSD. If 32GB is all you need, I'd make a $150 offer on a SLC mtron. It will get you the fastest 4KB read speed:

Mtron SSD MOBI MSD-PATA3018 - eBay (item 220621059138 end time Mar-09-11 09:29:25 PST)

Otherwise I'd go the Renice K3VLAR over the Runcore for it's more compatible and slightly faster Marvell sata-to-pata bridge. Either will get you great write speed.

If wanting a good all-rounder with low power consumption to provide battery life improvements then I'd get the cheapest EWS720 based unit, eg: SuperTalent ZT2, Renice K3VLAR-E or MX-Nano.

 

The Renice drive is definately the way to go from the above list - it's proven to be a decent drive.

Whilst the Kingspec SLC drive doesn't suffer from the same problems as the MLC drives, it's still much slower than the Renice drive - and at a significantly increased cost per GB, there's nothing in it's favour.

 

There are different variations of ZIF cable - you may need to change or reverse yours, or try the drive the other way up.

 

I installed 32GB Renice K3VLAR and Ubuntu 10.10 to my Dell D430.
All I had to do is add discard to /etc/fstab in this drives mount option to disable journaling in order to enable TRIM.
test trim in linux
enable trim linux

See attached file of read speeds reported by Gnome Disk Utility.
hdparm reports:
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5 udma6
so no need to force UDMA5 (which was quite obvious with those read speeds)

I tried to test write speeds to confirm if Linux is also affected by 33Mhz vs 66Mhz ATA problem but I encountered some problems.

First I made 1024MB file from /dev/zero to ssd with dd and it reported:
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 12.4434 s, 86.3 MB/s
Which is clearly not possible with this 32GB drive.

I have to do some googling to find some drive test programs for linux...

Edit:
setpci -s 00:1f.1 54.l command returns ffffffff
I found that address from "lspci"
in Windows it was 0/31/1 54h but here in linux it is apparently 00:1f.1 54.l

"dd'ing" random data from ramdisk to ssd tells
524288000 bytes (524 MB) copied, 14.3995 s, 36.4 MB/s

I've tried to change that registry 00:1f.1 54.l from ffffffff to 10F3 and 1033 but write speed is still capped to ~35 MB/s.
When I had Win7 in this machine (with different SSD) the registry (0/31/1 54h) was 10F0 which I edited with Bar-Edit to 10F3, but then I had very slow KingSpec SSD and I was not able to verify if it unlocked the write speeds.

Also I should align the partitions too ... some day.

Edit2:
Partition is now aligned. Write speed (from ramdisk to ssd) is still ~35 MB/s
Read speed (reported by Disk Utility) is also 1-2 MB/s higher than without aligned partitions.
Weird thing.. Ubuntu 10.10 installer should align partitions, but mine were still wrong.


Edit3:
After reboot setpci -s 00:1f.1 54.l gives 000010f0
but editing that to 000010f3 did not have any effect to write speeds. Still @ 35 MB/s
Could the 32GB version be this slow on write speeds compared to 64- and 128GB K3VLAR?


- Hount

 

A good deal: $120-shipped 60GB SuperTalent ZT2 (EWS720) ZIF SSD

$135 60GB SuperTalent ZT2 ZIF SSD - 15% off coupon "PADDY15" ($15) = $120 with free shipping

That's the cheapest, high quality ZIF SSD with low power consumption with some decent amount of storage space. Features/performance will be similar if not the same as in http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...e-ews720-zif-ssd-user-review.html#post6952134 .

 

Hi Nando, do you happen to know if this would be compatible with Macbook air rev a?

I am not a techie guy and I just came across this forum looking for a cheap SSD.

I am pretty sure that Runcore has SSD specifically for Macbook air rev a which is: "RunCore Pro IV 1.8" PATA ZIF Solid State Drive SSD for Macbook Air" sold for 410 USD. But when I saw Nando's suggestion, I went to the site for Super Talent SSD and they have a low price of 190 USD for "Super Talent 1.8 inch 128GB MasterDrive GF IDE ZIF Solid State Drive(MLC)"

Can anybody help me answer this compatibility issue and if I can buy the Super Talent SSD? Again, I am using Macbook Air Rev. A.

Thanks a lot

 

The MBA Runcore ZIF SSDs are just pre-formatted for that platform with a set of tools to do cloning (Carbon Copy). The hardware is exactly the same as the PC version. I know that MyDigitalDiscount even sent out MBA Runcore units to PC owners when they ran out of the PC stock.

The Renice K3VLAR-E(EWS720) works on a MBA revA so the SuperTalent ZT2(EWS720) would as well. See details. The MasterDrive GF's slower specs suggest it's using either the SM2233G or JM602B controller. I'd pay the $45 extra for the significantly better (faster, lower power consumption) ZT2 EWS720-based SSD:

$235 with free shipping: US$260 120GB SuperTalent ZT2 (EWS720) ZIF SSD - 15% off coupon "PADDY15" ($15)

 

After one month Renice K3VLAR gives exactly same read/write speeds than new.
Kingspec 32GB SSD with SMI controller (without TRIM) started to degrade from day one and felt really slow after one week.

Can someone with a drive without TRIM test if there is any noticeable difference with your drive compared to installation day?

- Hount

 

hey nando4

I got this one:


and got those results



while it's now a tiny notebook (11" asus core2duo 1.06ghz) which feels like an ordinary (hdd based) pc (which is awesome compared to the 4200rpm 80gb crapdisk before), it's still much slower than other ssd based systems.

are the random writes normal? is this a zif thing? i don't remember, being sata only myself since years now

 

The 112MB/s read speed suggests you are using a faster UDMA6 interface. Your sequential writes should then be close to the EWS720 120GB max of 90MB/. Your sequential and 4kb writes are lower than I'd expect.

Have you aligned the partitions? That would definitely degrade the write performance since two physical NAND writes would occur during a single 4KB write. Also suggest do a Tony Trim and re-test.

The Indilinx-based ZIF SSDs have the faster performance and TRIM support but run hotter, consume more battery and have UDMA2/standby issues on some systems.

 

well, it's a clean win7 installation, so it should be aligned by default. my question was more towards "can we change some setting" that changes performance (switching from ide to ahci mode is a typical thing that matters much for sata).

but well, the user is still happy. new life for that slow little laptop.


oh, and, i had to install it flipped, as the zif cable was "wrong way" (like you stated some posts ago). quite annoying to install that way

 

Just noticed against Renice's K3VLAR (Indilinx) ZIF SSD product page that they are replacing the K3VLAR (Indilinx) product with a SF1222 solution:

This is great news if want the absolute best performance and Sandforce's Durawrite MLC longevity. Hope they can bring temps and power consumption levels of this sata-to-pata bridged solution down as well.

 

'Best performance' and DuraWrite is an oxymoron.

You will get 'best' if you don't push the storage system at all (and even then, you might not be that lucky; LTWT may still kick in), or, you'll get a long life SSD (possibly?) that gives just slightly better performance than a mechanical HD for exponentially more $$$.

I see no scenario where you'll get both.

 

Sandforce drives perform compression and data-deduplication as they write - not only does this speed up the write process (by writing less data), it also significantly lowers the write-amplification inherent to SSDs and hence increases the lifespan of the flash memory (by writing less data again).

I suggest you do some more research - it's perfectly possible to have a fast SSD with a long enough lifetime - modern MLC drives manage both with no problems. There's no correlation between performance and lifespan - and when you spend your $$$ on an SSD you're getting orders of magnitude more performance than a mechanical drive, it's not just a "slight increase" !

 

Yeah, in my use it is only a 'slight increase'. I've done my research, with time, sweat, reading/writing posts and $$$$.

Order's of magnitude differences to HDD's are a few decades off.

 

Although, considering the general speeds of 1.8" ZIF HDDs, even the throttled speeds of Sandforce can be an order of magnitude improvement... don't forget that 1.8" ZIF HDDs tend to be really, really, slow.

 

no they aren't. but in your case, you bottleneck elsewhere (most likely money, and your system not allowing for pcie ssds or raids of sata3 ssds + controller )

 

indeed. 5-10minute boot times reduced to <30seconds, big win

 

Yeah, you do have a point. I am comparing after all to a tweaked and fully optimized 2.5" high capacity 7200 RPM HDD. No doubt almost any SSD can still be faster than the 1.8" mechanical speeds - but I still have my doubts about SandForce technology being consistently superior in any but the most lightly pushed systems (which, then begs the question - why spend money on it, if it is so lightly used).

No, the bottleneck is definitely the SSD in question. When switched to a mechanical HD the system simply outperformed it overall.

If performance was measurably better and money was a bottleneck (for me) I would have stated that 18 months ago - instead, I have yet to find an SSD worthy of replacing a 7K500, an XT or a 500GB or 750GB Scorpio Black in my systems and for my usage patterns.

And, instead of throwing $$$$ to fix a problem (which might or might not work), simply learning how to optimize a mechanical based system can yield the same performance increases as you state too (in a post above, not quoted). But with the same nod that my experience is 2.5" based and here we're focused on performance increases over a 1.8" based system.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/6723837-post163.html


My point is that just because the potential of an SSD looks so 'awesome' over a default and (in my eyes) neglected system, doesn't mean it has that same superiority when comparing best practice mechanical vs. best money can buy solid state storage.