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    Worth it to get an SSD for a SATA 1 slate?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by C E Jones, Apr 10, 2011.

  1. C E Jones

    C E Jones Notebook Consultant

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    I'm considering buying a used Fujutsu TS5112 slate (I'm on a budget) and was wondering if I should just stick with the included HDD or try to find a cheap 64-80G SSD to swap in. What, if anything, would be the performance improvement, considering the SATA 1 limitation?
     
    C E Jones, Apr 10, 2011
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  2. chimpanzee

    chimpanzee Notebook Virtuoso

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    Are you buying a slate for performance ? If not, performance may not be the first thing you want to consider whether to SSD or not. But an SSD does have the advantage of no moving parts, lighter and use less power(on idle anyway) so it does fits well with a slate. It also have faster boot up advantage which again is more likely to be appreciate in this type of device.
     
    chimpanzee, Apr 10, 2011
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  3. C E Jones

    C E Jones Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. And since the slate would be 3-5 years old, the included hard drive wouldn't be likely to last long anyway.

    Would there be a noticeable improvement in battery life? Also, any particular SSD's you'd recommend for the ST5112? I'm on a budget, so price is an issue. 40GB would be enough, I have an HTPC for multimedia :D
     
    C E Jones, Apr 10, 2011
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  4. chimpanzee

    chimpanzee Notebook Virtuoso

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    My guess about a typical slate usage pattern would be 70% idle, 25% read, 5% write(well you get the idea, it is not some 'scientific' measure), the battery life improvemnt can be quite noticeable as SSD at idle use very little power(just that small controller, the NAND only use power when read/write and write eats much more power than read).

    not sure if your slate support SATA, if it does x25m 40V is a perfect fit. It is selling around 80-90 bucks and is a very reliable device. Even a cheap HDD would be around 50 bucks.
     
    chimpanzee, Apr 11, 2011
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  5. Syberia

    Syberia Notebook Deity

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    I just bought a SSD for my combination netbook/tablet, there's just something wrong with a tablet device that doesn't run programs instantly.
     
    Syberia, Apr 11, 2011
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  6. C E Jones

    C E Jones Notebook Consultant

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    The Fujitsu ST5112 is SATA 1 compatible, which I believe is backwards-compatible with SATA 2 SSDs? I haven't bought it yet, but the reason I'm leaning towards this one is that it has SATA, whereas a lot of the used slates in the under $400 range are pata.

    Thanks for the tip on the intel 40GB. I was leaning towards the Kingston 64GB but I hear Intel is good. As long as 40GB is big enough to run Win 7, which I intend to install, and some basic productivity software (Openoffice, a few other small things) I'd go with the Intel if it's more reliable.
     
    C E Jones, Apr 11, 2011
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