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    T61p SDHC card

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by chrisroman, Nov 15, 2007.

  1. chrisroman

    chrisroman Notebook Enthusiast

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    How do the SDHC level 6 cards perform reletive to an internal 7k200 drive in the T61 series? Would an SDHC card offer better speed / battery life?

    I specifically am thinking to use them for VMware images. How would performance be?
     
    chrisroman, Nov 15, 2007
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  2. philfna

    philfna Notebook Evangelist NBR Reviewer

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    Well they have almost no latency so they can be quite quick for certain operations; (think no moving parts), and the Class 6 cards are quite fast indeed. I have a 7K200 160 GB with a 2 GB SD card. If I am reading you right you are going to put the virtual machines on the cards? I would imagine them to be faster than the 7k200 in general.
     
    philfna, Nov 15, 2007
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  3. michelkenny

    michelkenny Notebook Geek

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    VM images use A LOT of disk IO when powered on, so my guess (I may be wrong) that it would perform slower on the flash card.
     
    michelkenny, Nov 15, 2007
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  4. chrisroman

    chrisroman Notebook Enthusiast

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    I did some more research and it looks like the best SDHC cards only have real world throughput of about 6-8MB/sec. The 7k200 Hitachi drive I currently have is around 50-70MB/sec not precisely sure, but in that range.

    michelkenny, I agree - with those numbers the SD card would be much slower. looks like a 2nd drive in the ultrabay will be a better option.
     
    chrisroman, Nov 15, 2007
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  5. philfna

    philfna Notebook Evangelist NBR Reviewer

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    Sustained transfer rates the SD card will get its butt kick, but like readyboost there are situations where an SD card will be quite fast.
     
    philfna, Nov 15, 2007
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  6. elbitrop

    elbitrop Notebook Enthusiast

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    SDHD is the wrong standard to use for speed, though it would increase battery life when replacing a HD. Solid state storage is available that would do what you are looking for, but it's expensive and ISTR the write performance was poor. ISTR storagereview.com had a good review.
     
    elbitrop, Nov 15, 2007
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  7. philfna

    philfna Notebook Evangelist NBR Reviewer

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    SSD's are the way to go if you want fast fast like instant boot speeds MTRON has some expensive, but fast SSDs. Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of devices with varying levels of quality and speed.
     
    philfna, Nov 15, 2007
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