Looking for a SSD ?

I was checking out the deals on ebay for SSD's and seen the Intel 330 series 180GB for $165.00 which I thought was good untill I checked newegg.com... $215.00 but after rebate its only $145.00 . Newegg.com - Intel 330 Series Maple Crest SSDSC2CT180A3K5 2.5" 180GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Now thats a deal. I have 5 intel SSD's... 2-X 25's and 3 X 320's (80-160GB) and they are fast.
Live in canada well its about $164.00 after shipping and tax Newegg.ca - Intel 330 Series Maple Crest SSDSC2CT180A3K5 2.5" 180GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) which is still a great deal. The rebate is a Visa prepaid card good for $70.00 USD.

Rebate is good untill 06/24/2012

 

They're identical drives... what is the difference? why such a price difference?

Just difference between Canada and US!?

Of course, $19 isn't much I guess....

 

Really I was very surprised it was only $19.00 difference...the last time it was $80.00

 

Speaking of SSD drives, I read that win7 aligns them automatically. Does it do it if I partition and format a blank drive from the setup dvd or do I need to do something special?

 

Nothing special. Just like a regular HDD. Good thing about newegg I see it takes PayPal now.

 

Do I need this drive for my new CF-19 MK4? How much faster will it work? I have the original 160 GB HD in it.

 

When I get home tonight I will check my boot times on my 19 MK1 and 2 and post them for you but also it loads and closes programs faster to.

 

Biggest thing you will notice is boot time

 

Boot time will be a big difference, starting and closing programms, but also when you open large documents or Adobe projects, you'll notice a big difference.
I installed a 160Gb drive on an old white macbook with a Core Duo processor. It has Adobe CS3 on it. Booting was really fast, but also opening photoshop, indesign etc. was now a normal time and before it took forever.
You can look at it like this: everything that uses the CPU doesn't become faster, but if it involves the HDD (writing to and from) it becomes a lot faster.
I did measure my boot times when I installed my SSD on my mk5, I have no idea how long it took, but I think it took just half the time.
search helped me. I went from 1m45 to 30seconds boot time. Not bad at all.

 

Boot time is a smallest thing, not biggest. For example, I don't restart my laptop at all for weeks
Programs start really fast - that is the biggest thing.

 

On my 19 MK2 it boots in 47 seconds on vista and I have not done anything special to it like using these tips from here The SSD Optimization Guide Redesigned - The SSD Review . Once I do a install of W7 and use the tips from the guide I know I can get my boot down to 30-35 seconds.
Download Booterracer and see what it gives you for boot time BootRacer - CNET Download.com

 

Looks like a lot of good tips on that site. I would try 1 at a time though.

 

I put an intel SSD on my 31. Boots into 7 in the same time the oe platter booted into XP. Don't know what I was expecting, but it was more than that. I went through all the tips and tricks and shaved another 2 seconds off. woohoo.

 

How many seconds did it take then?
Which intel?

 

My CF-30MK1 boots up in 32-38 seconds after I installed the SSD and did what the ssd forum guide said to do. It was 55 seconds before with the old regular HDD. My 52 is a little faster than that.

 

I have the Samsung 240 Gig SSD and have been using it for about 2 months. The price on this was $280.00 after a rebate at MicroCenter. The "Windows Experience meter data transfer went from 5.? to 7.8. Everything, including boot, program loading, etc jumped dramatically after I installed it. One of the issues I ran into was transferring my ISO to the new drive from my Hybrid SSD. I used Paragon Migrate and a BlackX SATA 2 drive dock and it did everything, format, align, and burn the ISO. Very easy process which is what I was looking for. Yeah, spent some $$$ to do this, but now I have 500 Gig external hard drives I use for storage. I use Adobe Acrobat X, Photoshop CS 5 and 6, Elements 6 and 10, and Lightroom . These are huge programs for my photo editing and this drive performs superb. If you do not have an SSD, get one!!!! The power consumption is much, much lower, it truly makes your Toughbook TOUGH, and you will want to go big! 240 is a lot, but I should have invested in 400 Gig +.... Overall, my boot time and program load time has dropped a lot. Doing research now on "Life" of the SSD. I have been seeing different papers on this topic and wonder just how long will this drive have a write capability compared to the HDD. Happy Toughbooking!!!!!

 

Ok, should of said first thing, not biggest thing.

I get 18 seconds on my CF-53, not sure what it was before but compared to another cf-53 I'd say its half the time.

 

mine is still right around 30 seconds

 

Made some changes from the page above and got it down to 16, tested my CF19 mk4 and its running at 33 secs without any changes.

 

16? What OS? What do you define as Booted? On the internet? All drivers and startup programs loaded? Desktop icons fully populated?

 

Its Win 7 32 bit with 4gb ram, ran threw the suggestions on the page and did about half and shaved 2 secs off. Sometimes it jumps up a second or two again. Its a CF-53 I5 with a 120gb OCZ agility 3.

 

What program is that?

 

I have a few CF30 Mk1's and Mk2's. Can I use a Sata III? I'd like to get the most recent for future use. I have a Sata II in my Mk2 right now and it works Great! Just wondering about any possible complications and if it will also run well in my Mk1.

 

Sata III will work no issue but I don't think your gonna see much improvement for the money if any between II and III on a cf30. I have a II in one cf30 and a III in another and they score .2 difference apart in win7. Future use? best bet IMHO is get the cheapest/fastest combo you can now because they are just gonna get faster and cheaper and bigger and you'll want to upgrade in a year or two anyway.

But with all that said the III's will likely be cheaper then II's soon if not already as I am sure they will start to cut back on production.

 

Its mentioned in an earlier thread bootracer.

http://www.greatis.com/bootracer/download.htm

You think 16 is fast there is a contest to load your results and the fastest I saw was 10 seconds.... Zoom Zoom

 

As far as I know yes but you will be limited to what ever speed your motherboard will handle . I did have a Intel 320 series SATA 3 in my MK1 and it worked great. I also had a Intel X25 in my 30 too but but I found it run just as fast as my other two SSD ( 320 and 520 ) Last year me and Alex ran some tests on the standard drives (5400 , 7200) and SSD's. The SSD's were faster but not as fast as we were wanted because the motherboard held it back. So its not going to matter what you use...SATA 1 , 2 or 3... I can not remember what program we used to test the drives

 

Thanks Guys. I know it wouldn't be as fast as the Sata III in my desktop, just hoping they would be backwards compatible like Memory (usually) is. There was some nice Mushkin on newegg, 'too' fast for the Mk1 but it didn't mind slowing down ;-) and it also works great in my Mk2

I mainly want the non moving parts benefit of the SSD. I'm building 2 books for my brother, one for his Angelic kids and one for him to use in his Semi. (Which has already destroyed 2 laptops in under 8 months! The semi, not the kids) I have a Sata II in my Mk2 right now; So I know that would work at least.

Lastly, I know this site is messing up in IE but why would all my searches come back 'Could not find phrase 'invalid_search_query' Anybody know why?

I need to find some threads on Upgrading the OS vs buying a new COA cuz I have a bunch of XP and Vista business ones and upgrading is a bit cheaper.

 

intel 320 series is Sata2, as well as X25. However, the sensible difference (besides benchmarks) would be the random read/write speed , which is still well below SATA2 speeds, and even SATA1 (150MB/s).
Sequential speeds, for recent drives (intel 330, 510, 520) are very close to the limits of SATA3 (like 500/550 MB/s), but you would only notice that on particular usage patterns (linear video editing, large files copy, etc).

For everyday use (booting, opening multiple/large programs, everyday tasks) the random read and write are most significant, and it's where they are at least one order of magnitude faster than HDDs.
You won't see a 10 times drop in boot time, as there are a lot of other factors involved, but you'll surely notice it.

 

I will take some pcs

 

Anyone know a good PATA SSD? I'm thinking of putting one in my CF-29. Possibly one in my Powerbook too. Depending on the price.

Been looking at the 32 gb drives on ebay for 50 bucks, but I'm kinda critical about them. They might bee good enough for the powerbook though. Maybe i'll go back to the sata ssd in the TB.

 

Which one's are you looking at for $50.

It's not the first time I have stolen this quote from another forum member;

"You DON'T always get what you pay for, but you DO pay for what you get".

o.g.

 

KingSpec 2.5″ 32GB 4C PATA Hard Drive Flash MLC IDE 44 SSD Hard Solid State Disk 609722205177 | eBay

I'm not aiming for the quickest one. But if the SSD and is as fast, or faster, than the 5400rpm drive it has now, I'm fine with it.

 

at that price it's not bad, but 32Gb isn't very much?! do you use a SD-card to store your data?

 

The last time I looked, KingSpec had revamped their website, so it no longer contained any information regarding which controller is fitted to which drive.

It's advertised as being Pata II, so something has changed, but I'm not sure what....bear in mind that the marriage between the JMicron controller & MLC Nand in the original KingSpec drives was an unhappy relationship, the SLC variant performed considerably better with the same controller.

I am aware that KingSpec offered an alternative controller (Silicon Motion) that gave lower performance figures but better reliability when paired with MLC....yeah....the price is tempting....32GB is big enough for a boot drive but it takes your data with it when it goes ping-pong.

Fast or faster than a 5400rpm spinner??....the access time on a good 5400rpm is around the 18 - 20ms mark....low performance on an ssd is around 0.3 - 0.4ms mark, so it will always feel a lot snappier....however, some have found to their displeasure, the lower performers (bad controllers & mlc nand) can give random writes approaching that of 4200rpm spinners.

So, depends on what you are using it for....it's Pata....SLC will always be better but at a higher cost & NO....it WON'T be like your Corsair F120.

o.g.

 

Hehe, yeah. I know it wont be perfect, but this machine is used mostly for car diagnostics (VAG-COM) or web browsing and music. I haven't gone over 10gb yet, so the 120gb drive is a waste...

Besides, you can always replace the optical drive with a storage drive if you need more space. CD's are so 90's...

Also, I'm hunting a high spec 12" Powerbook G4 I'm thinking of SSD-ing (that should be a word.) I wanted a MBP but I'm mad at Apple at the moment. They ain't getting any money from me until they redesign their MBP's with upgradable ram and HDD.

What is the best PATA SSD out there? JUst wondering if its worth opting for the best or go with the budget alternative.

 

Hahaha....just looked at the KingSpec website....I'm either mistaken or this is looking like a make-over.

The original drive I enquired about (32GB SLC) around eighteen months ago was a KSD-PA25.1-032SJ....the second enquiry being for a KSD-PA25.1-064SS.

KingSpec Model Number Deciphering:

PA - Pata Interface
25 - 2.5-Inch Form Factor
1 - First Generation Drive
32 - 32GB
SJ - Samsung SLC Nand & JMicron Controller

substitute SJ with....

SS - Samsung SLC Nand & Silicon Motion Controller

MJ - Samsung MLC Nand & JMicron Controller

MS - Samsung MLC Nand & Silicon Motion Controller

There were a number of reasons why I never purchased a KingSpec, thirty day warranty from e-bay sellers etc,etc, etc.

I'm suggesting the drive you are looking at is in fact a FIRST GENERATION drive with different labelling to make it look like a new model. I'm quite happy to stand corrected if I'm wrong, but the model numbering on their website is NOT indicating anything new.

That said, when a 32GB SLC drops to the $50 mark, I'll be buying one regardless of which controller is in it & how long the warranty is.

On the one you are looking at, I've no idea what the random read & writes will be....Silicon Motion only published the maximum sequential figures for the controller....do you trust a seller enough to believe the figures quoted for random read/writes?....at $55 you can only expect so much.

With regards to which is the best Pata drive available....all or most all, have issues with random writes, Transcend SLC is alot lower than your Corsair fitted with a Pata to Sata bridge & the price of 64GB is HIGH....I might be looking at a Solidata P1 next, price of 64GB is HIGH with lower performance than the Corsair....it's more a question of trying to match the drive with your intended purpose....it's Pata, one size fits all does everything is NOT happening.

There is something to be said about those at the donkey-poo end of the scale....the price is right....if you are not expecting or needing rock-my-boat performance then go for it....just don't expect too much.

o.g.

Edit:....Oops....it looks like we have hijacked the thread....sorry.