TZ SSD options

Ive just bought s Crucial M225 128gb with the intention of fitting it to my TZ but ive now found the tz uses zif rather than sata.

Im going to keep the ssd for my desktop but im still on the lookout for a decent drive for my TZ as im sure the HD is the bottleneck.


Are there any cheap zif SSD's available now?

As anyone tried a zif to compact flash adapter ?...would this be advisable?

Or are there any decent higher speed mechanical rather than SSD zif drives available which are better than the pre installed drive in my TZ?

Many thanks

 

If you want more storage then your best bet is to remove your dvd drive and install a 2nd hard drive.
You could also have the option of booting of your SSD drive for the speed and using the mechanical drive for storage.
A forum member has tried to get SATA drives working in these PATA type devices but that will involve a lot of work and i have no idea about the outcome.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=356421

You can get 120GB 5400 Zif PATA drives but they are not that much of an improvement over the zif 4200RPM drives.

There are Photofast and other drives also and these are the cheaper drives.
Samsung drives are very low power consumption and these have also been tested in the TZ but those drives are hard to come by now.
Mtron 1.8 zif drives have also been tested and this drive also works in the TZ.

This web page here if you scroll down you will see some info about SSD drives and the TZ. To read the articles you can just put them through google translator.
http://kunkoku.livedoor.biz/archives/51681541.html

This is a link a feature on the Photofast drives. This drive is not covered in the link above.
http://kunkoku.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2009-07-02

 

Yes, it is possible to use your Crucial SSD in the optical bay, provided that you get the HDD kit (similar to the one I'm selling) for the TZ.
Otherwise, the Mtron ZIF 32GB SSD should be very fast in your system. If you want 64GB and above, you'll have to go to Samsung or other less-known brands (Photofast, Runcore, Kingspec, etc...) which you can find on eBay.

 

Hi!
I've been looking around for the best 128GB SSD for my Vaio TZ. Runcore seems to be the fastest, but the UDMA 2 problem (possibly due to its pata bridge chip) has not yet been sorted by Runcore (it still exists in their latest firmware 1916). The only other fast and relatively cheap solution seems to be PhotoFast V4 SSD as found here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=437997

Has anybody tried that in a Vaio TZ?

Do you know of any other alternative solution for 128GB SSD storage on TZ?

 

I had the Runcore 128GB. Didn't work well. Windows 7 format is not possible and requires a workaround.

The UDMA problem will probably never get fixed as it's not a problem of the firmware but the bridge. If you are can live with the manual UDMA switch (via script if you like) than runcore is faster, but there are also much more complaints with runcore users. My runcore finally died and i sent it back.

I now have the Photofast V4 128 and it works like a charm. Out of the box, no tinkering with UDMA or workarounds to get Windows 7 installed. Much lower power consumption and i have yet to to hear somebody say that the runcore does not work in his notebook.

 

Wow! That's great news! So the Photofast V4 is fully compatible with TZ out of the box. I believe SSD is perhaps the only real upgrade I can offer my TZ as I often find it stuck with its 1.8" HDD. Sometimes even an Atom N270 netbook seems faster than my TZ

PS: I've already upgraded m/b+CPU from 1.2GHz to 1.33GHz (almost no real difference in speed), and I've added a WWAN (+GPS) card (I can now get Internet everywhere!).