SSD or Hard Drive on Your New Notebook or Netbook?

There's a nice article from I4U News on choosing between a conventional hard drive or the newer Solid State Drives (SSDs). With each type offering solid pros and cons, it is a dilemma netbook shoppers have to face in making their buying decision.

While SSDs are sturdier and faster, and consume less power, they generally have lower capacity barely enough for you to install other applications. Of course, if you all you do is surf, email, chat and do simple Office-type work, then most often, the pre-installed apps should be enough.

The problem, of course, is that for the same price you can get a 160GB HDD instead of the 8GB SSD. And clearly, 160GB HHD has far, far more storage space.

To help solve the dilemma, some manufacturers, like MSI, have began installing both an SSD and a HDD in the same unit (e.g. MSI Wind U115). While the hybrid set-up does provide for longer battery life while offering more storage it does come with a price premium.

SSD-based 8.9" netbooks seeing sharp price drops

From Digitimes -

Per industry reports, netbook vendors are dropping prices of their 8.9" netbooks to clear inventory, and SSD-based models are seeing the sharpest drops because of lower demands. The decrease in demand is due to the increase in hard drive capacity from 80GB to 160GB, in addition to the higher cost of SSDs.

The 8GB SSD 8.9" Acer Aspire One has dropped to NT$6,999 (US$202.27) in the Taiwan market, while the 7-inch Asus Eee PC now costs around NT$6,500-7,500 and the 20GB SSD 8.9" Asus Eee PC is around NT$8,999.

Price of SSDs Dropping Fast

From Laptop Mag -

As with most any other technological product, SSDs are not immune to price drops. However, unlike most other products, its price drop in the past year has been huge. Barely a year ago, a 32GB Samsung SSD cost well over $800. But for the past few months, slower 32GB drives have been going for $100, with 64GB sometimes dipping below $200. And just recently, the Intel X-25M, arguably the fastest SSD today, dropped down to $369 after its wholesale cost per thousand units was reduced to $390.

With this latest price drop, SSDs are now at the cusp of mainstream adoption, the projected sweet spot being 120GB for under $250.

Solution for Acer Aspire One Slooooow SSD

If you are like many other Acer Aspire One owners who are exasperated with the ever so slow SSD, do yourself and check out this Aspire One User forum thread.

Basically the suggestions are to use the Enhanced Write Filter (EWF) in Windows XP or the File-based write filter to tweak the SSD into faster writes.

Complete instructions are in the thread.

Read the Aspire One User forum thread here.

Buffalo Offers New SSDs For Dell Inspiron Mini 9

From ubergizmo -

Buffalo is now offering 16GB and 32GB SSDS for the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook. The extra storage won't really improve performance but at least it enables you to store your data, music and video.

Adapter Uses Six SDHC Cards For Voltron-Like DIY SSD Drive

From Gizmodo -

The guys at Impress have managed 111.4 MB/s read and 55.2 MB/s write times using six 8GB SDHC cards enclosed in a single 2.5-inch SATA SSD adapter (cost USD90 in Japan). While it won't match speeds of dedicated SSDs, it is not too shabby for a DIY solution that will save you some money.

Source article here.

DIY SSD

From GeekStuff4U -

Super Talent Announces "World's Thinnest" 256GB SSD

According to Gearlog, San Jose, CA-based Super Talent has announced what they claim to be the "world's slimmest" 256GB solid state drive (SSD). At 12.5mm, the FSD56GC25H is 40% thinner than its nearest rival.

The company is also touting the drive's ruggedness which supports up to 1600 G-shocks and 16G vibrations. No pricing was available.

More product details are available at Super Talent's website.

2008 Year of SSD?

One of the side attractions at the recent CES was the various solid state drives (SSDs) on display, with some exhibitors predicting 250GB units by the end of this year.

Among those on display were SanDisk's 64GB 2.5-inch SSD and 64GB and 72GB 1.8-inch SSD and A-Data's 128GB SATA RAID SSD. Both Ritech and Samsung also announced their 128GB drives in the same format. BitMicro took the stage with prototype 832GB 2.5-inch SATA II SSD units.

For notebooks such as the Asus Eee PC which uses SSDs instead of hard drives, this is definitely good news. Can't wait to see what the configuration for the Eee PC will be come Christmas 2008. :)

More details at CoolTechZone.