The older PATA notebook drives were slow for sure. It's too bad they topped out at 320GB (160 GB/platter). The 7200 RPM drives were even older technology.
My seagate is one of the newer old 7200 rpm drives. It's around 50 MB/sec in the laptop, and, with a clean install is ok, but still not nearly as fast as the SSD. Right now, they are the only game in town, or China I should say, and, I better just stick with what I've got, and not make the USPS rich.
Now is a great time. The X25-M is pretty cheap, and is all you really need. The Z-Drive is not cheap, but is as fast as any reasonable load could appreciate.
I agree. Kingspec, from China on ebay, are 170 MB/sec, 32 gig SATA, for 100 bucks.
Even the slow, 32 MB/sec PATA Kingspec is a huge speed improvement, overall, over the PATA 7200 rpm drive it replaced, that has faster STR, but MUCH slower access time. That was also 100 bucks.
If you shop, the Vertex turbo can be had for under 150 bucks, and it's no joke, either.
Is there another source besides eBay for those pata drives? I have an older laptop which is perfectly fine other than the hard drive that is going bad in it that I would like to get a little more life out of.
Do you guys think there will be a particularly good time to buy an SSD? When there are more PCI-e versions? More Sandforce-based ones? Is there some advance in the pipeline I should wait for, or just get one anytime?
I'm seriously considering the 80GB X-25 M.
I'm seriously considering the 80GB X-25 M.
Better late than never. :smile:
Seems that they are finally coming down within reason. Seems like these things are really high profit cashcows for Intel, but, that's just me?
Intel Extreme pricing comes to mind...
X25-E drives are not MLC consumer components. Price is reasonable for the purpose.
I'm seriously considering the 80GB X-25 M.
Just note that theres generally a reason why Newegg is extremely popular.