Indeed. I just checked, and that's quite clearly a better option. Power draw is listed as the same according to the spec sheets. Thanks for the tip!



True... but then again, OCZ is a huge manufacturer, and they shipped a ton of crap SSDs before they started using a decent controller. Plus, hasn't JMicron been shipping their infernal controller since like... 2006?



Well the idle power of the KingSpec drives (by far the most popular of the X40 SSD options) is higher than many of the spinning platter ZIF drives, albeit not by much. Same for the peak power draw too.

I'd love to get one of the older Samsung drives with the absurdly low power draws (some of the ones from 2006 drew around 0.3W peak, IIRC), but I can't find 'em!

I don't know if you can consider them huge or not. Their HQ is in a building next to a body shop in Sunnyvale. Corsair looks a little larger located along I880 in Fremont. These are mostly spec'ing and branding companies. Fabs are in Taiwan and Korea, assembly in China and marketed here. Phison is also fabless. Take a look at page 27, 28 in this file.
http://mops.tse.com.tw/nas/STR/829920080121M002.pdf

Fair enough. I didn't know their corporate background -- I was merely estimating based on their product range and the wide distribution that their products have. I figured that they were fabless -- most of the drive makers are.

I'd be interested to see how the PS3016 performs for daily usage, but I'm not sure I want to drop a 100+ just to find out. :/

Made a video of my X40 with a 32G Kingspec drive. Nothing spectacular, the Kingspec is not a fast SSD today, but still mutch(!!!) better than the original 4200 RPM HDD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMZtVW0wJYA&fmt=22

I rather carelessly bought one of these Samsung SSDs on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Brand-NEW-Samsung-1 ... 53de28b447

They are 16GB drives, model MCAQE16G8APR-0XA. They were described as 1.8" IDE drives; I thought hey! That's all I need to know. But they have a kind of female connector down the short (left) side.

What sort of interface is this? Are there adaptors for them?

This is the micro-ATA interface very similar to CF. There are adapters that will fit in a 2.5 inch slot.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0307261452
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0529968835
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0453623262

sjthinkpader, thanks. Maybe with one of these (like the third link) I could run the SSD as a second drive in the X4 dock. This opens some possibilities, anyway.

So to save me reading through 32 pages (ive read 5 or 6), could anyone give me the idea of what the most reccomended SSD drive would be at this point? (in the 32g or less range). And which ones to avoid?

Theres a plug and play kingspec as seen in the video above on ebay right now, the write speeds are like 49mbs, is this too slow?

And is the kingspec plug and play SSD guarenteed to work?

thanks for help

Anything with a JMicron controller.



That's the sequential write speed. It's plenty fast unless you plan on doing lots of copying of large files (in which case I have to wonder why you're using an X4x...). But that number doesn't really matter. What you should be concerned with are the 4K random read and 4K random write speeds.

Dear all, I have an X41 with original hard drive, and I have found an Intel X18-M SSD for sale for a good price. So I wonderd if I could put a SATA drive in the X41

As far as I can tell there are theoretically two options to put a SATA drive in the X41: Remove the PATA-SATA bridge and solder directly to the motherboard, or use a SATA-IDE converter. I am somewhat skilled with soldering electronics, but not enough to dare risk my motherboard directly.

I have seen little SATA to 2.5 IDE converter boards for sale, and a description of someone who used these to put a SATA drive in a ZIF-based Dell D420.

But I can't find a description of people who did this for an X41. Is there a reason this cannot be done, or why it is a particularly bad plan?

I cannot help much with your question, but be careful! The X41 use 1.8" drives! Is the Intel SSD you found a 2.5" or 1.8" drive?

The X18 is the 1.8 inch version, the X25 is the (for the rest identical) 2.5 inch version. From the dimensions, it should fit, and it is thin enough to leave some maneuvering room for a converter board.

EDIT I see I wrote 2.5 inch converter board, that was a mistake.

No, SATA drives doesn't work in the HDD slot of X40/X41/X41t. You need ZIF PATA drives plus an adapter.

Hi im trying to install XP on my new Kingspec SSD (which always gives me the BIOS 2010 error everytime i turn on my x41), the first time it restarts it self the BIOS error cuts in and I think its that that disrupts the install, it just goes back to the first step of the install.

How do I get rid of this BIOS error

OK I managed to get XP to install, but now I have a couple of problems

- I get 'NTLDR is missing' error at every boot. I was getting this all thru install aswell, and had to use an NTLDR boot CD everytime it came up to continue with the installation. XP seemed to install, but I cant get rid of this message, and can only carry through to Windows once I have booted with a NTLDR boot cd.

-Also Windows is not recognising alot of my devices, i.e wireless or audio cards, and im assuming this is becaue it is completely lacking in drivers. But I cant connect to the internet to update drivers. I have no idea how to progress.

Thanks for any help im at my wits end with this bloody SSD!

Try googling "ntldr" and you will see that this is a common problem with a fairly easy solution. To update drivers, use an ethernet cable to plug into the internet. Make sure you have Windows Update enabled. Neither of these problems has anything to do with the SSD.

Ok my hard drive is awefully slow. So, I am thinking about doing the following:
1. Find a CF to PATA interface for my X41 Tablet (can anybody point me to one with UDMA Support?)

2. Use this CF card as my hard drive:
http://cgi.ebay.com/FILEMATE-32GB-UDMA- ... 3ca9677e87

Will this work in my X41 Tablet, and will the performance be noticable? Win7 is killing me on the hard drive load times, and I can't go back to XP because i like the win7 tablet features a whole lot more than XP

With due respects, answers to some of the last few posters' questions can be found if you read a few more pages back, or spend a little more time searching and reading these forums.

I'm not against asking questions, but when the same questions and answers repeat themselves again and again, it makes the thread more difficult to navigate and other users using more time to find useful information.

My apologies if I was unclear in previous posts. I fully understand that a SATA drive won't work without some extra work.

What I was considering doing was to use a SATA-IDE conversion board (like this one), with an onboard chip to translate between the serial and parallel data streams.

I have used such boards to connect desktop SATA drives to older motherboards with only IDE, and I have seen descriptions from people who managed to fit such a setup in other laptops. Fitting it in the case might need some mild deconstruction and soldering of the adapter board, but that seems doable.

I did search this forum for people describing a similar setup, but I did not find it. Perhaps I just didn't search hard enough, in which case I apologize, or I am missing an obvious reason why it shouldn't be done, in which case I would be very happy to be warned...

Trust me, I spend all day reading all over the internet and this thread, non of the ntldr solutions were working.

So anyway I gave up on Windows and I am currently running Ubuntu 9.1, which installed first time. I dont know why the ntldr message comes up, but doesnt seem fixable. Maybe ill try fresh installing Windows again, or try W7 or something.

Another quick question though!

-How to reformat an SSD drive in FAT32, the windows XP setup only lists NTFS or FAT, it doesnt mention FAT32, I was scared to Format in FAT, incase it messed up my drive. So when I turned to Linux, I just let it write over the entire partition.

As for my SSD performance, well Ubuntu was always lightening fast anyway, but when I was on Windows the speed increase was VERY noticable, almost instant. Same with Ubuntu. I have a feeling my fan is spinning up more now and for longer, although this could just be because the HD is now silent

Are you sure that your CD/DVD media is not defective?

Anyway, now that you are running Ubuntu I would not loose time trying to install a Win version May I ask why FAT32??

Because thats how the drive came, and I read that it has advantages over ntfs, and ntfs takes up more disc space and performance, which is important when youve got only a 32gb hd on a fairly old computr

Checking your sig I see you have both WinXP and Ubuntu in the same 32GB SSD. I can understand that every Kbyte will count...

I don't know if the difference in terms of space between FAT32 and NTFS will be big. My understanding is that NTFS has the better performance, but I can be wrong here. I stopped using FAT32 since Win2k...

Cheers

1) The performance difference is negligible, at least on any reasonably-modern machine. Yes, you'll notice a difference on, say, a Pentium II 266 that's constantly hitting swap. But on a ThinkPad from any time in the last 8 years? Not a chance.

2) Likewise for the space efficiency claim. It's pretty much non-existent, especially if you don't use large block sizes.

NTFS is a far superior, far more modern filesystem than FAT32. Unless you've got a good reason to use FAT32 (such as compatibility with Windows ME or earlier), I'd go with NTFS, if only for the increased reliability.

The FAT option to format the drive in windows xp setup is only fat32, and that is only available for drives up to 40gb. IIRC, Ntfs has better performance, security and stability, as well as the ability to use the more advanced features, like disk quotas and encryption, if that matters to you.

I think that the reason to go for Fat32 is because of larger cluster sizes, for the purpose of increasing performance for writes with SSD or CF drives. I think I remember reading that NTFS defaults to 4k clusters and that people experienced compatibility issues forcing it to higher clusters. NTFS has many more features but some of those features include an increased number of writes to the hard drive, which hurts SSD performance.

Welcome to the forum.

Yes, some features such as File Indexing, Pre-fetch should be turned off to reduce writes to SSD.

I had smooth sailing installing Ubuntu 9.10 to a Kingspec 32GB drive on my X40, but found that Ubuntu with the default ext4 file system has some issues with possibly excessive writes too. I found settings not to record the last file access time (also a simple step in XP, as it turns out), greatly reduce frequency of journaling and cache writes, and keep tmp directories in RAM (and have Firefox keep its cache there). (Any further suggestions?) I could post a few links describing the steps, if that is appropriate.

I also had to dig up a bugfix to get normal resume out of suspend mode (not an SSD but a video issue).

Edit--P.S.: dwilsonfl, cloning XP to another Kingspec drive in another X40 also turned out to be a good move for me, especially in removing an issue with too-slow startups.

I really think we need a subforum for installations onto compact flash SSD drives. My suspicion is that there are a wide variety of installation problems happening, and having to search through a 30 page forum post is not easy for anyone. If we had topics for each individual model type, and possibly for different adapters and cards, it would be easier not only to search out information but also to post it in the relevant place. The wiki for installing to CF basically points out no problems related to Linux. Let me tell you, there are plenty of potential problems floating around.

Key info is bolded for easy reference.

Here is the background. I researched installing to SSD on the X41t after I realized that the hard drive was only 4200 rpm and that the difference was way more than negligible. Keep in mind that I've never tried a 4200 rpm drive, and my only comparable experience is on a 5400rpm drive in an X31. I stopped in at Fry's while waiting for the tablet to be shipped, and I got a Patriot 233x UDMA5 CF card for 25 bucks. At the time I felt it was definitely worth the risk. I was right, but that card was a disaster.

Here is as close to a complete explanation of events as I can come. I should have recorded logs along the way but this should be satisfactory. I wanted to test the card, so I formatted it ext2 in my X31. No problems at this point. I went with the Addonics dual CF adapter. It took me a couple of tries to get the seating right. With the dual adapter, the master goes on the bottom and the slave spot faces up when you insert it into the X41t. Now at this point I realised there was no real reason to format ahead of time (obviously I've been a windows user for too long) because the Ubuntu 9.10 install wants to format the drive anyway. I went with ext4 at first, and the install from LiveUSB failed at 74%. Tried it again, failed at 74%. The error had to do with an inability to write to a certain partition on the drive. I then tried with ext3, and it installed with no problems. Rebooted, and the drive gets partway through booting and then starts giving me I/O errors. I can't get it to boot. I try the install again on ext2, figuring this was the problem. It lets me install and then I get I/O errors after reboot. I tried a few different variations of partitions, and I tried installing the MBR onto the primary partition rather than the device. During boot, I would either receive an error with I/O, or it would start booting and then reboot randomly.

At this point I figured the card might be bad, but doing hdparms (sudo hdparm -i /dev/sda) told me that it was a fixed drive and it was in UDMA5 mode. In various places I read that if the OS detects a drive at all, then it's installed properly. I tried PuppyLinux but during reboot I had the same kinds of I/O errors and random restarts. Just to be on the safe side I removed and reseated everything and did some more research. I found a lone forum post stating that this was an Ubuntu problem and that nobody is working to try to fix it. I decided to try Fedora 12.

Fedora 12 LiveUSB created through Windows with the latest distro would only allow me to install ext4. This is totally stupid by the way. I go ahead and let it try to install, and during reboot I get I/O errors. I tried this a couple of times. I tried Ubuntu 9.10 again. When it would work, I would get I/O errors. Just for reference, there were probably 6 different errors or more of different types. Infinite loops, all kinds of stuff.

So I go back to Fry's today and return the card. I decide not to do an even exchange, because I have a feeling that the card may be somehow responsible. Again this was the Patriot 233x UDMA5 card, 8gb. I bought a PNY 266x UDMA 8gb card for 50 bucks. I was originally thinking of going with the Delkin 305x but I didn't want to pay the few bucks more just to wait on shipping and have no easy option for return if it didn't work. I install the card and adapter, and I try Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. Installs and boots successfully on the first attempt. Also shows up as Removable, and UDMA4.

I test the boot up time vs an X31 with Ubuntu 9.10 and the X31 is a few seconds faster. I decide to try a LiveUSB of Ubuntu 9.10. During install, it tells me that it can't access the current partition, and it won't even let me try to install. I borked the Ubuntu 8.04 install in the process. I try the 8.04 version again, and it installs and boots successfully on the first attempt. At this very moment I'm trying a chain upgrade to 9.10. I'm approaching 40 manhours on this project but hey, I'm a Linux newbie so it's fine.

TLDR:
Patriot 233x 8gb UDMA5 card is probably worthless as an SSD drive. But hdparm reports it as Fixed and UDMA5.
PNY 266x 8gb UDMA runs as a removable drive at UDMA4. Probably still faster than the 42000rpm drive but I don't know for sure.
There has to be some kind of problem with Ubuntu 9.10 installs on compact flash.

It seems like mostly no on else is having this problem, and that's why I think there should be a subforum for CF SSD drives. At least one other guy on the internet had this problem. When 8.04 worked the first time with a new card, I figured he was just using a junk card. After 9.10 failed, I started thinking that he might be on to something. Maybe the better cards don't have this problem with the new Ubuntu but the crappy retail cards I've tried definitely do.

Finally I'd like to apologise that I wasn't more methodical in the process along the way. However I think this information will probably help somebody, at least.

Yes you need to be sure that the SSD model has been verified as compatible before you buy one. My kingspec 32gb SSD installed Ubuntu 9.10 easy as anything, and its fast. XP though, I havent been able to install yet, I keep getting NTLDR error.

I think you shouldnt be using compact flash though. Too many issues and they simply dont hold enough gb's. I dont why anyone would bother with CF! I suggest if you cant afford an SSD, simply be happy with your HDD, or save up for an SSD.