I was refunded my money, as KingSpec PATA/IDE drive did not fit with mating teeth seeming too offset to the left:

"I regret I have to refund this order. I checked other items in this KingSpec range they all confirm to this specification type and connection. If one is causing a fit issue I regret others will.

Apologies for this."


I was kinda hoping it was a misbuild, though I have read of a few problems online, though nothing IBM specific. The thing that puzzles me is that it is listed as fitting the IBM T40/T20 range on Memory C's site. My laptop is a T21.

Anyone else had knowledge of such problems? (As I could really do with speed bump.)

Cheerz!

Hmm... Kingspec SSDs tend to have a bad reputation.
Have you considered other brands? Super Talent also have 2.5 inch IDE SSDs. I have used their 1.8 inch DuraDrive line SSD in my X41 tablet, and it has decent performance, so I assume their 2.5 inch DuraDrive will be decent as well.

Doesn't look available in UK. Anyone like Transcend?

I've gone for a traditional 5400rpm spinner for disk image backups, therefore keeping my current 7200rpm as main. At least I can safely upgrade to Precise (Xubuntu.) Seems the higher revolution drives have all sold out? But will wait for price of SSD to fall, hopefully.

I remember reading about Transcend IDE SSDs having terrible performance.
You should be able to find some Super Talent SSDs on ebay that ship to UK. Other usual brands for niche (read: everything that is not 2.5 inch SATA) SSDs include Renice, Runcore, MyDigitalSSD. If all else fails, you can always use a smaller form-factor drive with an adapter: read these two posts for details.

Transcend have literally just bought out a new model with faster r/w speeds:

http://thessdreview.com/latest-buzz/tra ... nterfaces/

No doubt it'll cost more. : (

Transcend recommend SLC over MLC for O/S installs, problem being it's like £70 for 8GB capacity. Absolute crazy prices!

I am under the impression that Transcend aims its SSD products more towards industrial applications, because you literally never see Transcend SSDs used in consumer products.

I've one 64GB KingSpec pata SSD-drive. Pins are aligned properly, but what I found confusing was that the label is on the opposite side compared to a regular HDD. I've the drive in a X31, where you normally slide the drive in with the label side facing down. The kingspec drive goes in the other way.