SSD with thinkpad

[cklein]

Has anybody tried to replace your T42's harddrive with a solid state disk? I think that would be cool, even it's expensive. I am looking into this, but want to see whether anybody has already done that. If the performance really improved a lot, I will go for it.

My concern is: They are using the same IDE interface. Does that mean the IDE interface will limite the speed?

[christopher_wolf]

The speed will improve simply because, compared to a HDD, there is no seek latency (around ~8ms for some drives). A HDD will hit its own limits before hitting against the limits of IDE.

ATA-6/UDMA-5 has a max transfer rate of 100MBps as stated from the ATA standard; that is theoretical and further assumes that every cycle and instruction carry data through the cable. Practically, this is not the case and the throughput is reduced. It usually is limited around ~66MB. That is only a problem if the HDD can actually transfer 66MB out via its internal interface. I have not even heard of one HDD that has a measured sustained throughput of 80MBps, not 100MBps but at least close to it....Even the drives that can do that typically don't in a realistic setting. Seek time and rotational latency will take their toll, as will the bus transfer speeds.

So I don't think you will be wasting the solid-state drive unless you manage to get one where it is very easy to attain 100MBps+ transfer speeds.

Look through the X4X Series Forum; some people have already tried to put SSDs in their Thinkpads there.