Has anyone tried an SSD in the X41? *PICS*

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sjthinkpader · #601 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 2:56 am

sebtomato wrote:...
Apart from the fact that most CF adapters sold are not UDMA, and the large majority will not properly fit a X40 due to the 1st pin being on the wrong side, you are almost right...

If you want to ensure you get a UDMA adapter (would be very slow and bottleneck othewise), one which will fit properly, and one with two slots, I reitterate my advice to get the Addonics one.

My no name adapter is working in UDMA Mode 4. I guess I got lucky.

I don't understand the pin one comment as my X40 is working properly.

Dodges Unlimited Inc. · #602 Post by **Dodges Unlimited Inc.** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 2:41 pm

Pardon for returning to this thread 'so late in the game' but I'm determined to crack an SSD replacement/upgrade for my X40 ... I'm not 'much cop' @ 'hardware techy stuff' and would much prefer to hand over these duties to the professionals ... Therefore, I was pleased to see this article in my favourite IT magazine:~

http://www.pcw.co.uk/crn/comment/222643 ... ld-4215236

and Simms' home website:

http://www.simms.co.uk/index.html

I have eMailed their technical support with regard to SSD for the X4X series and am cautiously optimistic that these professionals might be able to help a twit like me. In due course also offer a similar solution to my wiser peers on the forum here! - Nothing ventured, nothing gained of course ... Pardon again if all of this is well out of date, but patience is a virtue, so they say. I'll report back as soon as I hear anything ...

Chris.

All of this looks like 'Nirvana' - especially the 1" SSD:

http://www.simms.co.uk/memory/transcend ... index.html

hurdadurda · #603 Post by **hurdadurda** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:10 pm

Is there an adapter for X41 that supports UDMA5 (3.3 Volts)?

The new crop of CF cards like A-data 350x seems to have same read speeds same as the 300x but writes 7MB/s faster in UDMA5.
(http://davelikesbeer.com/ssd.htm for proof).

A-Data has relatively good prices compared to Transcend and the likes, so that makes me think I should wait for a 32GB card like that.

(Sorry for posting in new topic. I hit the wrong button)

Dodges Unlimited Inc. · #604 Post by **Dodges Unlimited Inc.** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 4:12 pm

Wow! - I'm glad this thread is 'still alive'! - Thanks @hurdadurda! PM me if you like (or eMail) ... I'm patiently waiting for more news about SSD for my 'Pocket Rocket' ... She's still alive and well presently, spinning that tiny HDD, & dual-booting Windoze XP-Pro/Linux Mint Elyssa, but I just installed VirtualBox with Minty Freshness, so bit by bit Linux is taking over, which I'm thankful for!

Ciao 4 now,
Chris

hurdadurda · #605 Post by **hurdadurda** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 4:13 pm

Found the answer :

This one supports both 3.3 V and 5V :

http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=11521
http://www.ameri-rack.com/APA-CF18Hm.htm

t20user · #606 Post by **t20user** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 1:53 pm

Has anyone had problems with longevity of their CF card? Just curious since I have not used my machine much since I did this mod.

EX41 · #607 Post by **EX41** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:00 pm

Greetings.. I'm new to this forum but have been a Thinkpad advocate for some time now. over 3 years ago I bought a R30 that is still ticking and most recently I grabbed an amazing deal on an X41. I Just love it. I am still getting awesome reactions to it every time I pull it out of my bag at school.

This whole "Do it yourself" SSD Mod thing has been grabbing my attention for weeks now.

I found this guy today and it got me pretty excited:
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/Produc ... ifications

For the price it's a steal compared to competive CF Cards
Here are the specs:
Read up to 30 MB/s
Write up to 10 MB/s

I realize that these speeds are pretty slow compared to this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820211164

The kicker is the interface which is 35PIN ZIF

I Did find a couple of converter cards on eBay and other sites such as this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/1-8-Inch-Hard-drive ... 286.c0.m14

The 1.0inch hardrive format seems to be kind of rare and I haven't found much information on it. I'm hoping that the 1.0 zif drives use the same connector as the more common 1.8 zif hardrives the adapter is made for..

I currently don't have the funds for such an experiment.. Anyone have any thoughts?

EX41 · #608 Post by **EX41** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:26 pm

And then I found This:

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/Produc ... 1200514765

Looks to be an easier route

sparta.rising · #609 Post by **sparta.rising** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:31 pm

I'd rather go with the Transcend 133x 16GB. Look at this very comprehensive speed comparison:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_ ... p?cid=6007

Note that its on par with the Ridata 233x 16GB.

An odd note, look at the speeds on the Transcend 133x 32GB... they're almost as good as the Transcend 300x cards!!!

Weogo · #610 Post by **Weogo** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 3:20 pm

Hi,

" look at the speeds on the Transcend 133x 32GB... they're almost as good as the Transcend 300x cards!!!"

Reads speed on the 133x 32GB is good.

But write speeds are another story:
http://www.hjreggel.net/cardspeed/index ... -news.html

Good health, Weogo

ellula · #611 Post by **ellula** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:15 pm

Hi!

Im last registred in there, after reading all of the thread.

I'm doing ssd mod to my x41 tablet. I have addonics dual cf to ide adapter and transcend 300x cf card.
Do somebody can tell me which side up adapter is plugged in?
Is it possible to put adapter wrong side up? I can't find this information anywhere.
Have somebody get xp tablet edition work perfectly with ssd mod, when installing with usb boot?
Its nice to know before broken 80 euros cf card.

hurdadurda · #612 Post by **hurdadurda** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:21 pm

Does anyone know if the CF adapters from abbly:

http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=11521
http://www.ameri-rack.com/APA-CF18Hm.htm

support UDMA6 or only UDMA5 (right click and properties on the device in computer management).

(It would be nice to have UDMA6 at least in the future because it allows around 120mbs reads)

weepy · #613 Post by **weepy** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 6:03 pm

Hi, i believe that the issue with cf adapters is the presence and proper connection of the dma pin, with no influence on max dma mode. UDMAx is just timing/frequency settings negotiated by controller and ide device. I would be very surprised to see an adapter that can do udma5 but not udma6. If udma5 is shown for udma6 device, i would suspect the controller and not the adapter as a culprit.

gongo2k1 · #614 Post by **gongo2k1** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 7:00 pm

hi all.
i have 2 of the ably adapters that i'm willing to sell if anyone's interested. i'll be posting a new thread on the marketplace shortly.

phaedrus · #615 Post by **phaedrus** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 7:36 am

t20user wrote:Has anyone had problems with longevity of their CF card? Just curious since I have not used my machine much since I did this mod.

I did my Addonics/Kingston 266 x41 SSD mod back in April of this year.
I have used the machine as my 'daily driver' since then and have found it to be extremely fast and stable.
This mod saved my x41 from going on eBay. Highly recommended.

Phaedrus

edwardoneale · #616 Post by **edwardoneale** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:16 am

Hi, I'm trying to install XP onto a Lexar 300x CF card. I've been using a CF card for a while now, but this is the first i've tried to install that is a 'removeable' rather than'fixed' disk.

I started by trying to use the ATCFWCHG.COM dos utility. However this is a Sandisk utility and seems to be vendor specific. When i tried to run it on my Lexar card I just got error #7.

I then tried to go down the bootprep route. Took me a while to find it, but eventually did, but when I run it I get "Open failed on output file.: Permission denied".

I've tried installing XP anyway despite the 'removeable' tag and mostly get a disk error at some stage in the install. I did manage to install XP on NTFS once and had it working through a number of restarts. But after running Thinkpad update and installing a lot of drivers it then would get to XP logon screen, I would enter the password and then it would just hang.

Not quite sure why i managed once to get the disk to work, and don't know if the subsequent problem was anything to do witht the CF card, or my nLite XP installation, or etc etc

Can anyone help me with getting Bootprep to work? Or know any other way of changing the 'removeable' tag? Do Lexar provide a utlity for this?

Shadowlinx · #617 Post by **Shadowlinx** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 9:15 am

edwardoneale wrote: Can anyone help me with getting Bootprep to work? Or know any other way of changing the 'removeable' tag? Do Lexar provide a utlity for this?

Edwardoneale, I seem to have had the same problems as you with the Lexar 300x. Perhaps this guide I put together will help you: http://snipr.com/lexarssd

Feel free to get in touch if you need any clarification.

-S

pxa270 · #618 Post by **pxa270** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 7:40 am

I read in some article that a lot of (U)DMA controllers in CF cards are rather crappy and barely spec conforming. So many UDMA problems might be due to the cards rather than the adapters.

aceo07 · #619 Post by **aceo07** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 7:50 pm

bmn wrote:I would like to check if I am right on the following points:

1 - addonics with dual port work fine on x40 and you can use 2 CF and it will recognize both of them

2 - Transcend CF cards are ready to use and do not need any tweak to run as physical hard drives

3 - There is no error message with x40 on boot with addonics dual port

4 - Is there any adapter more efficient than the addonics?

The final configuration I want to do is a Transcend 300x 16GB as the main hd and a Transcend 133x 32GB as a stockage drive with an addonics adapter.

Thank you for your help.

Bmn

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. I haven't seen any post that has said that there is something faster.

It seems like it'd be a decent setup. I only have Transcend 300x 8GB. It runs Windows XP nice and I just have files on a server.

eug · #620 Post by **eug** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 1:55 pm

Kappa7 wrote: Are the new Transcend 300X better than the sandisk extreme IV in write performance or the transcend still have the same "lag" issue like the 266 and the 133x series?

I have XP running on a Transcend 300x 16GB and notice that sometimes, the HDD light stays solid, and the whole system stops responding for a short while. This can range from a few seconds to maybe ten seconds, especially after resuming from a suspend. Is this the lag you're talking about?

Does anyone else experience it? Is normal for CF SSDs, or is it just the Transcend? Should I have gone with a Lexar or Extreme IV instead?

When it doesn't do that, the system is nice and responsive!

aceo07 · #621 Post by **aceo07** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 2:09 pm

eug wrote:
Kappa7 wrote: Are the new Transcend 300X better than the sandisk extreme IV in write performance or the transcend still have the same "lag" issue like the 266 and the 133x series?
I have XP running on a Transcend 300x 16GB and notice that sometimes, the HDD light stays solid, and the whole system stops responding for a short while. This can range from a few seconds to maybe ten seconds, especially after resuming from a suspend. Is this the lag you're talking about?

Does anyone else experience it? Is normal for CF SSDs, or is it just the Transcend? Should I have gone with a Lexar or Extreme IV instead?

When it doesn't do that, the system is nice and responsive!

I haven't noticed any lag, but I only have the 8GB 300x.

What adapter do you use? I have the addonics.

eug · #622 Post by **eug** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 6:14 am

aceo07 wrote:
eug wrote:
I have XP running on a Transcend 300x 16GB and notice that sometimes, the HDD light stays solid, and the whole system stops responding for a short while. This can range from a few seconds to maybe ten seconds, especially after resuming from a suspend. Is this the lag you're talking about?

Does anyone else experience it? Is normal for CF SSDs, or is it just the Transcend? Should I have gone with a Lexar or Extreme IV instead?

When it doesn't do that, the system is nice and responsive!
I haven't noticed any lag, but I only have the 8GB 300x.

What adapter do you use? I have the addonics.

I'm using a cheap one from DealExtreme. It's running in UDMA5. I'm running NTFS and XP SP3.

I wonder if it's the 4k writes that are slowing it down...

loyukfai · #623 Post by **loyukfai** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:37 pm

New high performance CompactFlash from TDK...

http://www.tdk.co.jp/teaah01/aah28500.htm

SLC, static wear leveling, UDMA6, up to 50MB/s read and 30MB/s write, up to 16GB.

x412008 · #624 Post by **x412008** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:53 am

Hi, I have just ordered an Addonics adapter and a 300x Trancend CF-Card, hope I can extend the life of my X41 now

Thanks for great info on the forum here. Just one question: I have recently tweaked my x41 and done an image of the hd with ghost, and going to ghost it back to the CF-Card when I get it, is that all I need to do ?

My X41 with WXP SP3 is now running 11 processes, 1.8GB with the software I use, and the boot time from power on to desktop is now 44s, hope I can shorten this down, and get a more responsive desktop!

weepy · #625 Post by **weepy** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:24 am

Finally sticky thread, thanks mods

.

As for ghosting, no personal experience, but (i believe) it just backups and restores partitions, which means, that your original partition (including free space) would have to be smaller than your cf. Once I used PQMagic to squeeze a partition so that free space on it would become unpartitioned. But it is a time consuming procedure (essentially a defrag).

I had 9s boot (not including 20s slow bios screen with beeps) of win xp sp2 with my transcend 300x, up from 2 min of factory install boot. You won't be disappointed

.

x412008 · #626 Post by **x412008** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:36 am

Thanks for your reply weepy

When doing a normal ghost you can restore it both to smaller an larger partition as long as the complete install is not bigger than the target partiton (does not restore empty space). With the switches -ai (image all) you image and restore all sectors on the partition (including empty ones) and can't be restored to a smaller partition, if i recall right

Great boot times, can't wait to test it out myself, think I'll recieve it in a few days

Boberro · #627 Post by **Boberro** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 11:44 pm

Hi guys,

I very much like my X41 and I am thinking of upgrading HDD to SSD. As I am not a computer expert, and I don't fully understand the discussion in the thread. Let me just ask if the following drive model would work on X41:

Samsung 64GB 1.8" SSD hard drive solid-state pata
PART #: MCC0E64GEMPP-01A
INTERFACE: PATA / ATA6 / ATA7
CONNECTOR: ZIF
FORM FACTOR: 1,8"
HEIGHT: 5mm

If not, could someone please just point me to the right drive? And aside from SSD, do I need anything else to make it work (eg. adapter)?
You're help is greatly appreciated!
Best,
Michal

Frank · #628 Post by **Frank** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 9:31 am

a ZIF SSD will work in the X4* Series. Here are pictures from the modification: http://www.think4d.de/nbb/x41_ssd.htm

Boberro · #629 Post by **Boberro** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 4:05 pm

Frank wrote:a ZIF SSD will work in the X4* Series. Here are pictures from the modification: http://www.think4d.de/nbb/x41_ssd.htm

Many thanks Frank, excellent link!
Do you have any idea if this SSD would work without any adapters?
http://www.adata.com.cn/en/product_show ... =ASE0PASPL

mikeh · #630 Post by **mikeh** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 7:30 pm

Do you have any idea if this SSD would work without any adapters?
http://www.adata.com.cn/en/product_show ... =ASE0PASPL

Looks right. Just check that it runs on 3.3V.

Has anyone tried an SSD in the X41? PICS

Lexar 300x SSD

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