HD update X31 - any feedback on SSD's?

[alexander_s]

I have a TP X31 (model 2885-PWU) that is functioning just fine, thank you, however, I would like to update my HD preemptively. I don't need a lot of space so a 32GB SSD (or 64GB) would be fine. Anybody care to comment on their experience with a 2.5" SSD and where to purchase the same or should I just stick with a mechanical drive? There seem to be hardly any PATA drives when compared to the more common SATA.

[ssd_thinkpad]

I use a 32 gb slc ssd from samsung for more than one year on a vista system and it works very good! It is also a substitute for ram if you use vista - which is not out of range once you have this extremely fast ssd. It is important to know the difference between mlc and slc (superior) ssds, you can search here on thinkpads.com about this issue. 32 gb is minimum of a comfortable vista installation, though 16 gb can also be *theoretically* enough for vista. That being said, using xp which is more likely in your situation is happy with both 16 gb and 32 gb hdds. I love using ssds and do not want to go back

[godling]

Transcend has a SSD (mlc) for sale at NewEgg, $90. I and at least one other person picked this up. It works amazingly well. Blazing fast. SLCs are supposed to be better (and likely are) but this particular model of MLC-based SSD is spectacular and cheap (comparatively) at 32GB. I'm running it now. Boot time is under 30 seconds for WinXP SP3, program response is spectacular -- instantaneous for most lite apps. There's even a thread for comparative results of SSDs, HDDs, and CFs:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 1&start=30

-godling

[ssd_thinkpad]

You can also improve speed by tuning your operation system for mlc ssds. There are lots of suggestions in other topics and other forums about that.

[sjthinkpader]

Transcend has a SSD (mlc) for sale at NewEgg, $90. I and at least one other person picked this up. It works amazingly well. Blazing fast. SLCs are supposed to be better (and likely are) but this particular model of MLC-based SSD is spectacular and cheap (comparatively) at 32GB. I'm running it now. Boot time is under 30 seconds for WinXP SP3, program response is spectacular -- instantaneous for most lite apps. There's even a thread for comparative results of SSDs, HDDs, and CFs:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 1&start=30

-godling

It seems Transcend is a customer of Silicon Motion. Silicon Motion has SSD controllers with up to octal channels. This is accessing up to 8 flash chips at the same time then use a cross bar switch to increase speed. This increase power consumption but give these 70MB transfer rate.

http://www.siliconmotion.com/A3.2_Featu ... l.php?sn=7

PNY, Lexus and others are all using Silicon Motion controllers in some models.

[alexander_s]

It is all that it was made out to be; marked improvement in XPP powerup time and load times, quiet and (hopefully) more reliable and less heat than a conventional HDD. Gets my vote for a great X31 upgrade for all of $93!
Thanks to everyone for their feedback.

[vladis]

will this upgrade extend battery life ? if, then how much ?

[godling]

will this upgrade extend battery life ? if, then how much ?

Power draw of the SSD is definitely lower, but I haven't run tests or compared operational statistics. This may result in from several minutes to 10's of minutes ... doubt you'd get an extra hour out of it, but I can watch 3 episodes of Heroes back to back (full brightness on screen) and then some. I think I watched 4 on my last trip back from Phoenix ...

-J

[sjthinkpader]

The standby current on SSDs are low enough that I set the HDD spin down timer to "never" in the power manager. I have that 32GB Transcend in a X30 and a 8GB RiDATA 233x CF in a X40.

[tomh009]

What is the implication of the "spin down" for an SSD in any case? Does it use less power when it has "spun down?" How will it return from that state?

I would be very interested in seeing some power consumption readings (from the battery info applet) from people with SSD-equipped X31s ...

[sjthinkpader]

To use the spin down on HDD is mainly to extend its life span rather than save power. Any access will bring it back to active mode.

Human computer use is actually very low duty cycle. PCs are idling 90%+ and waiting on human inputs. Same thing goes for the LCD CCF backlight. If they are set to on all the time, we are wasting their service life unnecessarily.

So I set HDD and LCD timers to no more than 10-15 minutes of inactivity.

On the other hand, CPUs have no particular life span problems. So you can keep it on indefinitely when on AC power. Normally I still set the standby timer to 30 minutes or so.

[tomh009]

Right -- but what does "turning off the hard disk" actually do when you have an SSD rather than a HDD?

[sjthinkpader]

Because SSD has no spin down, then simply set it to "never" in the power manager.

[uux]

Right -- but what does "turning off the hard disk" actually do when you have an SSD rather than a HDD?

For most SSDs, it simply means a lower power state. How much lower depends entirely on the drive and manufacturer. There might be little to no difference on some drives.