Upgrade X41 w. 64GB SSD vs. save money for new laptop?

[mhca]

Hi

I have a Thinkpad X41 which was upgraded with an 8 Cell battery, currently down to 56/64 Wh of capacity, but it still runs fine for hours.
I only have 1 GB ram but is considering to upgrade that to 2 GB instead (costs approximately 50$ in Danish kr.)

Also I realised yesterday, that there are finally some payable SSD's on the market compatible with the X41.
I am doing fine with 25-30 GB at the moment with XP (nLited) and a bunch of software, but I think I'd go for the 64 GB SSD option.
The KingSpec 64 GB option would cost me 1250 DKK (220 $) approximately.
This will boost some life into my beloved X41.


But now comes my concern.... is it stupid to spend money on it instead of saving money for an X200 or similar, or maybe just buying a netbook, e.g. Lenovo S12 Ion?
The upgrade will definitely be a lot cheaper, and the X41 is of nice build quality, the battery is still doing okay and the size is just nice.
But what about the processor? I am worried that I will get annoyed by its slow speed and single core. I am finished studying civil engineer in a year, and I might need a good laptop during my master thesis work, unless I am not supplied with one by the university or company.

What are your opinions on this?

Kind regards,
Martin

[loyukfai]

When will you know whether you'll be supplied with a capable machine for your master thesis work...?

Regardless, I don't think getting a netbook is a good choice. For once, it's unlikely that it will be faster than your X41, let alone the build quality and other things.

[ssd_thinkpad]

A netbook would be a definitive downgrade.

Upgrades are only the x60s and maybe the x200 / x200s where both of the last ones offer less vertical height. So you may also take a T400s into consideration.

I'd not invest in a pata drive. Instead save your money, get a sata notebook and then buy a cheap but maybe also better sata ssd to put it in.

[mhca]

Thank you both for your answers.
Good to have confirmed that a netbook, even Lenovo S12 Ion, would definitely be a downgrade.

If I should be considering buying a new laptop, eventually also considering 14" size laptops, a decent laptop will in Denmark cost around 7000 DKK or more, which is 5 times the price of just offering the upgrade on the X41. But that would leave me with both the X41 AND a new and powerful laptop for more serious work.
But the costs of buying a new laptop is scary....

I don't know when I can find out if I will be supplied with a laptop for my master thesis work. I am not starting it until January.
I can maybe ask.

Regards, Martin

[Tasurinchi]

I asked myself the same question some time ago. In the meantime I decided that it's not worth paying around 200 USD for an SSD when I can by a new X41 for +/- 400 USD (prices we get in Switzerland in the 2nd hand market).

I see that Kingspecs SSD prices have come down, but I've read very opposite opinions about its performance in this forum so I'm on "waiting mode". Other SSDs (Lenovo, Photomonster, Trascend) are too expensive for me.

There is an extensive sticky topic about SSDs in this forum. There are recommendations for standard HDs that have also good performance and are much affordable, like these two:

http://cgi.ebay.de/120GB-Hard-Drive-for ... 3ca4a2913e

http://cgi.ebay.de/80GB-Hard-Drive-for- ... 3a51be6f4e

A netbook would be a definitive downgrade

I second that!

My 0.02 cents...

Cheers

[Temetka]

Ooh, those hard drives look nice.

My X41T has a 40GB HD and with dual booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 I am starting to feel the space pinch.

I bet I could get the HD and converter cheaper in the states too since the seller was so nice to include good pictures and the HDD model #.

I've noted that info for later when funding makes itself available.

Of course there is the whole save up for an X60/61T since I love the whole tablet thing. Dunno though. Ubuntu is pulling tricks that Windows can't and Windows has better tablet support. So I am using this time to tweak out both OS's and see which fit's my needs better (looks like linux though) and save some pennies. Thanks for the links though.

[Tasurinchi]

Ooh, those hard drives look nice

Yeah... but don't buy all of them, leave few units for the rest

Thanks for the links though

sjthinkpader make me aware of them in one of my posts, so at the end the credits are for him...

Cheers

[loyukfai]

I'm pondering whether to upgrade the 40GB stock drive to a SSD as well. These CE HDD look like an attractive option as well.

[sjthinkpader]

I'm pondering whether to upgrade the 40GB stock drive to a SSD as well. These CE HDD look like an attractive option as well.

Not to be confused with CE ATA, which is a variant of SATA with a smaller ZIF connector, relatively low performance as compared to PATA ZIF drives.

Both Toshiba and Samsung also made micro-ATA pin and socket type HDD and SSD drives. Production of these seemed to have stopped.

[Tasurinchi]

Not to be confused with CE ATA

What about the following ones?

A CE-ZIF: http://cgi.ebay.ch/NEW-Toshiba-1-8-120G ... 27ac8134b9
A ZIF/LIF: http://cgi.ebay.ch/Samsung-1-8-HS082HB- ... 3a53fb96fd

I'm trying to get an overview but so much different types confuse me more... Will be one of these a better option than the stock drive?

Thanks alot in advance for the help!

Cheers

Tasurinchi

[sjthinkpader]

Both the Toshiba MK1214GAH and Samsunng HS082HB are ZIF PATA.

Here is one that is not but seller described it as "PATA" in error:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0488724219

[Tasurinchi]

So, as long as it's a real PATA disk it will work, regardless of the ZIF/LIF ZIF/CE stuff... ? (and provided I get a ZIF to IDE adapter)

[sjthinkpader]

So, as long as it's a real PATA disk it will work, regardless of the ZIF/LIF ZIF/CE stuff... ? (and provided I get a ZIF to IDE adapter)

That's correct. The HSxxxHB, HSxxxJB, HSxxxJC from Samsung are X4x PATA compatible and HSxxxJQ are incompatible CEATA types.

[loyukfai]

I found some pre-modded Samsung drives which (the seller claims that) fit the X4x-series on a Chinese auction/selling site. The prices are comparable to Kingspec 32GB SSD. Which do you think is a better option?

[sjthinkpader]

Depends on usage, SSD is great for coffee shop web access, going to school on a motorcycle with it. My school kids like them as a second computer.

But not for holding photographs or other uses that require lots of storage. Then those 120GB Samsung, Toshiba HDD win out.

[Tasurinchi]

or other uses that require lots of storage

The performance of a SSD when copying lots of files will decrease, even if the SSD has lots of free space? Or will the performance start decreasing once it's getting full or after lots of copy/delete actions?

[mhca]

Well my usage would mostly be studies but also for casual usage in the living room if my girlfriend occupies our workstation.
I am not looking for a replacement hard drive to increase the storage space, but simply to speed up the laptop.
I am not sure how much a modified HDD would boost the laptop.
But it seems that people's opinions are mainly that the performance of the KingSpec is not really convincing enough to make that a definite choice?

I would really like some performance boost, but it must also seem reasonable.

[p78]

I agree with Tasurinchi : if your programs start fast enough for you you don't need an SSD and you'd better save for a new laptop. SSD will mainly help speed up start up software so if you use hibernate or standby it's not so necessary.

Also if you have nlite XP and need 25GB it means that you really have a bunch of software installed. My original IBM XP install on my X40 takes less than 8GB with a few stuff like browsers, OpenOffice and Avira. Maybe you could consider less software to reduce the load and speed up your machine. My RAM usage at startup is about 220MB (read in task manager), that might also give an indication on what a not-too-heavy install weighs.

[sjthinkpader]

...
The performance of a SSD when copying lots of files will decrease, even if the SSD has lots of free space? Or will the performance start decreasing once it's getting full or after lots of copy/delete actions?

That is correct. NAND Flash based SSD will be slow when it needs to do Erase in addition to Write. Any time when there is a "0" that needs to be programmed to "1", an Erase operation must be used. So even if there are a lot of free space, as long as they are "dirty" free space, Write will be slow because that space must be Erased first. If there are valid data in the block to be Erased, they must be moved also.

I posted a freespace cleaning procedure in the Stickie thread.

[Tasurinchi]

SSD will mainly help speed up start up software so if you use hibernate or standby it's not so necessary.

Any time when there is a "0" that needs to be programmed to "1", an Erase operation must be used. So even if there are a lot of free space, as long as they are "dirty" free space, Write will be slow because that space must be Erased first

My enthusiasm for these Kingspecs SSDs is slowly fading out... At the beginning I also though it may be a good idea to get a 32GB Kingspec, but if it will only make some programs start faster, but will slow down the rest of the disk operations, I don't see why I should sacrifice 50% of my storage space.

The cheapest 64GB model costs around 60% of the price of a used X41 (according to the 2nd hand market prices here in Switzerland), for me it makes no sense to invest that money. I would prefer to save it for an X6* or buy the new 1.8 PATA disk with an adapter for a much less prices (or even buy another X4*). Lenovo, Photomonster and Trascend SSD are even more expensive so for me they're out of question.

My 0.02 cents...

Cheers

[sjthinkpader]

There are advantages to SSD such as physical robustness. A normal HDD may start to wear out around two years old under normal use. SSD not only are not susceptible to physical abuse, they will last longer just because there are no heads to fly across the platters. They have much wider operating and storage temperature range. HDD will fail much quicker when used in cars for instance.

We bought the latest batch of X200s with SSD and LED backlight. So you can drop these computers during operation and they won't feel a thing. We just teach users to do freespace cleaning when they appear to slow down.

Newer OS like Windows7 already has SSD specific features such as TRIM to help the Erase/Reclaim issues. These issues were known in the '90's but NAND flash was not cheap enough to work as PC storage until recently.

[Tasurinchi]

There are advantages to SSD such as physical robustness. A normal HDD may start to wear out around two years old under normal use. SSD not only are not susceptible to physical abuse, they will last longer just because there are no heads to fly across the platters. They have much wider operating and storage temperature range. HDD will fail much quicker when used in cars for instance

I'm aware of these, and I agree with you.

But my point on my previous post was about spending the money for the 1.8 PATA SSDs for the X4* series. In this case the price you'll have to pay will be around 50/60% (for 64GB models) of the price of a used machine (!), that for me personally makes no sense.

If I had a X6* or a X200 (or a new T6* model) I would think twice though. I've read somewhere that Intel SSDs have an impressive performance (at an impressive prices as well)

Cheers!

[ssd_thinkpad]

It's really not that easy to spend that large amount of money for a x40 ssd upgrade. The x60s makes sense as its display is better than the x200s due to its vertical height. Comparing to that it's comparable to the T400s display.

Lenovo told on lenovoblogs.com about over ten new models they are going to release soon so maybe some waiting would also be a great idea

[sjthinkpader]

We considered getting X61s in the last round of new computer purchases. But beside the hot right side palmrest, the finishes are not that great. So we pass on them. We still have X60s/X61s' in service.

[loyukfai]

Newer OS like Windows7 already has SSD specific features such as TRIM to help the Erase/Reclaim issues. These issues were known in the '90's but NAND flash was not cheap enough to work as PC storage until recently.

I will probably pick the Kingspec if it has a newer revision. But since they've no plans to make one, I'm still pondering.

Are there any benchmarks showing the differences between these newer HDD and the stock 40/60GB models? And BTW, which one the newer HDD are better? There are a few model nos. and information on the Net seems to be in scarce.

Cheers.

[sjthinkpader]

...Are there any benchmarks showing the differences between these newer HDD and the stock 40/60GB models? And BTW, which one the newer HDD are better? There are a few model nos. and information on the Net seems to be in scarce...

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

[loyukfai]

Thanks! There are so many SSD threads and I've forgotten you've posted that informative table. I'm looking to get a HS122JC with those nice little metal brackets.

There are newer Samsung 1.8" 5400RPM drives but seem to available in SATA interface only.

References:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/ ... o?group=72
http://www.spinpointwave.com/product/li ... SER0050001
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/ ... S122JC.pdf
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... /specs.htm.

[Tasurinchi]

'm looking to get a HS122JC with those nice little metal brackets

Let me know when you find one (too lazy to build a ZIF/IDE adapter myself)

[re404]

I bought and installed the 64GB Kinsgepc SSD ad i think I am VERY happy (still coping with some Windows 7 issues but Ubuntu runs like a rocket without any hassle!).

I think a X41 is worth (or even DESERVES) upgrading just because it's such an awesome machine to use and carry around. I would say: go for it. I don't think you will regret.

//REmko

[Tasurinchi]

I think a X41 is worth (or even DESERVES) upgrading just because it's such an awesome machine to use and carry around

I fully agree that an X41 is an awesome machine, and it's because of that I will not spend +/- 250 bucks for a SSD when a X41 will cost +/-370 bucks (all market prices here in Switzerland).

My choice in the case above is to buy another X41!