Computers & Electronics

SSD in Netbook?

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Jr. Member
Feb 25, 2007
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SSD in Netbook?

Can this be done? I am thinking of purchasing a netbook for my work (need something small, light so I can work on the go). I have heard the performance jump is quite high. Any other recommendations? Suggestions?

:confused:
23 replies
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Jan 15, 2006
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I have the intel x25v on my HP 2140. I would say that it has cut the lag time by half. It's worth it I would say, however no change in battery life.
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May 18, 2005
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Nowhere.
I have an x25-m in my S10-3t.

And I concur cut all times (boot, program load etc) way down. I think its more than twice as fast but I haven't done any tests.
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go Seagate Momentus XT hybrid (500gb 7200rpm)

THese Solid State Hybrids claim juat as fast as SSD's at half the price or less

80% faster than reg 7200rpm drives
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mikeymike1 wrote: go Seagate Momentus XT hybrid (500gb 7200rpm)

THese Solid State Hybrids claim juat as fast as SSD's at half the price or less

80% faster than reg 7200rpm drives
They're nowhere near actual SSD's in random read/write. They're still a nice step up from regular hard drives.
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board123 wrote: They're nowhere near actual SSD's in random read/write. They're still a nice step up from regular hard drives.


3-4 secs at boot, and 4-6 times the storage capacity as well as 3times less in cost.

I definately agree with you if this was a real laptop with 2 HD bays but unfortunately its a NetBook the OP has.
Theres was a poll on EnGadget when the SSD's first emerged asking voters if they perfer storage space over 20-30secs boot time savings, as well as taking into the accout of the cost factor to save those seconds.
It was overwhelming favorable to storage space. it was like 10 to 1

For his NetBook needs its still probably best to go either a faster 7200rpm drive or go with thise new wave of HyBrids. You will start to see more and more gamer/performance laptops have HyBrids as OEMs.

[IMG]http://a.imagehost.org/0509/Untitled_picture.png[/IMG]
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mikeymike1 wrote: 3-4 secs at boot, and 4-6 times the storage capacity as well as 3times less in cost.

I definately agree with you if this was a real laptop with 2 HD bays but unfortunately its a NetBook the OP has.
Theres was a poll on EnGadget when the SSD's first emerged asking voters if they perfer storage space over 20-30secs boot time savings, as well as taking into the accout of the cost factor to save those seconds.
It was overwhelming favorable to storage space. it was like 10 to 1

For his NetBook needs its still probably best to go either a faster 7200rpm drive or go with thise new wave of HyBrids. You will start to see more and more gamer/performance laptops have HyBrids as OEMs.

[IMG]http://a.imagehost.org/0509/Untitled_picture.png[/IMG]
I agree that the Momentus XT is a good device. I'm just disputing your claim about:
THese Solid State Hybrids claim juat as fast as SSD's at half the price or less

80% faster than reg 7200rpm drives
...which is simply not true.
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I personally want to see how much those Seagate drives cost before concluding the choice between SSD and Momentus XT.

The only thing I would be concerned is the 7200RPM...netbooks are meant to last as long as possible, and using that hard drive might sacrifice battery life for the performance.

Space isn't the biggest concern on netbooks, which is why they don't provide you the greatest amount of space like they do on notebooks. I would wait for the new 25nm SSDs that would be lower priced and provide greater capacity...but i'm worried about the price.
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1337rice wrote: I personally want to see how much those Seagate drives cost before concluding the choice between SSD and Momentus XT.

The only thing I would be concerned is the 7200RPM...netbooks are meant to last as long as possible, and using that hard drive might sacrifice battery life for the performance.

Space isn't the biggest concern on netbooks, which is why they don't provide you the greatest amount of space like they do on notebooks. I would wait for the new 25nm SSDs that would be lower priced and provide greater capacity...but i'm worried about the price.
Momentus XT should be around $160 for the 500GB once they're widely available.

Oh, NCIX has it for $151.46
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=53491 ... re=Seagate
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Apr 16, 2007
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board123 wrote: I agree that the Momentus XT is a good device. I'm just disputing your claim about:

...which is simply not true.
Dude, the graph clearly shows that the Seagate is just as fast. 3 to 4secs
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1310/4/

A 100Gb SSD is $400+ ( for a 3-4sec saving??)

The 80% faster quote comes from Seagates site

The Seagate XT will be $149.00

Hell i favor SSD's too, but to add such into a NetBook not economical IMO. The SSD will cost as much or more than the Netbook itself.

SSD's are great for laptops have have lots of programs to pre-load at boot up. But for Netbooks.. not


1337rice wrote: I personally want to see how much those Seagate drives cost before concluding the choice between SSD and Momentus XT.

The only thing I would be concerned is the 7200RPM...netbooks are meant to last as long as possible, and using that hard drive might sacrifice battery life for the performance.

Space isn't the biggest concern on netbooks, which is why they don't provide you the greatest amount of space like they do on notebooks. I would wait for the new 25nm SSDs that would be lower priced and provide greater capacity...but i'm worried about the price.
Canada Computers $149
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=031555
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mikeymike1 wrote: Dude, the graph clearly shows that the Seagate is just as fast. 3 to 4secs
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1310/4/

A 100Gb SSD is $400+ ( for a 3-4sec saving??)
Boot time is not everything. In fact, it means very little to me. I'm not debating the value of SSD's. I'm speaking from a pure performance standpoint.

Here are some more graphs from the same review:

[IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/seag ... /23004.png[/IMG]

[IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/seag ... /23007.png[/IMG]

[IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/seag ... /23008.png[/IMG]

Paints a slightly different picture from the boot time graph, don't they?
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board123 wrote: Boot time is not everything. In fact, it means very little to me. I'm not debating the value of SSD's. I'm speaking from a pure performance standpoint.

Paints a slightly different picture from the boot time graph, don't they?

Boot time is where time/seconds matters most. Why do you think every hardware review site emphasizes more on boot time?

All those other graphs mean nano-seconds and the avg user wont even notice.

You can go ahead and change this into a debate of performance if you want. Ive already said i favor SSD's.
But for the OP's application its senseless and not economical for a NetBook. What part of that DONT you understand?


[IMG]http://a.imagehost.org/0013/Untitled_picture.png[/IMG]

Instead of worrying about 4kB transfer rates (like what program is 4KB's nowadays??)

look at real world programs like above, 2-3secs for 6 prog load times.
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mikeymike1 wrote: Boot time is where time/seconds matters most. Why do you think every review sites emphasizes more on boot time?
Boot time means nothing if you don't cold boot at all, which is becoming more common nowadays as more and more people use standby. Review sites use boot time as a measure because it's something that everyone can relate to. Saying the system boots up in 20 seconds is a lot easier to visualize than saying the system can do 1000 IOPS.

Boot time is a terrible measure of device performance because it's subjective to the test system. Everyone will have different results with boot time. It's an unscientific method of measuring performance. Synthetic benchmarks, on the other hand, are much more objective even if they are not totally representative of real world experience.
mikeymike1 wrote: All those other graphs mean nano-seconds and the avg user wont even notice.
So you're saying that after the system boots, the user won't be able to notice any difference between a regular hard drive and an SSD. If that's indeed what you mean, then you're just flat out wrong.
mikeymike1 wrote: Instead of worrying about 4kB transfer rates (like what program is 4KB's nowadays??)
You're not transferring 4 KB programs. You're randomly accessing small bits of data on the drive. At least understand the test before criticizing it.
mikeymike1 wrote: look at real world programs like above, 2-3secs for 6 prog load times.
It would be interesting to get more details on that particular test. I question its merits, but interesting idea nonetheless.
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board123 wrote: Boot time means nothing if you don't cold boot at all,
Its a benchmark! A standard where something can be measured.
How can you be so inane to totally ignore and omit benchmarks from sites that doing nothing but test hardware.

board123 wrote: Review sites use boot time as a measure because it's something that everyone can relate to
Boot time is a terrible measure of device performance because it's subjective to the test system.
You just contradicted yourself. Now im fully convinced you have no idea of what you speak of.
board123 wrote: Everyone will have different results with boot time.
Of course they will, but the benchmark of such system is the same. Except the HD being tested. What part of that don't you understand?
board123 wrote: It's an unscientific method of measuring performance. Synthetic benchmarks, on the other hand, are much more objective even if they are not totally representative of real world experience.
If its unscientific then don't go on quoting them by posting graphs. You're a hypocrite by doing so. As you did!

I only posted real world times as set out by AnandTech.
board123 wrote: It would be interesting to get more details on that particular test. I question its merits, but interesting idea nonetheless.
Then you go do that. The amount of testing AnandTech has done is significant to most who understand it.
Never did AnandTech say the XT was faster or the SSD is slower.

You should stop trying to hyjack the OP's thread.

As I said before its not economical to put a $400 SSD into a NetBook. A 7200rpm HD will give him much better results than its current 5400rpm drive. Its even better to go with the XT Hybrid and still NOT BREAK THE BANK!
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Using an Intel X25-V 40GB in my AOA-150. Performance gain is good (latency is a lot lower). It also spares a good amount of memory too as you no longer need superfetch and prefetching if you have SSD installed. Not to mention there is no mechanical parts (= no sound) and a lot lower heat emission and power consumption.

The drawback is that netbook typically don't have powerful CPU and memory. So chances are good that your SSD's performance will be bottlenecked by your CPU and memory.
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mikeymike1 wrote: Its a benchmark! A standard where something can be measured.
How can you be so inane to totally ignore and omit benchmarks from sites that doing nothing but test hardware.
I didn't ignore and omit it. If I did, then I wouldn't be commenting on it. Commenting on a benchmark's merit is the exact opposite of ignoring it.
mikeymike1 wrote: You just contradicted yourself. Now im fully convinced you have no idea of what you speak of.
How can two unrelated statements contradict each other? It's entirely possible to present a bogus study to people and have them easily relate to it. For example, I can do a study on how small dogs bark louder than big dogs. People know what dogs are and what they sound like, hence they can relate to the study. However, that doesn't say anything about the results which may or may not be faulty.

It would appear that it is you who has no idea what you're talking about. Your lack of reading comprehension skills is astounding.
mikeymike1 wrote: Of course they will, but the benchmark of such system is the same. Except the HD being tested. What part of that don't you understand?
I understand it completely, which is why I'm disputing the usefulness of boot time as a performance measure. Boot time is very dependent on the software you have installed. It's possible that if you install software combination A, then drive X boots faster than drive Y; conversely, if you install software combination B, then drive Y boots faster than drive X. For mechanical hard drives where random access speed is a huge factor, the amount and pattern of random access when booting has too much of an effect on the results.
mikeymike1 wrote: If its unscientific then don't go on quoting them by posting graphs. You're a hypocrite by doing so. As you did!
Just because I don't like one of their tests doesn't invalidate all of their other tests. You're not even making sense. Think before you post next time.
mikeymike1 wrote: Then you go do that. The amount of testing AnandTech has done is significant to most who understand it.
Never did AnandTech say the XT was faster or the SSD is slower.
Whether or not Anandtech said so is irrelevant. It is you who originally said the Momentus XT is "80% faster than reg 7200rpm drives." Do you still stand by that statement?
mikeymike1 wrote: You should stop trying to hyjack the OP's thread.
I didn't hijack the thread. My first post here was perfectly relevant to the topic. It is you who can't understand the simple numbers in front of you.
mikeymike1 wrote: As I said before its not economical to put a $400 SSD into a NetBook. A 7200rpm HD will give him much better results than its current 5400rpm drive. Its even better to go with the XT Hybrid and still NOT BREAK THE BANK!
Better to go with the Momentus XT? Yes, I agree. 80% faster than 7200 RPM hard drive? No it isn't.

Oh, remember this? You still haven't addressed it.
board123 wrote: So you're saying that after the system boots, the user won't be able to notice any difference between a regular hard drive and an SSD. If that's indeed what you mean, then you're just flat out wrong.
torseller07 wrote: Using an Intel X25-V 40GB in my AOA-150. Performance gain is good (latency is a lot lower). It also spares a good amount of memory too as you no longer need superfetch and prefetching if you have SSD installed.
You should keep Superfetch enabled regardless of what your storage device is. Reading from RAM is still a hundred times faster than reading from SSD.
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board123 wrote: I didn't ignore and omit it. If I did, then I wouldn't be commenting on it. Commenting on a benchmark's merit is the exact opposite of ignoring it.
yes you did, you dismiss its benchmark results and continue to dismiss it as valueless.
So what you commented on it, your comments were degrading it as useless.
You should email AnandTech and tell them your thoughts. Be prepared to be laughed at


board123 wrote: I understand it completely, which is why I'm disputing the usefulness of boot time as a performance measure. Boot time is very dependent on the software you have installed. It's possible that if you install software combination A, then drive X boots faster than drive Y; conversely, if you install software combination B, then drive Y boots faster than drive X. For mechanical hard drives where random access speed is a huge factor, the amount and pattern of random access when booting has too much of an effect on the results.
How daft can you be???
The test machine is ALL the same dude!!!! One machine, One unit... the only thing that changes is the HD itself. Theres NO 2 did machines with 2 diff HDs in them... duh!
board123 wrote: Just because I don't like one of their tests doesn't invalidate all of their other tests. You're not even making sense. Think before you post next time.
By your logic your saying they screwed up one set of tests and the ones you favor they did it right. Talk about not making any sense. Look no further than yourself dude. You're a hypocrite as i stated earlier
board123 wrote: Whether or not Anandtech said so is irrelevant. It is you who originally said the Momentus XT is "80% faster than reg 7200rpm drives." Do you still stand by that statement?
Yes, and i pointed out that 80% was from their website, I even hot-linked it. Learn to read.
board123 wrote: I didn't hijack the thread. My first post here was perfectly relevant to the topic. It is you who can't understand the simple numbers in front of you.
Oh i understand the numbers alright. None of the numbers I've posted were ever made up. I don't pick and choose which ones I like and which ones I don't like like you do.
board123 wrote: Oh, remember this? You still haven't addressed it..
Sure I have, I posted that graph showing 6 programs opened after boot. You said that was interesting. Again, obviously you don't read very well do you??

Heres another graph
http://h.imagehost.org/0955/Untitled_picture1.png

thats 0.6 sec diff to the patriot SSD. hardly noticable in real life.




Way to go with continuing to hyjack this OP's thread with your silly banter.

I'll say again because you have no comprehension of the facts. I never said SSd's were worse than the XT Hybrid. Its a better choice economically. Its like ive said this 3 times now.

But all you do is hyjack a thread with silly minuscule debates.


$400 100GB SSD or a $150 500GB Hybrid in a NetBook... its easy math



board123 wrote: You're becoming progressively less coherent to the point of not making any sense. No point carrying this any further. Welcome to my list of RFD idiots.
oh no don't resort to calling me names lol, you're gonna hurt my e-feelings

I addressed all your silly points. Even caught you with you inability to read properly. Yet you won't address the fact that its an economically poor choice to put a $400++ ssd drive in a $350 netbook. Poor you getting mad when you have nothing else to say. :lol:
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mikeymike1 wrote: Boot time is where time/seconds matters most. Why do you think every hardware review site emphasizes more on boot time?

Instead of worrying about 4kB transfer rates (like what program is 4KB's nowadays??)

look at real world programs like above, 2-3secs for 6 prog load times.
You don't know what the hell you're talking about.
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Woah...I was only expecting 1 maybe 2 responses. Instead I triggered a debate!!!

I want to thank you all so much for your responses. I never knew about the hybrid hard-drives and certainly for the MB/$ they seem like a really good option - especially with the performance upgrade.

I haven't actually purchased a netbook yet but was looking at my options - if I went with a netbook, how can I make it perform better? What are my other options for the same price? I would love something fast, small/portable that I can take with me and use on the go and have solid battery life as well.

Thanks again!
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mikeymike1 wrote: words
You're becoming progressively less coherent to the point of not making any sense. No point carrying this any further. Welcome to my list of RFD idiots.
amitbuk wrote: Woah...I was only expecting 1 maybe 2 responses. Instead I triggered a debate!!!

I want to thank you all so much for your responses. I never knew about the hybrid hard-drives and certainly for the MB/$ they seem like a really good option - especially with the performance upgrade.

I haven't actually purchased a netbook yet but was looking at my options - if I went with a netbook, how can I make it perform better? What are my other options for the same price? I would love something fast, small/portable that I can take with me and use on the go and have solid battery life as well.

Thanks again!
Keep in mind that a lot of netbooks are nearly impossible to take apart for you to swap the hard drive. For example, with Asus 1005HA/PE you need to take everything apart to get to the hard drive, and taking it apart is no easy feat as I've tried and gave up.

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