HOOTT!! Patriot 32GB SSD $89.99AR, 64GB SSD $169.99AR+ FS @ ZZF

[iseestars]

I would say if you're going to get one in the near future, go with Asus 1000h, Mini, or Lenovo s10.

AAO is a scratch/smudge magnet. It feels cheap and if you do anything to it, including installing a different OS/reformating you void your warranty. How about them apples? And the fact they're much less modder-friendly. Stay away from it.

MSI Wind is good too, but it's more expensive, has worse battery life, and isn't as easy to mod as the 1000h

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: iseestars
I would say if you're going to get one in the near future, go with Asus 1000h, Mini, or Lenovo s10.

AAO is a scratch/smudge magnet. It feels cheap and if you do anything to it, including installing a different OS/reformating you void your warranty. How about them apples? And the fact they're much less modder-friendly. Stay away from it.

MSI Wind is good too, but it's more expensive, has worse battery life, and isn't as easy to mod as the 1000h

I'm seeing the ASUS 1000H everywhere for about $500. For that much, I'll buy a low end 14" laptop.

Considering that the MSI Wind, Mini, and HP Mininote are all built by Compal, are they really all that different? The AOA is tempting me because it's $329, and I really like the Dell Mini.

 

[iseestars]

I was referring to the Dell mini, not the mini-note. Sorry for the confusion. Asus 1000h is $410 at zipzoomfly, but OOS right now. $450 from either bh or beachcamera (I forget which).

The mini-note has positive features, but still too expensive for a usable version (1.6ghz minimum I'd say and the 6-cell). It has higher resolution, but it also uses the VIA chipset which is somewhat worse than the Intel/Atom combo.

If you're going for the cheapest, go with the Dell Mini over the AAO. The Aspire One looks nice, but it also feels flimsy. Dell generally is higher quality than Acer

 

[NeoZGeo]

Are you running a raid setup or just single drives?
Are you using them for OS drives?
Did you notice a significant performance boost over a standard HDD?

Im trying to decide on wether or not to drop $200 on the 64Gb model for my desktop.

2 x 64GB stripped
OS drive, fresh install 64bit ultimate
faster bootup, faster app loading time. I use a lot of spread sheets for work, and it did loadup files with large amount of formulas faster.

My recommendation to go either 32gb or 64gb raid option for OS, unless you have enough money to spend on 128gb ($350ish) and save you a couple $s and get a couple large drive and raid them for storage.

iseestars, i had problems with OCZ core drives just installing windows, so i think this is a big step up from theirs . And to answer your questions, yes... did try compress/ uncompress and move files, a bit slower compare to raptor drives, but nothing remontely similuar compare to my last core drive, 8hrs for 2gb of small files (LOL).

hopefully this helps...

 

[ItsAlive]

Thnx for such a fast reply! Im a little unfamiliar with raid, do you have yours set to act as 1x64GB drive to increase speed? or does it act like 1x128GB drive? Also, 64Gb is plenty of space for me as I have an HTPC for my media but I was gonna use this for my gaming rig, would 1 drive be significantly slower than a raid setup?

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: ItsAlive
Thnx for such a fast reply! Im a little unfamiliar with raid, do you have yours set to act as 1x64GB drive to increase speed? or does it act like 1x128GB drive? Also, 64Gb is plenty of space for me as I have an HTPC for my media but I was gonna use this for my gaming rig, would 1 drive be significantly slower than a raid setup?

He wrote 64 GB stripped, I'm guessing it's a typo for striped. That's RAID0 so they're running as one 128 GB drive; ex: fragment 1 is written to drive 1, fragment 2 to drive 2, fragment 3 to drive 1, etc. It's usually faster than running them as separate drives.

 

[ItsAlive]

ok great! So, I could get 2x32GB drives and run in raid0 and I'd get 64GB capacity with the added benefits of raid at a similar cost of buying just 1 64GB drive. Maybe I will go for the 2x32GB drives.

Thnx guys, you've been very helpful.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: ItsAlive
ok great! So, I could get 2x32GB drives and run in raid0 and I'd get 64GB capacity with the added benefits of raid at a similar cost of buying just 1 64GB drive. Maybe I will go for the 2x32GB drives.

Thnx guys, you've been very helpful.

Remember though, if you lose one drive in a RAID0 array, you lose all the data. I imagine it isn't as big a deal in an SSD setup as you have no mechanical failures to worry about, but it's still something to keep in mind.
The only experience I've got with RAID is a WD MyBook I picked up on clearance ($150, two months ago, giggity giggity) that's 2x500GB running in RAID 0 out of the box. I know enough about it to explain what it is, but you might want to wait for a more experienced forum member to chime in about it or ask in the storage forum.

 

[iseestars]

Originally posted by: NeoZGeo
iseestars, i had problems with OCZ core drives just installing windows, so i think this is a big step up from theirs . And to answer your questions, yes... did try compress/ uncompress and move files, a bit slower compare to raptor drives, but nothing remontely similuar compare to my last core drive, 8hrs for 2gb of small files (LOL).

hopefully this helps...

Thanks for the update. In for one for my laptop. I'm more interested in this so that when I accidently bump/hit my laptop when it's on it doesn't go boom. Had several drives die on my in the past in laptops. For desktops, I don't really care enough to invest heavily in SSD yet because I've got backup drives to spare and my main drives are fast enough for now.

 

[kY]

Is the consensus that you don't have to worry about eventual failure due to writes on these drives?

 

[NeoZGeo]

oops... striped not stripped hahah. yeah was running raid 0. I like to have at least 128GB for an OS drive.

but for notebook single 64 should be good enough.. I am still waiting for my S10 from a while back.. suppose to ship on 9/23. any one else got theirs yet?

I think fry's had the WD (or seagate?) 1TB last week for $139. Those work really well for storage, I have 2TB running mirror as my NAS.

 

[jalaram]

It says 99.99AR now. Also, the rebate ends today.

Our Price: $149.99
Mail In Rebate: $50.00 Expires 09/15/08
Final Price: $149.99 ( $99.99
after MIR )

 

[iseestars]

yeah ocz series 1 drives seem to be plagued with that. the v2 ones seem to be better, but the only one I see that's actually v2 is the 60gb model, which is actually more than I need (and $220AR).

 

[iseestars]

Originally posted by: jalaram
It says 99.99AR now. Also, the rebate ends today.

Our Price: $149.99
Mail In Rebate: $50.00 Expires 09/15/08
Final Price: $149.99 ( $99.99
after MIR )

Newegg has them in-stock

 

[NeoZGeo]

mwave looks like have them in stock at $93.99 AR

linky

 

[ItsAlive]

Im a little hesitant to order for 2 reasons.

1. The rebate offer ends today and I noticed from past orders with newegg, even tho I placed my order the invoice is usually dated a day later. I dont know if this is due to processing times or if this is just a fluke.

2. I was searching around earlier and someone stated they recieved a ver. 1 drive, I think they purchased from Mwave, and the ver. 1 drives seem to exhibit the stuttering, conflicts with OS install, and seem to carry the Jmicron controller.

I think I will hold off for a week or 2 to see if the price will come down with no MIR or possibly a better deal with MIR appears. Also, waiting might ensure a Ver. 2 drive as opposed to possibly getting the Ver. 1 drive.

 

[iseestars]

Image shows v2 on the website (although it also shows v2 on mwave). If newegg ships me a different version, I'll make them take it back at their cost since the website shows it as v2 (if you click on the image). I ordered mine this morning and it already shipped. Can't attest to what date your invoice will show if you order now though.

 

[NeoZGeo]

looks like back in stock at $169 w/ FS @ zzf again.

seems like drive has been confirmed multiple sources, even newegg reviews ratings are perfect 5/5

 

[iseestars]

This is def. v2. I just received mine from newegg during lunchtime (1 day shipping wow). Now I just need to test it when I've got the time. Buy from zzf or newegg and you should be good to go. mwave people probably got old ones because they don't move stock as quick as the other two (could be wrong, but that's just my general impression).

 

[NeoZGeo]

good luck! let us know if you can confirm results.. but yeah 1 day? that's fast..

 

[ItsAlive]

yeah newegg has them with the refreshed MIR its $50 rebate now instead of $40 but I think its still cheaper at zzf due to the free shipping.

 

[iseestars]

Ok so I now have used it for a bit and I do notice lag on small writes at times, but it's nowhere near as bad as reviews of MLC drives imply. I would say the majority of the time small writes, single or multiple, work fine. Occasionally you get the slowdown, but your machine doesn't go unresponsive (you can still move the mouse) so it just seems like lag. Maybe the OCZ drives are spectacularly worse or something, but in general seems pretty quick.

One thing I did notice is that there's a rattling sound inside the SSD. I noticed it when I took it out of the box and shook it slightly to confirm I wasn't hearing things. I don't notice it while it's on, but I was curious if anyone else has this. Is it normal or should I be sending this back to newegg? I'm just worried there might be something off in there that'll cause the thing to die on me.

 

[aceO07]

If you bought the drive, can you benchmark it? Using CrystalDiskMark or some other utility. Thanks. I'd be curious to see what the real benchmarks are compared to the specs.

 

[IEC]

JMicron controllers are just horrible. I'm glad I can disable the JMicron IDE controller on my Abit IP35-E and no longer have any IDE devices.

 

[will792]

Can someone post a link to configuring XP/Vista in read-only mode on boot drive? It should be doable since XP/Vista can run off a bootable CD. I want to have a bootable SSD in my desktop PC for OS and applications only.