SSD in a Netbook?

[Megatomic]

I have an older Acer Aspire One netbook with an Atom N270 CPU (single core/hyperthreaded 1.6GHz) with 2GB of RAM in it. The HDD is a 4200 RPM dog - it's horrible. If I were able to score an SSD for a reasonable price, would it in any appreciable way improve my computing experience on the machine? I notice that whenever I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen that the HDD indicator is lit up solid as if to say that the HDD is bottlenecking the entire show.

What do you all think? Worth it or not? I use the computer for MS Office 2003, Google Chrome, and iTunes mainly. The OS is Windows 7 Home Edition 32 bit.

 

[Eug]

It would be a big improvement... but it would still suck.

I had a dual-core 1.6 GHz Atom 330 nettop with a laptop hard drive and 2 GB RAM, and with that config it was slooooooowwwwwww... Also Windows 7 Home, but 64-bit. So, I put an Intel 330 SSD in it and 4 GB RAM (3.x recognizable), and now it's just slooowww. But remember, mine is dual-core with HT, so the CPU is twice as fast as yours.

My Pentium SU4100 with SSD is noticeably faster, but even that is slow.

That said, if you only run MS Office 2003, iTunes, and Chrome without Flash, then it may be tolerable to you as everyone's thresholds are different. However, with Flash-enabled surfing, the machine will feel very laggy to most people, even with an SSD.

 

[nanaki333]

i would definitely do it. the HTPC in my bedroom is an atom and with just an agility 2, web browsing, boot up, everything is worlds faster.

 

[Megatomic]

Thanks guys. I've been using this laptop as it is for years, so any noticeable improvement would be significant. I wonder how much I can expect to pay for a used SATA SSD? I'd expect that even older SSDs with "slow performance" are MUCH faster than the 4200RPM drive in the machine now.

 

[nanaki333]

Thanks guys. I've been using this laptop as it is for years, so any noticeable improvement would be significant. I wonder how much I can expect to pay for a used SATA SSD? I'd expect that even older SSDs with "slow performance" are MUCH faster than the 4200RPM drive in the machine now.

oh hell yeah. another HTPC i have is an AMD E-350 with a vertex plus in it, and even that thing is quick and snappy. the vertex plus are super cheap and their IOPS performance are 'meh', but still way faster than any mechanical.

microcenter frequently has vertex plus or other refurbished drives for $39 if one is near you.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OCZ-Vertex-...Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item3cd24f1bf1

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OCZ-Vertex-...?pt=US_Solid_State_Drives&hash=item43bd0bbffb

 

[Megatomic]

Stupid question here, I've been out of the loop for a long, long time. Is a SATAII drive backward compatible with a SATA controller? Are they pin compatible?

 

[nanaki333]

yeah. you can just pop it right in and not worry about it, provided it's 2.5". if it's 1.8", you'll have to get a smaller ssd, which wouldn't be a problem either.

 

[Eug]

oh hell yeah. another HTPC i have is an AMD E-350 with a vertex plus in it, and even that thing is quick and snappy. the vertex plus are super cheap and their IOPS performance are 'meh', but still way faster than any mechanical.

It should be noted that the AMD E-350 is roughly twice as fast or faster than the Atom N270. And that's ignoring the GPU's contribution too.

However, even that isn't exactly fast with an SSD. It's just not painfully slow with an SSD.

microcenter frequently has vertex plus or other refurbished drives for $39 if one is near you.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OCZ-Vertex-...Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item3cd24f1bf1

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OCZ-Vertex-...?pt=US_Solid_State_Drives&hash=item43bd0bbffb

Personally, I'd avoid refurb OCZ, but that's just me.

 

[nanaki333]

It should be noted that the AMD E-350 is roughly twice as fast or faster than the Atom N270. And that's ignoring the GPU's contribution too.

However, even that isn't exactly fast with an SSD. It's just not painfully slow with an SSD.


Personally, I'd avoid refurb OCZ, but that's just me.

i know. a previous post i said i put one in an atom HTPC too.

 

[sangyup81]

You're running with only 2GB of RAM so you should see a big difference with the SSD. It won't be a fast machine by any standard but since your system is likely using the pagefile, going from a 4200rpm to an SSD will make a very large difference in your computing experience

I did this with a Lenovo s10e and switched from a 250GB 5400rpm hard drive to an Agility 2 running Windows XP SP3

 

[Concillian]

I have a netbook with an SSD in it. It works for what I need it to. Silly Facebook Java games bring it to it' knees, but as long as you just need to do pretty basic stuff on it, the SSD does speed up any regular disc accesses.

Fortunately it's primary function for me is an application that always maxes out one core when it does what I need it to do. Regardless of how much CPU is actually needed or available, it always maxes one core. The slower the CPU the better my battery life and cooler my legs are... LOL.
Netbook + SSD is precisely perfect for that application.

 

[themillak]

I put an ssd in my netbook with an e-350. my machine is definitely cpu-bound at this point but I prefer it to my faster hdd laptop when I have to choose between the two for most things.

 

[davelpg]

I installed a Crucial M4 in my HP Mini-210 netbook a few months ago. I am (more than) very satisfied with its performance.

 

[Megatomic]

So it looks like the consensus is that the SSDs make enough of a difference that even pitiful netbooks seem snappier in general usage. Cool, thanks for the feedback everyone.