Cheap SSDs are getting closer .. anyone tried this one?

[plonk420]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820609350

according to a couple people you can just plug that into a PCIe slot in a desktop. anyone tried this yet?

all we really need is like an 8GB (or even smaller) for real cheap ... even with XP. SATA would be best, but if this works, i'll take it!

hell, i think i've spent somewhere between $8 and 12 on a CF-to-IDE converter, and then there's a slow ass 133x 8GB CF i think i paid $20 for before shipping... that's nearly the $39 for that 16GB drive (with 30 or 40mb/sec read)

 

[Assimilator1]

Be careful with some of the cheap SSDs, some of them suffer extreme lag (several seconds of system freeze up) when multiple random accesses occur.

Checkout this AT review for more info.

Btw did you mean to post this in DC?😉

 

[plonk420]

well, i tried my first ghetto "SSD" (the CF-to-IDE converter) on my DC machine... lower power, only as much space as i needed. worked "well enough."

i'm guessing the brief freezing won't be as bad as the CF setup.

on the same subject, while gathering resources for optimizing for minimal SSD wear, i found pretty much EVERYTHING except for hints for only writing to the drive every X minutes (something related to XP Tablet edition, IIRC).

edit: i chose this forum because i didn't want a torrent of replies "why not just use a HDD like a normal person" or "for $20 more, you can do BLAH".

as long as it plain works (and will last 1-2+ years MINIMUM .. with SSD-friendly OS tweaks) .. that's all i care about. (with regards to the system freezing. it's very brief and i usually only saw it when BOINC was downloading and/or extracting large files from projects. and it was only a brief hiccup anyways and caused pretty much no detrement to DCing)

i just learned about the difference between MLC/SLC (at least Wikipedia's description) as i guess i'd skimmed over it in the anandtech article and not retained the info as prices were far out of my price range. even a 4GB SLC from Super Talent is crazy expensive at around $80...

 

[Assimilator1]

CF setup?

Ah I see it's for a DC rig, fair enough 🙂.
I did consider an SSD for my rig too, until I read that article & checked out the prices for the better drives. Power saving was fairly small as well, IIRC it's 5-10w?

However this time next year the situation maybe much better for the cheaper drives, hopefully they will of sorted out the random access issue. If so then I may have one as my primary system drive then.

 

[Denithor]

Let us know if it does just plug into a PCIe x1 slot. That could be a fantastic hdd for use in a folding rig.

 

[Assimilator1]

Just been looking at the specs, quite liveable especially for just a DC rig 🙂.
This is the MLC version so:-

Max seq. read - 40 MB/s
Max seq. write - 15 MB/s

Datasheet here

Pitty they don't quote power useage!:roll:

I guess you could just do the same thing with a USB flash drive?

Btw plonk, you might grab some more readers if you add to your topic summary something like 'cheap low power drives for dedicated DC rigs'

 

[VirtualLarry]

I don't think that "mini PCI-E" is the same as PCI-E. I doubt that this can be plugged into a desktop.

 

[PCTC2]

Well, this is a mini-PCIe slot. It's different than a PCIe 1x slot. It's made for netbooks like the EEE PC, which uses mini-PCIe storage. Some laptops have a mini-PCIe slot for wifi-cards. They sell these up to 64GB so you can upgrade that 12GB (8GB System + 4GB miniPCIe) EEE PC to (8+64) 72GB. I don't know if you can find an adapter for PCIe 1x to mini-PCIe. Also, some mini-ITX boards have mini-PCIe slots.

As for a CF->IDE setup, I am currently running my old iBook G4 1.2GHz off a 4GB and 16GB CF Card (Master and Slave) and it's not that bad. The entire system was slow to begin with, though. 😛

 

[Assimilator1]

And whats is CF? ,I assume it isn't crossfire😛😉

 

[PCTC2]

Originally posted by: Assimilator1
And whats is CF? ,I assume it isn't crossfire😛😉

Compact Flash. Man, I love my Compact Flash cards. 32GB flash memory for 60 bucks.

 

[plonk420]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
I don't think that "mini PCI-E" is the same as PCI-E. I doubt that this can be plugged into a desktop.

now that you mention it, it looks like you may be partially correct...

however, it MIGHT be convertible... my 30 second search pulled this up:

http://www.costronic.com.tw/Ev09mpe.htm

so surely someone else has a better/commercial solution (unless THAT ONE can be gotten thru commercial channels .. i'll look later, tho)