Fast CF for HDD.

[Colt45]

Hi, I recently got an IBM X41 (submini or whatever..)

They use a stupid 1/8" drive, but not a ZIF, it has a normal 2.5" IDE connector on the side. So drives are more or less unobtanium. you can get a 60GB SSD for $200, but I'm holding off on that for now.

So temporarily, at least at the speed it's going, I got a CF adaptor. Running it with some kinda generic 133x CF, and it's rather pathetically slow. I've ordered a 300x one, but I'm not sure how much that will help...

Anyone have experience with this - using CF, and having decent speed..?

 

[aceO07]

Check out this forum since it's related to Thinkpad x40s and there are numerous threads on CF/SSD. http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewforum.php?f=3&start=0

Anything slower than 300x is not recommended. I think they currently have an SSD option, but I haven't followed up for the last year.

I have CF in my X41 and it's working fine. Faster than the 1.8" drive it came with. I only have a 8GB 300x CF in it. It's used mainly for browsing and videos about 2-3 days a week.

 

[Colt45]

Cool. Well I ordered a 300x, so hopefully the performance is quite a bit improved 🙂

Not that I need this thing to be a speed demon, but it sucks when disk access (esp write) grinds it to a halt..

 

[EarthwormJim]

How are CF cards when it comes to write leveling?

 

[Emulex]

they have write leveling but you'd be joking yourself to think they will approach the speed of a jmicron based ssd (got stutter?).

sadly the truth is SSD + PATA = bad idea.

better off upgrading to a sata platform machine

 

[Colt45]

they have write leveling but you'd be joking yourself to think they will approach the speed of a jmicron based ssd (got stutter?).

sadly the truth is SSD + PATA = bad idea.

better off upgrading to a sata platform machine

Oddly enough, I believe the chipset on this rig is SATA, and they've got an onboard adaptor for PATA, go figure. Might be able to hack something up, but it still leaves the point of 1.8" drives licking ass. :-/


I've used a package for linux in the past, called flashybrid... From what I remember, it will overlay things with ram, so new writes go to ram, and only to HDD on a sync, (but you could set dirs to be write-direct). That way logging, etc, doesn't wear the flash.. if you've got enough RAM.

 

[Emulex]

superspeed makes an app like that. their ramdisk rocks but that is not the product.

alot of old skool thinkpads even had pata to sata chipsets which totally screwed with you.

with the cost of laptops so little these days one must wonder, even a lamebox walmart special with a vertex or intel would smoke these days.

 

[aceO07]

While I agree that the X41 isn't that fast, I think it still looks great and is extremely portable. For browsing, watching videos, music, office suite stuff you won't feel that it's slow. Certainly wouldn't hesitate to take it to a business meeting.

12", under 3lbs, great keyboard, amazing build quality and sturdy. I love how thinkpads looks.

Yup, it doesn't have true SATA. There is a KingSpec SSD that should fit directly into the X41, but you'll have to do your own research to see if that's what you want. I believe it does 60MB/s read/writes.

 

[Colt45]

Yeah,. it's a little long in the tooth, but it's cheaper (now at least, lol), better built, faster, and bigger than an eee. keyboard is beautiful. I don't know... I've never seen a laptop for any price that feels better than the IBM ones. 12" is a nice size... 10" netbooks are just.. too small.

This is actually my upgrade, from a X24 🙂

 

[RU482]

Kingspec datasheet states that it has a Jmicron controller (doesn't specify which one)

 

[jalaram]

Are there tips anywhere on how to set up Windows for a CF card? Or is some variant(s) of Linux better for booting from a CF card? I have CF cards of 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB size.

 

[Colt45]

Well, I got the 300x card. It's useable now, but still lacking compared to a hdd. I might look into getting one of those SSD's, some day.