Just how bad is the Sandisk U100 in real world performance?

[wedouglas]

I've been waiting forever for the IB updated Zenbook, and it seemed to be getting better and better with the addition of the 1080p screen and the improved keyboard/trackpad, etc. However, when looking at some of the benchmarks it seemed that somehow it was doing even worse than the previous SB version. Apparently this comes down to the fact that they are using the Sandisk U100 SSD.

When I looked at benchmarks comparing this to others, it was appalling how bad it was. Some speeds looked HDD-like.

Being that SSD's are one of the things that are truly noticeable with respect to performance in real world usage, is the U100 pretty much going to be a deal breaker?

It really sucks that I waited so long for the improvements in this version only to find out one of it's crucial performance oriented components is garbage. Might just have to move to the new MBA now :/

Thoughts?

 

[ericloewe]

Can't be that bad... If it is that bad, maybe they'll switch to something else if they get some negative feedback...

Basically it's wait and see for now. Final retail versions will determine just how bad (or good) the SSD is.

 

[Hellhammer]

IVB Zenbook was delayed due to the SSD problems. There is a good chance that the retail version will ship with something else.

Take care,
Kristian Vättö
SSD Editor at AnandTech

 

[ericloewe]

IVB Zenbook was delayed due to the SSD problems. There is a good chance that the retail version will ship with something else.

Take care,
Kristian Vättö
SSD Editor at AnandTech

When was that announced? Anyway, it's good news...

 

[Hellhammer]

When was that announced? Anyway, it's good news...

It wasn't

 

[wedouglas]

Any word on this? It seems Amazon and others are beginning to list it. Does it still have the crap SSD?

 

[Zap]

In looking up the U100, I found this:

ASUS' Zenbook SSD and Apple's MacBook Air SSD Are Not Compatible

So, they aren't the same as each other, nor are they mSATA.

Why the HELL did they think they had to invent new, proprietary form factors? Okay, one is Apple. But Asus? Really?

 

[wedouglas]

Probably for the same reason Apple did -- so you have to pay an absurd markup on the additional SSD storage sizes.

 

[Hellhammer]

Any word on this? It seems Amazon and others are beginning to list it. Does it still have the crap SSD?

All retail versions come with ADATA SSDs.

 

[GW1989]

All retail versions come with ADATA SSDs.

Kristian, does this mean significant improvement to the Sandisk version? Is there any review or press release on this ADATA SSD specs?

Looks like there is no plan to release an 8 GB RAM retail version - highly disappointing.

 

[Hellhammer]

Kristian, does this mean significant improvement to the Sandisk version? Is there any review or press release on this ADATA SSD specs?

Looks like there is no plan to release an 8 GB RAM retail version - highly disappointing.

I don't know how bad the SanDisk really is because Anand did not publish any numbers (I could of course ask him because I think he ran quite a few tests). The ADATA drive should perform like any other SandForce SSDs. There is no product page for it but I think XPG SX300 is a close match.

 

[wedouglas]

Here was the comparison I saw between the old Zenbook -- one with the Sandisk, one with the AData.

http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews...andforce-driven-shows-significant-speed-bump/

I'm guessing that the AData drive used in the Zenbook Prime would be at least on par with the AData from the original version, so it should be significantly better at the very least.

Yeah, it does suck that there isn't an 8GB model. I've also been hearing of backlight bleed problems which could be quite a buzzkill too. Hopefully Anand and others get their hands on a production 31A soon so we can find out.

 

[Blub]

All retail versions come with ADATA SSDs.

Actually that's not true. At least for the european market. Some of the first wave zenbook prime ux31a came with ADATA ssds. But according to many reviews most of the following deliveries contained the u100 from sandisk.

I ordered two times at different vendors and twice got the u100 version ...

 

[RU482]

I've been running one (actually an engineering sample) for about 9 months now on a PC at home. It's a 64GB running with about 55GB worth of crap on it the whole time....it's still running like a champ