SSD prices are dropping

[WoodPeckr]

They are getting more affordable and bigger.
Here's one that would make a nice roomy boot drive that gets great reviews.
Anyone put one in yet?

Kingston SSDNow V Series SNV425-S2/64GB 2.5" 64GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
$147.99 - Free Shipping

Dramatically increase the performance of your existing system with Kingston's SSDNow V solid-state drive! Aimed at everyday users and small to medium businesses, the second-generation Kingston SSDNow V Series improves the performance of the drive without increasing the price and supports Windows 7 TRIM functionality, which helps the SSD maintain high performance through the life of the drive.

Adding an SSD to a desktop already using a standard hard disk drive is a smart and efficient way to upgrade. Transferring the operating system and applications from the HDD to the SSD allows the SSD to be used as a bootable drive that takes full advantage of the Flash-based technology. The SSD and the HDD then co-exist to drive optimal performance in the upgraded desktop. For notebooks, SSDNow drives are a perfect replacement for hard drives resulting in faster, more reliable performance. Making this change will improve a notebook's efficiency in a wide range of tasks, from booting up to running the most robust operating system and demanding applications. The SSDNow V Series drive uses a standard SATA interface but, unlike a regular HDD, SSD is very rugged and built with no moving parts, making it ideal for power users and road warriors who push the limits of their notebooks. Other benefits include reduced power usage, less noise and less heat generation.

Kingston's SSDNow V Series offers performance gains and power consumption reductions at a fraction of the cost of a new system. For added peace of mind, they're backed by 24/7 tech support, a three-year warranty and legendary Kingston reliability.

 

[nofrill]

Yeah I see that newegg is pushing sale of the Kingston SSDNow V series.

Just make sure that the SSD is the "second generation" ("series 2", "V+", "Version 2"). The only sure way is to read the model number which is "SNVxx-S2(xx)". Unfortunately Kingston does not use a new name for their new models (eg. OCZ Vertex -> Solid -> Agility).

The original SSDNow has the infamous jmicron jmf602 controller which causes stuttering / freezing problem, even though Kingston claimed to have worked with Toshiba to improve performance (eg. increasing the cache size).

The new generation has a Toshiba controller. Reviews show that the stuttering / freezing problem is well controlled if not eliminated. However, the performance of the Kingston SSDNow V series is not as good as many other SSD which use the Indilinx controller. However, the difference is not huge. The V series is the budget series afterall.

I have been replacing the HDs of my netbook computers with cheap early model SSDs (Patriot Warp v2 mostly). Netbooks have low end CPUs and mediocre performance, therefore the speed of the SSD is not as important. SSDs make my netbook feel more responsive mainly because of the extremely short access / seek time.

I use my netbook in the way they are designed for - net surfing, email, simple office work, some (pre-recorded) video. These activities use little resource and will never trigger any significant stuttering / freezing of the SSD. I also use a small program called FlashFire SSD Accelerator, which helps to reduce the stuttering problem significantly.

 

[canucklehead]

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167014 these are the ones we tested with .... still not cheap.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Yeah, the Kingston SSDNow V Series SNV425-S2/64GB 2.5" 64GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive (SSD), that I posted above, claims to be a "second generation" which is what I was interested in.

The reviews posted at Newegg were very helpful also. Some of the guys are waiting for 3rd and 4th generation to come out figuring they will be better, bigger and cheaper. In a few years HDDs will be history. Everything will be SSD.....unless they are already working on something to replace SSDs......LOL!


PS: Now that you mention netbooks, I recall danmand mentioning awhile back his netbook with a SSD booted up in 15 seconds running Linpus Linux distro. It seems SSDs are ideal for netbooks along with laptops and desktops.

 

[canucklehead]

Or phones ....

 

[WoodPeckr]

The way phones are advancing they may replace PCs.....

 

[nofrill]

The way phones are advancing they may replace PCs.....

Yeah, smartphones are getting more and more powerful.

The ARM chips that power smartphones (and PDAs in the past) are getting faster, and they are also crossing over to the domain of "mobile computing devices".

The Apple A4 chip that powers the iPad is a good example of the new generation of ARM chips. Others are coming - Qualcomm Snapdragon, NVidia Tegra, ARM Cortex, Freescale etc. There will also be dual core ARM chips which may solve the problem of lack of multitasking.

The two biggest advantages of ARM chips over "PC-class" processors (currently dominated by Intel Atom) are (1) low manufacturing cost (therefore cheaper final products) (2) low power consumption.

Going back to phones vs. netbooks / tablets:

The biggest advantage of smartphone is SIZE, but this is also its biggest disadvantage - small screen either difficult to read or need excessive scrolling to see the full screen and get full user experience; small keyboards (touchscreen boards, or "thumbboards") which are difficult to type on.

This is the reason for the emergence of netbooks - a relatively cheap (cheaper than the standard laptops, eg. < $300) device which is small and light weight, with a large enough screen (it seems most people prefer 10", but it can be as small as 7-9"), a near-fullsize keyboard, and excellent battery life (currently at least 5 hours, as long as 9-12 hours). Performance only needs to be mediocre, because the mass population only needs internet surfing, email, blogging, some basic office function, multimedia (particularly video - either pre-recorded or Flash web content) and maybe some (low end) gaming.

The major variation of netbook is the tablet ("slate", "pad" .....). The screen can be a bit larger (eg. 11-12"), which can accomodate an touchscreen keyboard. At present, I still prefer the netbook format until the touchscreen keyboard improves (eg. sensitivity, response, tactile feel (such as haptic response), touchscreen longevity etc.)

Bottom line is, I think there are always two types of users - ones who want the absolute small size, a all-in-one "communication device", and ones who want a fuller user experience (viewing, input etc.). Therefore, there will always be "phones" and "netbooks".