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[M] OCZ Vertex 30Gb SSD Tested in Older Acer Aspire 9420 Laptop

@ 2009/04/22

A quick drive swap revived this older Acer Aspire 9420, equipped with 1.66ghz Core 2 Duo (T5500) and 2Gb Ram, the original disk was large (160gb) but slow (5400rpm); a fresh install of Windows 7 on a Vertex 30Gb SSD makes this laptop fly, bootup time: 34 seconds. Applications open almost instantly, night and day difference in performance and this with a simple was of HDD to SSD, an operation do-able by most people for their laptops, without voiding warranty!

The limiting factor of this laptop is the chipset which limits the read/write speeds of the Vertex to ~100Mb/s (it's 240/160 on a desktop), but that doesn't limit the performance much as responsiveness is more important and this speed bump (0.1ms) is really what makes the difference.

On average classic laptop HDDs score between 2-7mb/s in the XP Startup Speed test of PCMark05; with the Vertex inside the Acer this goes up to 51mb/s.

Comment from jmke @ 2009/04/25

Quote:

Originally Posted by macgizmoguy

I bought an OCZ SOLID series value drive for my old Intel MacBook - dirt cheap. Should I have paid up for a Apex or a Vertex? Would it have been 'worth' it???

MacGizmoGuy

yup, random IO of Vertex is a lot higher than solid series; resulting in a lot more responsive system

Comment from macgizmoguy @ 2009/04/25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faiakes

Sadly, there is little point in paying for that kind of speed because you're not going to get all of it unless you're using a SATA-II system.

That's an unfortunately under researched and documented point: SATA I is out there in millions of laptops and desktops. While one can drool over all the "Peak" Sequential Read data specs of the latest SSD models, at what point does REAL-WORLD use start to truly max out a SATA I controller???

I've yet to encounter any of the deep-geek reviews talking about the issue of precisely when SATA I controllers become a bottle-neck -- Or exactly which drives are best suited for SATA I limitations.

I bought an OCZ SOLID series value drive for my old Intel MacBook - dirt cheap. Should I have paid up for a Apex or a Vertex? Would it have been 'worth' it???

MacGizmoGuy

Comment from jmke @ 2009/04/23

there is no such thing as SATA-II or SATA-III
SATA150 / SATA300 exist.

SATA2 or SATA3 are incorrectly used and are not official.

Quote:

The SATA-IO, or SATA International Organization, specifies that the SATA standard has the potential to top 6Gbps transfer rates; four times what the majority of drives currently offer. While it is probably questionable if 3Gbps transfer rates are even obtainable outside all but the most intensive SATA RAID scenarios, the fact remains that "SATA II" - the name - has absolutely nothing to do with data rates.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2450

to come back to your

Quote:

you're using a SATA-II system.

should be SATA300 system

and I agree partly; yes with a newer system the Vertex SSD will perform better, but even in a system where the bottleneck is SATA 150 controller, you will notice a difference; maximum transfer is nice, but low latency and extremely high multi I/O performance of these SSD give the biggest boosts; to older systems will always benefit from a storage medium upgrade

Comment from Faiakes @ 2009/04/23

What do you mean?

Comment from jmke @ 2009/04/23

SATA 2 does not exist

Comment from Faiakes @ 2009/04/23

I've added one in my Inspiron 1720 as the OS drive.
These are ideal if you can have 2 HDDs and have the second as the data drive.

Sadly, there is little point in paying for that kind of speed because you're not going to get all of it unless you're using a SATA-II system.

Comment from jmke @ 2009/04/23

they became more expensive these last couple of weeks; from the same shop price has increased about €30 due to NAND price increase

Comment from wutske @ 2009/04/23

for occasional test it's indeed large enough. If only these damn things became a bit less expensive I'd upgrade my laptop immediately

Comment from jmke @ 2009/04/23

since I'm only using this drive for the occasional test, I did not want to go all out

30gb was expensive enough

Comment from wutske @ 2009/04/23

SSD

Comment from jmke @ 2009/04/23

laptop or SSD?

Comment from wutske @ 2009/04/23

Looks very interesting, tough a bit small in size

Comment from jmke @ 2009/04/23

depends, don't think it supports SATA, so you'll have to look into PATA SSD, those are not widely available and only offer so-so performance

music in video is theme song from Tropic Thunder, killer soundtrack that movie has!

Comment from Bosw8er @ 2009/04/22

Wonder if this could revive my celeron 566 notebook with 6gb HD?

Great music btw

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