PATA 2.5in SSDs

Apologies if you've seen these before, but I hadn't. They should be directly Empeg-compatible, with no mucking about with converter boards. And for not whoppingly more than the cost of decent SATA ones the same size.

Peter

Would it be directly compatible as a replacement for the 80GB IDE system drive in my desktop computer?

Of course there is then the issue of reliability. I hear too many tales of SSD failure, even here on the empeg board.

tanstaafl.

Not directly directly -- because, like all 2.5in drives, it has a smaller PATA connector than the standard 3.5in one, which is what your desktop almost certainly has. But adapters are available, and are completely passive, unlike the sometimes troublesome PATA-to-SATA adapters which some people have resorted to in order to get SATA SSDs into their Empegs.

Well, that is true. Ones that fail in desktop use, though, are getting many more read/write cycles than they would in an Empeg.

To upgrade a desktop I'd go for an Intel 2.5in SATA SSD (you don't hear of the Intel ones failing), plus a SATA PCI or PCIe card, assuming the desktop has a spare PCI or PCIe slot.

Peter

Thanks for the link. I got a hard-drive read error pop up on my screen the other week, so I imagine it's only a matter of time, before I'll need to replace my drives.

They only seem to be rated at: Read: 104MB/s Write: 93MB/s so a more up to date normal hard disc might be just as fast in your PC.

The reason that SSDs outperform winchesters for general-purpose computing is not their read or write rate, it's that their seek time is zero. An SSD that did 10MB/s would outperform a winchester at 100MB/s for all but the most stream-y workloads.

Peter

Most all SSDs out there now are ultra reliable.
Intel had their own failures a few years back, just like nearly everyone else. Bugs in the firmware.

I generally suggest Crucial M4 drives for the paranoid now, or the ultra-expensive Intel ones for the paranoid + wealthy.

Personally, I'm using OCZ Agility-3 drives now. They're rock solid for me here, and the only issues with them in the past were with MS-Windows-7 users in Nov-Dec 2011.

For PATA SSDs, there's not much choice. The Transcend ones that are linked in this thread are probably the best bet. I think "KingSpec" also makes some. But it's pretty unlikely that any of the PATA ones will have modern high-performance controllers inside like their SATA brethren have.

High speed (480X-600X) CompactFlash cards also exist, and many are about the same speed as the Transcend PATA drives, and probably have equally good/bad/identical controllers inside. CompactFlash is equivalent to PATA, but in a smaller form factor.

Yeah, sorry, I really was talking out of my arse there wasn't I

Like this one?

The Newegg reviews show a 16% 6% failure rate within the first six months. Now, I understand that someone whose new SSD catches on fire is more likely to write a review (positive or negative) than someone whose drive installs easily and works flawlessly. Still, there does seem to be a higher failure rate than I am comfortable with.

I don't understand SATA vs SATA II vs SATA III. I do have one available SATA slot left on my motherboard, although it is flaky enough that I have stopped using it with my externmal eSATA backup drive. I suspect the problem is not with the SATA connection on the motherboard, but rather some incompatibility and general unhappiness between my computer and the external Vantec dock. The Vantec works perfectly when connected via USB, but more often than not locks up the computer when connected by SATA. USB runs at 1/10 the speed. Not a deal breaker, I run my backups overnight unatttended in any case.

Anyway, my computer was built in 2006 or 2007, was pretty state of the art back then, is still a pretty kick-ass machine with dual-core 3GHz processor, 4GB RAM, 6 TB hard drive, 27" monitor, big NVidia graphics card... but it is probably just plain SATA (not SATA II or III). Does this limit my options?

My 80 GB IDE system drive has been running 8-10 hours a day for six or seven years now, so it may be getting kind of tired. Over that time period I have never re-loaded the OS (Windows Vista) and a LOT of software has come and gone during that time. My bootup time is now around six or seven minutes so a nuke and repave would not be unwarranted, although it has been rock solid during all that time.

The SMART data on the system drives looks OK, but that is ignorance speaking. I really don't understand what it is saying.

I dunno... the [relatively] high failure rate of SSDs still has me a bit spooked, and I guess when an SSD fails it is pretty much 100% gone. Instantly. With a HDD you frequently have warning signs of impending failure. My backups are good enough I wouldn't lose any significant data, but reinstalling and reconfiguring all my software as part of the recovery process just isn't something I want to deal with very often. A quick check of my Control Panel shows 164 installed programs. Admittedly, at least half of them I would NOT reinstall, but still...

tanstaafl.

Yeah. We've got three of that exact model floating around the house here, all in high-use machines. All just grinding away in total silence, fast, and trouble-free.

Just do ensure that you apply the manufacturer's firmware updates before using them. The ones on store shelves tend to be out of date.

Cheers

The SATA I/II/III thing is mostly about connection speeds. So putting just about *any* SSD on a SATA-I link means you won't achieve anywhere near the throughput that the drive is capable of.

But it'll still outperform any mechanical drive by a wide margin, because the near-zero seek times allow SSDs to complete I/O more quickly, and thereby to complete many many more I/O operations per second than any mechanical drive.

So on a SATA-I link, which has a 1.5 gbit/sec physical layer, the drives max out at 128MBytes/sec, about the same as a mechanical drive. Except the SSD can do 10000-20000 I/O's per second, compared with perhaps 75-100 (max) on a mechanical drive.

On a SATA-II link, with a 3.0 gbit/sec physical connection, most SSDs top out around 180-240MBytes/sec, with up to 40000-50000 I/O's per second.

On a SATA-III link (6.0 gbit/sec), we finally see the upper limits of most of the current SSDs, with transfer rates up to 500MBytes/sec or so. These kind of speeds matter most for video processing, heavy swapping, and other I/O intensive loads.

But really, just stepping up (WAYYY up) to *any* SSD makes a massive difference. Beyond that it's all gravy.

Cheers

Another vote for m4's.

They were never the most screamingly fast (though the 0F firmware appears to have made them faster) but I trust Micron to know their own in-house flash technology and I've not had issues with the 3 I've installed in machines belonging to family members - who are all remote enough for it to be a pain if the drives failed.

Obviously, I also ensure there's a backup strategy in place but that's a good idea anyway...