cheap but decent laptop SSD option

[Rich Jordan]

Any recommendations for an inexpensive but still decent SATA SSD upgrade for a laptop (2.5" drive form factor)? Its for a netbook running Linux Mint, now used primarily as a Linux learning toy, and network test subject (for firewalls and VLANs where its nice to have a portable manually addressable box with all the decent network utilities). 60GB absolute minimum, 80GB preferred (larger OK if cheap). I'd like to up the performance; it is slow booting and running programs (and memory is already maxed at 2GB).

Amazon has a 60GB Kingston V300 for $59, and a 120GB for $70 (that was on sale last weekend for $62, darn it), but there have been some complaints about firmware problems and chinese manufactured 'new' revisions.

Thanks

[Rich Jordan]

Big really doesn't matter in this application, but I'd appreciate knowing why a 'real' size drive? I thought that the various improvements over the past few years (wear leveling, trim support, etc) had sufficiently improved the life expectancy of the small SSDs that they would not have unacceptable levels of cell/sector/page/whatever failure under normal use?

Or are you refering to a different issue?

Either way I'd be interested, and I'll start looking at some hybrid options.

Thanks!

[mekender]

Samsung 840 EVO, $90 for a 120gb drive. They are the newest offering from Samsung and they show great performance benchmarks. I am running an 830 right now and it is great.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820147247

[mekender]

Big really doesn't matter in this application, but I'd appreciate knowing why a 'real' size drive?

Basically, unless you're using it as an appliance, or it's entirely cloud based storage, in my experience, you end up filling anything smaller than a 90gb, or a 120gb pretty quick... Really without even thinking about it.

If you're just running Linux on it, no media, OK... But the small drives are unfortunately mostly the reject bin when it comes to quality and performance.

The second you want to dual boot, use VM's, use testing images etc... Boom.

You don't ever want to use more than 80% of any disk with a modern filesystem, but especially SSD's. Performance problems all over the place, and possibly reliability issues.

I would agree with most of that. Windows 7 or 8 alone needs about 40gb to run normally. Install a couple of games and you have hit the max. I use a second, mechanical drive for programs and leave windows and office to my SSD.

This should be some help though:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd ... ,3269.html

[Rich Jordan]

Basically it is an appliance now. Testing, tweaking, learning bash and trying to unlearn csh, play with utilities, regexp, etc, and the network testing usage. I have a Macbook Pro for all the big stuff, games, and daily usage, and a Raspberry Pi for a home 'server' that doesn't move.

When I looked at the drive utilities I found I still had a 60GB windows partition with the factory installation on it and all the stuff I used when this was a primary system, about 22GB worth. Any new drive would be free of that dreck so my space needs may be even lower.

I have heard about the 80% threshold before; good point. I'll take a look at hybrids and larger SSDs but budget will probably eliminate the latter. I'm not going to put a drive . Or maybe just suck it in, wipe the drive (windows flushed, woohoo!) reinstall Linux Mint fresh and live with the original drive.

[Rich Jordan]

And.... the original netbook drive is reporting errors to Spinrite and another S.M.A.R.T utility so I guess a replacement is necessary.

Anyone got a recommendation on a cheap but decent hybrid drive? My default is a replacement of the same model ST9160310as ($55 - $70 new, not risking used).

Checking Amazon and New Egg the hybrid drives in the lower price ranges seem to be getting the same proportion of unhappy reviews as the SSDs I originally asked about.

Thanks.

[mekender]

SMART failures are an indication that the drive is failing. Though it may stay functional for many months in that state.

For me, a 120 to 128gb SSD is a valid option in your scenario... Or if you want space, I do not feel like it is possible to go wrong with a WD Black or Blue HDD.

I have no experience with hybrid drives first hand but they have always seemed to me to be a solution in search of a problem.

[Rich Jordan]

Chris
do you look for a minimum size for the SSD component on the hybrids? Or a minimum percentage of the actual disk size?

Rich

[mekender]

So right now here is what I have...

I have a gaming desktop with a 256gb SSD as the main drive.

In addition to that, I have 3x 500gb hard drives. 1 is an older HP drive, the other 2 are WD black drives.

My server has a 250gb WD black laptop drive for the OS and 2x 2tb WD red drives plus 2x 1tb WD black drives in it.

I plan on upgrading the 2 1tb drives to bigger WD red drives and then taking the two 1tb drives to my tower to replace two of the 500gb's... From there, my upgrade to my gaming PC will result in me having an i7 plus RAM and motherboard as a spare, so that will become a server for VMs, domain control and lab purposes while my existing server becomes strictly a video server.

[Rich Jordan]

To be clear, an SSD is much faster than a hybrid drive for sustained reads and writes, and for anything that isn't reasonably pre-fetchable, so if you don't mind the price, and don't need more than 120gb, get the 120gb SSD.

Oh and if the machine in question has an optical drive, you might be able to replace it with a hard drive caddy instead, and ad a second hard drive.

Its a netbook, only one bay for a small drive, external USB for optical. I'll keep an eye open for a good deal, hybrid or SSD whichever comes up first. I really don't need a lot of space on this box. It really is just going to be a secondary use/test/appliance system.

Thanks for the info