Journal LehiNephi's Journal: Don't want to wait for SSD's to hit the market?
As I sit here, typing on my work laptop, my left wrist is practically getting burnt by the heat put off by the hard drive. The hard drive on my 700m at home gives me the same toasty feeling. For that reason, and because of the sheer geeky coolness of it, I want a Solid State Drive.
The performance advantages of SSDs have been stated many times: lower power consumption, very fast "seek" times, high data rates, shock tolerance. Several companies, including Samsung, PQI, SanDisk, A-data, and SimpleTech, have announced upcoming SSD products.
The only problem? They're expensive. As in a $600 premium on a notebook with a 32GB SSD instead of a spinning-disk hard drive, as of now (early June 2007). SanDisk say that the premium should drop to about $250 by Q2 2008, but for those of us who are too frugal, or too impatient, or both, there is an alternative: DIY.
It's actually quite simple. You'll need a few things:
The performance advantages of SSDs have been stated many times: lower power consumption, very fast "seek" times, high data rates, shock tolerance. Several companies, including Samsung, PQI, SanDisk, A-data, and SimpleTech, have announced upcoming SSD products.
The only problem? They're expensive. As in a $600 premium on a notebook with a 32GB SSD instead of a spinning-disk hard drive, as of now (early June 2007). SanDisk say that the premium should drop to about $250 by Q2 2008, but for those of us who are too frugal, or too impatient, or both, there is an alternative: DIY.
It's actually quite simple. You'll need a few things:
- A dual-card CF-to-IDE adapter. $26 + shipping
- Two 16GB Compact Flash cards. $150 each + shipping (cheaper may exist--this was the only one on newegg ATM)
- About 5 minutes of spare time, plus however long it takes to format and install your OS of choice.
Step 1: Insert the cards into the adapter
Step 2: Swap the adapter into the laptop
Step 3: Format the drive and install your OS of choice. Make sure you limit (or turn off) your swap file.
There are a couple things that I've noticed:
- The adapter listed will only fill about half the space of the original drive, so in theory, four CF cards would fit just fine. I haven't been able to find any four-card CF-to-IDE adapters, though. Do any exist?
- If your laptop has a slide-in hard drive (as opposed to the type illustrated on the page for the adapter), you'll have to attach something to the adapter so you can actually push it all the way in.
- For what it's worth, this should also reduce the weight of your notebook by some few ounces. This always seems to be a big selling point for notebook manufacturers.
Don't want to wait for SSD's to hit the market? More Login
Don't want to wait for SSD's to hit the market?
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