Click to see the video
ATTO test on compressed OS drive: ( Dell uses compression?! )
Note that ATTO is giving 10 times better results as the compression was on.
Testing more right now ... will take some time to disable the compression..
UPDATE: here are the results without the compression
..and again looking at the write speeds where the bottle neck is, I would recommend SLC ones.
Even the STEC has good read speed, XP feels slow and laggy with it.. way slower on use than Eee 901 etc.
Get yours from MDD
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Monday, September 29, 2008
32BG SSD on Dell Mini 9
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89 comments:
You know I'm going to say it, but can you test the SLC version in the next few days? and then of course, I'm going to hound you about the pci-e - Zif converter...
Am I reading these wrong, or are those results way, WAY faster than the tests you did on the MLC SSDs on the Eee PC 901? The MDD 64gb MLC SSD had read/write speeds of something like 35/15 MB/sec on the tests you did a couple weeks ago, but these are showing 600/150 MB/sec. Am I reading that correctly?
the compression makes the result look that way... in real life it is 75/15
Ahh, okay, that makes sense. I was going to say, if those are accurate results, I may just have to buy a Mini 9! Sorry if you explained about it in the video, I just haven't had a chance to watch yet. Thanks for clearing that up.
Was the 8GB drive an STEC? I was under the impression that it was only the 16GB model that came with an STEC drive.
It looks like they are shipping the 8GB STEC version in USA.. not confimed yet how it is looking on other places..
So two questions:
1. Do you know if the 4GB version in the US is also STEC?
2. Will the power supply work on 220V? In short could I buy it in the US and use it overseas with a plug adapter?
So is this faster than the STEC 16GB? If is is I will palce my place my order like...yesterday!
It looks about the same on compressed drive but i havent tested yet witout the comression... still disabling it here....
It is MLC like the STEC one but It should be about the same as the ones for Eee PC.. MDD is saying 35/14 for MLC and 43/26
for SLC
Any word on when the 64GB MLC's will be available for the Mini 9?
-Joel
By the way.. Great job on the stream today JKK! Great stuff!
Sure hope you test the SSDs (32 & 64) with the Everun Note when you get it. Also test that Ubuntu Mobile USB stick as well to see if all the drivers are working for that too. I could see the Everun Note being a nice dual boot device where I could choose the OS I wanted to run (Windows or Linux)! Of course, with it having such a strong CPU could also have one of those larger SSDs and install Ubuntu (and install the free VMWare Server to run Windows ontop of LINUX as well (then we would still have a use for the Windows License if there were no Ubuntu version available-out-of-the-box).
Is it possible to replace the 4GB SSD of an eee with such a drive? On their shop there are different ones for Dell and Acer with the same formfactor - different signals on the PCI-e on these netboosk? :(
It seems this new SSD might be the correct size to replace the 4GB of the Asus 901. Am I correct ? Is this possible ?
more about dell 901¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡
Hi!
You know if it's possible to use a SSD on the WWAN PCIe port to have 2 disks?
Thank you!
Murdock, no. SSD pcie port uses ide bus where wwan pcie is real mini pcie with pci and usb.
Thank you very much JKK!
So, in the WWAN port we can plug any real mini-pcie device or just the WWAN device from Dell?
Thank you!
Very interesting blog!
JKK: Did you test the small SSDs with the Eee901?
I e-mailed MyDigitalSSD to find out that the 64GB MLCs will be available mid-October.
JKK, the MDD specs yesterday had the 32 GB MLC rated at speeds similar to the Eee PC MLC. Today the 32 GB is rated at 70/17 -- can you please confirm that this is correct? Thanks!
@Anonymous, I think the 70/17 is still from a compressed XP install, so the numbers are skewed. JKK mentioned the numbers are actually almost identical...
Right JKK??
yep, real speeds are same as for Eee MLC.. i will post the graps soon..
hi, so would the 32gb drive also work on the 4gb mini model or just the 8gb+ models?
thank you.
Yes, it works on all models
I just ordered the 32GB MLC and am going to give it a shot. I only have 5GB left on my 16GB that came with the mini and I am not finihsed installing al the apps yet. hopefully speed will not be much slower
This is great news, i'm still a little confuzed over all this read/write and compression stuff however,
Any chance of a nice breakdown of the speeds of the 16GB STEC drive, VS the 16/32GB MLC Vs the 16/32GB SLC MyDigital Drives, without compression.
i'm definatly going to get a 32GB drive, but not sure weather it's worth spending the extra $200!! they claim the speed difference are 70/17 vs 43/26
So am i correct in saying for an extra $200 you get 9MB extra write speed per second, but lose 27MB read speed?
Or is this with/without compression?
v confuzed...
I will do a full post about the speeds etc..
JKK, I know I've hounded you about this before, but I have a new idea. For those of us who aren't going to be using the WWAN on the dell, how about a larger right angle drive that has much more capacity. I know you have contacts with MyDigitalDiscount, what are the chances of a larger SSD that still uses the miniPCI slot, but fills the entire cavity (the space where the existing SSD and WWAN card are).
Hi, I am a complete noob about these things, but i am interested in this upgrade. I noticed that Zipzoomfly.com is selling the PATRIOT PE32GS25SSDR Extreme Flash 32GB Warp SSD MLC SATA II for $89.00. It claims a 175/100 read/write. Would this work in the Dell mini 9?
Thanks!
@Anonymous, not without some serious modding.. there really isn't room for a 2.5" drive, and the connection is mini-PCI for the hard drive not SATA II
Thanks, TexasViking!
I just got the 32GB hard drive from Fed EX 30 min ago. XP Pro is now being installed. SO far the install is moving at about same or at the same pace as the last install.
So far my Mini has served as my primary device for the last two weeks and I have been very pleased.
Hello - I just received my 32GB MLC today - installed it in my Dell Mini - used the Dell recovery disks to re-install XP and all drivers - everything seems to be operating very slowly with freeze ups every few moments. I've tried several re-boots with no success....any suggestions??? Thanks!
Rick I am getting the same thing. I am not to impressed so far. I guess this is what we get for being early adopters.
I'm far from a tech expert...but it seems that the read/write access is slower than the stock 16GB STEC SSD.....can anyone out there provide some suggestions on a config setting we might be missing???
Dell Mini 9 - 2GB RAM - MDD 32GB MLC/SSD - WinXP - OS installed from Dell disks....
The read speed is slower but the write speed is about the same. So it should not feel slower..
I didn't notice any difference on my early tests.. both feel slow compared to SLC SSDs..
I will post details when I'm back...
Thanks JKK - the only comparison I can make, is that to the stock SSD which definitely seemed snappier - this might be a dumb question, but would NTFS vs. FAT formatting make a difference? This is my first experience with SSD drives.....thanks again!
yes, FAT is faster..
Here is great tutorial how to make slow write speed device faster: ( I would not nLite )
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=37047
thanks so much....this should keep me busy for a few hours tonight!!! I'll let you know if I see a difference....
Rick,
Well, I have mixed feelings on this drive. I want to get everything loaded and really see what the difference is. Worst case scenario I format the drive and sell it.
I still love the Mini. I will keep it until Dell offers a dual-core Atom proc. I am still dissapointed that Vista will not run smoothly.
I also do not have compression turned on. JKK, would this make a speed difference?
I was looking for the spec... and looking for where the drive MyDigitalSSD has:
ECC
Wearleveling
I did not see either like I do on say the Transcend site:
http://ec.transcendusa.com/product/ItemDetail.asp?ItemID=TS16GSSD25S-S
Both ECC and Wear Leveling are needed in an SSD for running an OS (or anything important on it).
I ran the ATTO test on both the 16GB STEC and 32GB MDD SSD drives. I am still getting hiccups in the 32GB drive. I go to close an app and it just hangs. I cannot move the mouse or anything.
I reinstalled the 16GB drive today and no issues. Looks like the 16GB drive is staying. I would not recommend purchasing this drive for use with XP. It is just too slow. It might be a better alternative for the Linux OS.
Link to the test results below. As you will see, the read speeds are about half of the STEC drive.
http://www.fototime.com/3D0B13D033F9B1E/orig.jpg
Just an FYI, engadget just posted a link about running OS X on the Mini 9! Sounds super simple too!
Here is the link:
Please do this ASAP and comment?
http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2008/10/13519/#comment-639526
yep gordy - I agree - the 16gb drive is staying for me as well - I ended up switching out my 2gb RAM card back for the stock 1gb from Dell to see if that made a difference - no go! I see the same symptoms as you - programs hanging on close - overall painfully slow performance from the 32gb - popped my stock 16gb SSD back in this morning and voila...lightning fast again! Going to see if I can return to MDD....
Rick,
Let me know how the return goes. I have nothing agianst MDD. The service is fast as promised. But the drive is just not usable.
Same here! The MDD guys were excellent on the phone when I placed my order - fast order processing - was shipped out within 30 minutes of my order - calling them on Monday to discuss the performance of the 32gb SSD - I imagine they'll appreciate the product feedback....
JKK - I'm going to give this 32gb SSD one more try with a fresh format and XP install - did you do anything special with your test install on the Mini 9? I'm planning to format the SSD fat32 this time....any other suggestions??? Thanks!
OK.....huge improvement!!! I reformatted the 32gb SSD with fat32 - reinstalled win xp from the Dell recovery disk - installed all drivers, etc...works perfectly now - no freeze ups whatsoever and seems to be very snappy....is it possible the SSD is not compatible with NTFS formatting?
@Rick: Happy to hear that you got it working, but this still seems strange. Why would FAT work and not NTFS? Does this mean it *might* work with Linux and other file systems like etx2 and ext3?
I am loading XP Pro right now. The install is about 80% faster with FAT. IF the is indicative of the OS running I think the 32GB drive will be good to go. I will do a speed test once it gets loaded and I will post.
gordy....you're seeing the same results as I did....my FAT32 install was 90% faster than the NTFS install - I'm very impressed with the speed - been using it all day today with no problems at all!!!
Regarding the other post....I'm far from an expert when it comes to file systems - I reformatted to FAT purely on speculation...based on JKK's comment that FAT would perform faster than NTFS.....I'd really like to see some experts weigh in here with some additional comments on this.....
So far so good. There have been no hang ups or performance issues. Sling Player works great and web browsing is speedy. I think the 32GB SSD drive is a keeper.
@JKK: Any thoughts about NTFS not working on the MyDigitalSSDs? Do you think they'll work with a Linux install and ext2/ext3?
Anyone know if the new bios update addresses this problem?
Hi all. I'm looking into buying one, but in Spain they just offer the 8Gb option and I'm not sure if it's the STEC one or the other slower one...
Anyway, for those using Windows, yes, NTFS is very slow in SSD's. Always use FAT32. In Linux ext2/3 work well with SSD's, no problem.
The most relevant benchmark (in Windows) would be the Crystal DiskMark for the random 4K reads/writes because that's the slowest operation and what causes hiccups and slowdowns (well, in SSD's mostly the 4K writes, not the reads). If someone can run it and post the results saying the configuration (8Gb, 16Gb, FAT, NTFS,...) I would much appreciate.
Thanks
I just wanted to thank everyone here for the continuous updates on this situation. My 9 is on order and I got the 8GB version because I was planning on doing an upgrade, and I'm glad to hear that at least with FAT the MDD disks are working out well.
I am by no means a filesystem expert, but is the administrative overhead of NTFS the problem? I think NTFS does a lot more each time you touch a file, even if it is just for a read, and maybe those small writes are slow.
Also (again, not a FS expert) does FAT support 64GB? More importantly, any idea if the upcoming larger MLC disk from MDD will work with FAT?
FAT32 will work with larger drives, including 64 GB, but you'll have to partition/format it outside of Windows, which sets a limit of 32 GB IIRC on FAT32 partitions. The rationale I think being that performance decreases with FAT32 on larger drives. From personal experience, I recently formatted a 120 GB external USB drive as FAT32 and it does seem slow. Retrospectively, it may have been better to have multiple FAT32 partitions (say 4 partitions of 30 GB each). In any case, FAT was necessary since I needed to use the drive across Windows, Mac, and Linux.
FAT32 is pretty limited on large drives. Reading this article (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/magazine/cc160978.aspx) you can see at already at 32Gb, just to know the space usage, the system needs to read 4Mb. Also, files can't be larger than 4Gb, and there's a pretty strick limit to the number of files in a directory.
A solution for larger drives could be exFAT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT) which is supported by Vista SP1, but apparently the driver can be loaded in XP.
Has anyone tried changing this registry entry to disable some of the NTFS overhead to see if it helps? I have no idea whether it would affect the results shown by the benchmarks, but I found this on an eee forum:
4) Disable the NTFS Last Access Time Stamp*
Go to Start->Run and type in "regedit". Hit enter.
Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
Right click and New->DWORD Value and name it "NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate"
Double-click on it and set the value to "1".
Is anyone that has one of the MDD drives in a position to test this out?
I also came across a post on one of the EEE forums about optimizing NTFS and WInXP more generally. There were additional steps and things to do with NTFS to import performance -- I don't remember the link, but I'm sure you'll find it with some searching ...
Try calling or chatting with MDD and you won't get ahold of them... good luck and save your money
Not cool. Given that you're dishing out $100-$200 on the MMD SSDs you'd think someone would provide some additional details about all of this ...
I am interested in a MDD 32 or 64GB MLC SSD. Have we figured out why the MyDigital products choke on NTFS? Should I avoid them??
Thanks /Stephen
Found this:
"In the eBay advertisement 32GB 2.5” PATA IDE MLC SSD SOLID STATE DISK DRIVE NEW! mydigitaldiscount.com wrote:
MyDigitalSSD Solid State Drives feature the world’s fastest MLC read and write speeds, and offers superior Data Security, Longevity, Performance, Reliability and Power Savings to conventional HDDs
Formatting this drive in NTFS will dramatically reduce its performance. We do not suggest using this or any other MLC SSD with an OS using an NTFS file system. If you are going to use NTFS and need high performance you will need to buy an SLC SSD"
Here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=458405&sid=dccbf1ddf2c72eafd0f79b08d2598595
Larry
Dear, have you look if it's possible to put an hard disk of 80go 1,8" into the Dell mini 9 ????
After reading all the comments it seems like a very BAD idea to upgrade to MDD 32gb SSD but instead should stick to STEC SSD.
Is this conclusion correct?
Sorry to spam, but I'm selling my 32gb MLC SSD for the Mini 9 and wanted to let people know.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270290887620
I'm not sure if I'd give up on the 32GB MLC SSD just yet.....I've been using mine now for almost 4 weeks with no issues - I formatted with FAT32 - installed XP and drivers from the Dell disks (as stated in my earlier post) - running smoothly with no hang-ups or freezing - I mostly use it for web surfing, email, and general Office 2007 work - I'm very pleased with the performance compared to the original STEC 16GB.
I got a 16GB SLC SSD from MDD for my Mini and did some benchmarks under NTFS without compression. I am getting 23 MB/s sustained writes and 42 MB/s sustained reads after file system overhead. I also got a SanDisk Extreme III 16GB SDHC card as a cheaper alternative for high-performance storage expansion. This SanDisk card does 19 MB/s sustained writes and 23 MB/s sustained reads from Mini's built-in card reader and also formatted with NTFS. I set my Windows XP environmental TEMP folders to SanDisk card and the system is very smooth. MDD SLC 16GB SSD and SanDisk Extreme III 16GB SDHC card combination resulted in the most responsive computer system I ever owned, sadly it happened to be a netbook (I find it hilarious). I don't get any lockups or lag what so ever while multi-tasking. I do have 2GB RAM but who doesn't these days. With that said, I recommend you dishing out a little more money for higher quality parts unless of course you are happy with what you have. Oh and by the way MDD SLC SSD uses Samsung flash chips. For transferring to MDD SLC SSD from the stock STEC SSD without re-installing, I used Acronis TrueImage Home 2009. Whole procedure took about an hour with only half SSD filled. Upon booting with MDD SLC SSD Windows asked me to reactivate due to hardware changes. I had to call Microsoft automated voice line to reset my activation because I don't use stock XP Home from Dell, I use my copy of XP Pro. I hope this helps to those who are wondering about SLC SSDs. Regards. - Anonymous Mike
Hello Mike,
Did you have a 16 Stec before the change, and if so is the performace better with the SLC from MMD?
Or are you saying that if you buy from MMD that SLC is the way to go and not the cheaper MLC as it allows NTFS because of the faster write, albeit slow read?
Or is it the combo of the SLC from MMD?
Thanks
Larry
sorry
Or is it the combo of the SLC from MMd and the SanDisk card?
Well MDD MLC drives seem to be a little slower on writes than stock STEC drives supplied by Dell and a lot slower in reads - almost 2 fold. What lags the system is the write speed, just like JKK mentioned write speed is a bottle neck on Windows systems. The MDD SLC drives are however faster than stock STEC drives in writes by about 10 MB/s under NTFS but also almost 2 fold slower in read speeds. The reason I got a high speed SDHC card is because I wanted to move the TEMP folders onto it, basically anything that gets written frequently so that I won't degrade the SSD itself as much and do so without losing performance. If you have the money and you are a power user I would recommend an SLC drive. Otherwise just go for MDD MLC high capacity 32 or 64 GB and format that to FAT32. Getting a high speed SDHC card such as SanDisk Extreme III is vital on either MLC or SLC drives. It would benefit especially if you are going to use slower MLC SSD. You can then redirect all the TEMP environmental paths to the SDHC card and speed up the system. Use of RAM drive also can achieve even better results but is limited in how much space you can allocate for RAM drive. I hope this helps. - Anonymous Mike.
Thanks Mike.
Larry
When I received my Mini9 (1gb RAM, 16gb SSD, webcam) the SSD crashed. Dell said return it and they would fix it. I had already planned on upgrading so I didn't return it. I upgraded to 2gbRAM, 32gb SSD from Mydigitaldiscount. Formatted to FAT32, installed 2003 Office professional, Mcafee antivirus and some other software. Is fast and works great! I have simpletech 160gb portable drive with other software, movies etc. Mini9 is very portable, it fits in my purse!
The "SanDisk Extreme III 16GB SDHC card" is a fast card but what about the embeded SD reader?
Have you make some mesures of the embeded SD readers read and write speeds?
Thanks.
So the new ASUS EeePC 901 SSD is using Samsung flash chips, and is seeing some rather amazing 89/48 read/write performance. So why is the MDD SLC quoting 43/26. If there were a Samsung flash based upgrade for the Dell Mini 9 that could achieve that 89/48 number there would finally be an option that would kick butt over the default STEC SSDs...
..it's SSD WEEK at jkkmobile...
After reading these blogs, I have upgraded my 8GB Dell Mini - supplied in UK with 8GB SSD. I have swapped out RAM with a 2GB module. Then upgraded to 32GB SSD MLC from MDD. Formatted as NTFS - big mistake! The slowness sucked. After reading the blogs - reformatted as FAT32 and now it is brilliant. I am running full MS Office 2007 with no problems, firefox V3 and openoffice. The only poor performance is the boot time of between 90-120 seconds. Any ideas on how to speed up the boot? This seemed to get a lot slower after I installed MS Office.
:)
My Dell mini 9 has STEC 8gb, 2gb mem. and I am using XP Pro, NTFS. Here is a resource with all the tweaks I did. :
SSD Slow Freeze Stutter Problem Vista XP Outlook Solved
The problem with the Dell SSD is pretty generic and can be solved as follows:
The problems described can be fixed by following these links:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=43460
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=43525
A discussion of the technical issues as to why legacy OS like Vista, XP, and Apps like Microsoft Office cause problems with SSDs and what to do about it is here:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=42487
It is interesting to note that these issues arise with ANY commonly available SSD, including and up to fairly modern and well designed ones like the Intel X-25.
See: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=44484
While the problem in theory, do not need to occur in Linux, many distributions are optimized for HDD use, and thus, have the same problems as Vista and XP.
Basically, what is needed is to eliminate the HDD optimizations (that causes lots of small file writes like superfetch and prefetch), things like background HDD defragmentation (that causes lots of small file write drive activity), and then, to recode the OS to do things that a good SSD optimizer does like Managed File Technology (MFT) from www.easyco.com.
nice site really liked it.
Dear, have you look if it's possible to put an hard disk of 80go 1,8" into the Dell mini 9 ????
I put on linux mint and added a 32gb sd card for 30$
Why would anyone pay for the hd upgrade? Dumb!
Hi,
I am an ordinary user with a Dell Mini 9, trying to buy a SSD 32gb for my system. Which brand would be the best in terms of similar performance with the factory settings (8gb) ?
Hi,
I have my Dell mini 910 inspiron and i upgrade from 8 gb to 16gb, the bios can detect the disk i can even format but after the setup copying of files required by the windows xp. the setup did not continue, it already hang after the first reboot during setup. any help will do. thanks i'm using a Run Core 16gb. before is STEC 8gb but already spoiled.
i have dell mini 910, the disk crashes it was 16gb but the bios detect only 7gb i can't even reformat, i want to buy a new one but it is hard to buy locally i'm here in philippines.. pls give me advice thanks
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