Comments on: MSI Wind No Faster With SSD

By: Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:02:26 +0000

To sum up this article:

The author uses an outdated OS with a mediocre SSD and claims that an SSD on netbooks are not worth it. YAWN.

By: koitsu

koitsu — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:47:22 +0000

With regards to your SSD experience, it sounds like you made the same mistake I did with my X25-M — and the problem/concept applies to all SSDs, not just Intel or any other brand. Apparently you have to align the filesystem (partition) properly for SSDs, otherwise your speed is more or less halved.

I’ve blogged about this[1]. Note that Vista and Windows 7 don’t have this problem since their partitioning agent during OS install aligns partitions more intelligently. However, I really expect an SSD to be a drop-in replacement for a hard disk; the argument is that “Windows XP is practically 8 years old and was never intended for this”, and that’s a fair argument, but my point still stands. Partitioning the SSD requires a 2nd computer (or an already working one), and you have to know *exactly* what it is you’re doing. The guys over at the OCZ forum have documented how to do this[2], and the problem applies to all SSDs (not just OCZ and Intel).

I’d recommend you try formatting + partitioning the SSD on another machine first, then re-do your benchmarks. Also, consider getting an X25-M (I recommend from Amazon, since you can return it w/out paying shipping or restocking fees), and ensure that it has firmware version 8820 on it[3] (otherwise upgrade it to 8820; see Intel’s site). Intel initially rejected the claims of the review site (see [3]), but later revoked their statement, confirming the problem, and released f/w 8820 to fix the issue.

[1]: http://koitsu.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/my-experience-with-an-intel-x25-m-and-windows-xp/
[2]: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50376
[3]: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=669

I hope this information helps. Cheers!

By: Ed Tittel

Ed Tittel — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:55:52 +0000

Nowadays, the SSD to beat is the Intel X25-M which shows itself to blazingly fast if also outrageously expensive. Funny that spending more on the drive than the rest of the computer might make sense to some, but it actually does. If and when I lay hands on one of these bad boys I’ll follow up to post some results before and after for boot time and some of the more modest benchmarks you can actually run on a netbook (I have an Asus 1000HE).
–Ed–

By: ALi Reid

ALi Reid — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:10:49 +0000

admin: I’m a web designer, and I am definitely interested in running photoshop on this badboy! Then I can work from Starbucks and be rid of the office i spend so much to rent. bizarre but true.

By: microwiz

microwiz — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:47:04 +0000

The other thing everyone seems to be forgetting is durability – an SSD has no moving parts. I was always hesitant to drop (or even gently set) my conventional laptops into a backpack, special pocket or no, but I feel much better about doing so with an SSD-equipped machine. (Now if only my EEE 701’s keyboard weren’t so small… maybe time for an upgrade!)

By: Martin

Martin — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:55:43 +0000

One thing everyone seems to be forgetting; power consumption! An SSD surely must improve the Winds battery life compared to using an old-style HDD?

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:09:22 +0000

Great article. I was wondering if the trade off to a SSD disk will be a good choice. I don’t really care about the capacity on this things since I bought a Wd Passport of 320GB and I have plenty of space there.

I think that a faster SSD disk will OBVIOUSLY be better for the system, but at what cost? You are missing the point of the Mini-Notebooks. They are supposed to be cheap, portable and do the things most people do. Does the Wind do that? Yes. How much will it cost if it comes with an expensive SSD disk? Around 600-700, and then you are probable going to buy a full-sized notebook for that price.

I think MSI was smart on doing this. SSD are still a bit expensive if you want the same performance of a traditional spinning drive.

Any intermediate user will swap the memory and disk after a while. But I just don’t see the point right now.

I am just glad I have the chance to replace it later if I have to.

One thing I would like to see if a review of the MSI Wind running Vista, since I’ve heard XP is gone.

Regards

By: Mike Cane

Mike Cane — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:30:24 +0000

Hmmm … a LAPTOP Mag blog scandal in the making here?

1) Why didn’t Joanna Stern do this?

2) Why haven’t we read of Joanna Stern replacing her current notebook with the Wind?

This Avram guy seems sketchy to me.

Joanna, watch your back!

By: KJ

KJ — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:51:10 +0000

OK.

I’ll be looking. Previous reviews of SSD’s on latops or mobile PC’s have been sparatic (i.e. performance not consistent). Hopefully, MSI and intel have improved the chipset when using SSD performance. Hopefully, there are others like me who are curious. Do you have other atom mobo’s in house. If/when you benchmark, please try two different chipsets (i.e. intel/nvidia). Thanks!

Good work!

By: Ctitanic

Ctitanic — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:12:12 +0000

Well, to use a Sandisk SSD is not a good example. Sandisks are not the faster one in the market, they are the cheaper and long time ago the worse. But anyway… from my own tests a good SSD will perform around the same than a 7200 RPM Hitachi 2,5 HDD. In that article they are comparing Sandisk to a 5400 RPM HDD, so considering that Sandisk is not the faster then you have a logical explanation for this test.

I have to say also that almost all the UMPC and Tablet PC in the market use the 4200 RPM HDD that are super slow. The SSD are at this moment pointing mostly to this portable market that still using those 4200 RPM HDD.