Cheap PATA SSD on ebay. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: shteii01
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 12:55:42 am
content: Like this:http://www.ebay.com/itm/32GB-2-5-IDE-PATA-SSD-Replace-MK4026GAX-IBM-39T2550-39T2551-For-IBM-T40-T41-T42-/121815330490?hash=item1c5cc26eba:g:2aQAAOSw~otWf3axAnyone used one?Did it last a couple of years?I want to try it in iBook G3 (OSX 10.4), PowerBook G4 (OSX 10.5) and old Acer laptop with Xp.I know Xp does not have native support for SSD. I think there are a few workarounds for it.Does anyone have good article or blog on OSX 10.4 and 10.5 regarding SSD support?

author: kwass
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 01:44:02 am
content: I recently got a 64GB IDE/PATA drive for my ancient Gateway Win XP machine. It works fine, no special configuration needed, but since XP doens't have native TRIM support it will wear more quickly then running on a recent OS. Data transfer rates doubled from my old 5400rpm drive, random access time is infinitely faster. It makes the laptop usable again for not much money and it's only the fan noise now that can be heard.Months ago, I upgraded an old, fast, Dell WinXP desktop machine by swapping the SATA HD for an SSD. Also, no special configuration was needed. That machine really benefited from this upgrade, much more so than the IDE/PATA SSD upgrade on my Gateway.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 02:45:07 am
content: It's 4 times too big for my 486.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 02:52:29 am
content: This is suspicious IMO. Could be CF card with adapter PCB inside. Or msata/m.2 SSD is you are lucky.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 03:00:47 am
content: I would rather buy just buy such cheap adapter + SSD you can trust. Not those probably built with 3rd grade/reject NAND with tons of bad blocks, decent manufacturers won't use in their products.http://www.usbtalk.net/2009/09/nand-flash-chip-grades-explained/

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 03:23:28 am
content: I've used a couple of these Transcend 64GBhttps://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQT2LL6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 03:45:26 am
content: Quote from: DimitriP on March 29, 2017, 03:23:28 amPrice is ridiculous, though. You can buy normal (sata, msata, m.2) 240GB SSD for less. And in the end, it might be just small SSD + sata/ide adapter as well.

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 06:06:15 am
content: Quote from: wraper on March 29, 2017, 03:00:47 am+1

author: shteii01
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 08:34:07 am
content: Quote from: DimitriP on March 29, 2017, 03:23:28 amI know you mean well, but... none of my laptops are worth spending 100 USD on.

author: vealmike
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 09:47:00 am
content: Quote from: kwass on March 29, 2017, 01:44:02 amThat's not quite what TRIM does. TRIM tells the SSD that the file system is no longer using a Logical Block Address (LBA). LBAs presented to the OS by an SSD don't map directly to FLASH, there is a lookup table and the LBAs move around the FLASH as the drive gets used. This is because the FLASH gets erased a page a a time and each page will contain many LBAs.By sending a TRIM command, the drive is informed that data on an LBA is no longer required. That allows it to run "garbage collection" on that LBA in quiet time whilst the host isn't busy asking the drive for data. The "garbage collection" involves moving LBAs around on the FLASH (invisible to the host) so that FLASH pages can be erased and made ready for new data.The TRIM command won't increase wear on the drive. But it will allow the wear levelling and garbage collection algorithms to run at the time data is "deleted", rather than at the time data is written. If the drive doesn't know that the file system no longer needs data stored at an LBA, then it can't free up the space until a new write to that LBA is issued. This has a serious impact on write speed.In a SlimSATA SSD (Phison S8 controller, 32GB) running FAT32 we ran some random I/O then measured continuous write performance for a 4GB sequential write. With TRIM off during the random IO, sequential write performance over 4GB averaged around 20MB/s and actually dropped to 7MB/s in one case. Turning on TRIM saw this jump to a fairly consistent 150MB/s.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 10:03:56 am
content: Quote from: vealmike on March 29, 2017, 09:47:00 amTRIM decreases drive wear because avoids unnecessary read-erase-modify-write operations.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_amplification

author: Kevman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 12:33:12 pm
content: You can always get a compact flash card and a cheapo CF to 2.5" IDE adapter.Compact Flash has IDE on its pins so adapters are merely physical. This makes them cheap and reliable.The Sandisk Extreme 64 gig is $44 and can do 120Mbyte/second, close to the max of 133 that the final revision of PATA has. An adapter might run $9 or so.Your older devices probably don't support UDMA-133, though, so no matter what you do don't expect blistering transfer rates.

author: vealmike
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 01:55:32 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on March 29, 2017, 10:03:56 amNo it doesn't (at least not significantly). Drive wear and wear levelling are unaffected by trim. The amount of data moved around internally doesn't change,but when the data gets moved and how optimally does alter. Any benefit to life span will be teeny tiny in real terms.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 02:01:55 pm
content: Quote from: Kevman on March 29, 2017, 12:33:12 pmmsata/m.2 SSD is cheaper, faster, and most likely more reliable as CF likely will lack wear leveling. CF often will have issues, because most of them identify as removable drive. In the past I had issues to use them as replacements for small HDDs.Quote

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 02:05:38 pm
content: Quote from: vealmike on March 29, 2017, 01:55:32 pmCompletely untrue. Without trim, deleted data get moved internally. With TRIM it get discarded.QuoteYou need to move quiet a lot of garbage when wear levelling without TRIM.Quote

author: Vtile
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 02:55:22 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on March 29, 2017, 03:00:47 amI did know that consumer electronics are often shady business, but didn't know there is even known market for a trash components.

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 03:17:14 pm
content: Quote from: Vtile on March 29, 2017, 02:55:22 pmYes there are absolutely people who buy trash and try to sell it like it's the real thing. Don't buy from eBay or shady Amazon sellers and you have little to worry about though.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 03:45:53 pm
content: I think I would go with a KingSpec, even though it's a little more expensive:http://www.ebay.com/itm/32GB-KingSpec-2-5-inch-PATA-IDE-SSD-Solid-State-Disk-MLC-Flash-SM2236-Controller-/331798359824At least it's a known brand that's been reviewed etc.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 03:49:41 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on March 29, 2017, 03:00:47 amI agree! Get the adapter and buy an mSata SSD locally from a good brand (Kingston, Sandisk, etc).

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 04:02:18 pm
content: you dont need to bother about trim with an ibook or powerbook, G4 processor does not know what is a trim ...

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 04:30:08 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 29, 2017, 03:49:41 pmI disagree - all the SATA to PATA adapters I've tested have been flaky in one way or another.Quote from: kripton2035 on March 29, 2017, 04:02:18 pmIt is true that TRIM is not a big deal, but your reason is completely wrong. It's an OS function that has nothing to do with the CPU.

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2017, 04:47:17 pm
content: Quote from: edavid on March 29, 2017, 04:30:08 pmibook and powerbook are g4, thus limited to 10.4 or 10.5 mac os system, and does not know about trim for both.you need an intel processor to be able to install 10.6 and have some limited trim support with some third parties softwares.

author: shteii01
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 30, 2017, 08:17:23 am
content: A small update.I ordered KingSpec 32 GB. Was under 20 USD. Should be here in a week. I will post more when I get it.Regarding Trim. Software vs Hardware.I think both sides figured out by now that they are both right.iBook G3 uses G3 cpu. This cpu is limited to OSX 10.4.11. What software people are saying is that OSX 10.4 does not have support for Trim.PowerBook G4 has G4 cpu. This cpu is limited to OSX 10.5.8. What software people are saying is that OSX 10.5 does not have support for Trim.But. Like hardware people have said, it is the cpu that determines which OS I can run on it. Meaning that hardware determines if I am going to have OS that has Trim support built in.I am going to keep looking and see if there is third party trim option, maybe something from BSD Linux would work under OSX.If anyone comes across information about Trim software/support for OSX 10.4 and 10.5, please let me know.

author: Neganur
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 30, 2017, 11:01:49 am
content: I don't know too much about the OS you use but there was a manual trimming tool for Windows XP. Perhaps something like that exists for yours too?

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 30, 2017, 11:43:52 am
content: Quote from: Kevman on March 29, 2017, 12:33:12 pmCFs are absolutely useless as an SSD alternative, even with all the UDMA133 goodies.Yes they will be fast on large bulk transfers like when they're used in a camera but the lack of buffering leads to appallingly slow random accesses, especially for writes.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 30, 2017, 11:57:23 am
content: Quote from: suicidaleggroll on March 29, 2017, 03:17:14 pmIf 30-40% of the blocks are unusable, that means the other 60-70% still are... the real problem is with those who assemble flash drives and oversize the capacity or don't scan and mark bad blocks first:https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2946Quote from: Kilrah on March 30, 2017, 11:43:52 amYou have it the wrong way around. They are still going to be much faster at seeking than a spinning-platter disk. Even a slow CF card will have seek times <1ms, even if sequential reads are slower than a spinning disk.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 30, 2017, 12:33:53 pm
content: Quote from: amyk on March 30, 2017, 11:57:23 amHaving done it in the past I can tell you it's dead wrong. Again reads are okay but writes are EXTREMELY slow. Since there are always writes happening they bring down performance for reads happening inbetween too.

author: macboy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 30, 2017, 06:54:12 pm
content: Quote from: Kilrah on March 30, 2017, 12:33:53 pm+1 been there, done that. I had thought it would be super fast, but the reality was very different.Besides that, the card usually will die in relatively short order due to excessive write cycles.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 30, 2017, 07:35:25 pm
content: When running from an SSD you really need to disable the swap. Memory is so cheap nowadays that you don't need swap anyway and by the time you have a significant amount of memory in swap your computer will effectively be halted.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 30, 2017, 07:38:52 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 30, 2017, 07:35:25 pmThat does not sound like a system with a large amount of RAM to do so.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 30, 2017, 08:25:25 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 30, 2017, 07:35:25 pmThat makes no sense. If anything swap makes a lot more sense nowadays with fast random access SSDs than it did with slow HDDs.Still better to do without, of course it's still taxing when used, but much less than it used to.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 30, 2017, 09:06:35 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 30, 2017, 07:35:25 pmThis thread is about PATA SSDs. Computers that are old enough to use PATA drives are often limited to 1-2GB max RAM.(Not that I would agree with you anyway.)

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 31, 2017, 12:14:58 pm
content: Quote from: macboy on March 30, 2017, 06:54:12 pmI've had the opposite experience. Of course, I disabled swap and made sure that the OS was not doing any other unnecessary disk accesses. There's also the fact that CF/SD cards vary a lot in performance.