Cheap and cheerful SSD for low power netbook?

[Nezbert]

Tite says it all. I'd like to spend around £20 on my MSI Wind U180 to improve sluggish performance.

It's an old Atom CPU, so there's no need to fit a decent SSD: just a cheap 32GB eBay one will hopefully get Lubuntu booting and browsing much quicker.

I've already upgraded the RAM to 2GB max so I can't get any more gains there.

Are the cheap FASTDISK ones on eBay any good, or would I be better off splashing out a bit more on a 64GB Sandisk one?

[Tyrannosaur]

I would always go for the more known manufacturer if it's in your price range. Much better warranty and support if things going wrong usually.

Buy cheap buy twice and all that.

[spolsh]

Specifications


Sustained Read : 90B/S
Sustained Write:70MB/S

If those specs are right, it's slower than many usb pendrives.

[abaxas]

Random read/write is more important that sequential read/write.

[scaryjim]

Random read/write is more important that sequential read/write.

This. I run Windows to Go off a USB 2 microsd card reader. Sustained sequential read/write means nothing for an OS drive.

I've not messed with Lubuntu much so don't know how much storage it likes ... I'd personally be a little wary of 32GB for a laptop: it feels on the low side, but I know there are OSes out there that will sit happily on far less...

[Nezbert]

Lubuntu's ace. It's really light on system requirements and does everything that Ubuntu does without the flashy desktop. It comes with a minimal suite of software and you just add your own stuff from the Lubuntu software centre. It would fit on a 32GB drive so long as you're not planning on keeping videos or a music library on there.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. I'm gonna go with a basic SanDisk SSD as has been said that these cheaply manufactured ones are probably a waste of money.

Cheers!

[Bonebreaker777]

Transcend SSD 370 32GB for £25.50.

Or Patriot Blaze 64GB for under £30.

[nicktids]

I stuck a 128gb ssd in the original hp mini 311 and saw next to no improvements in speed or usage the bottle neck was the processor.

[shaithis]

Put a crucial MX100 in my brother netbook last week, he's loving it (Its one of the HP AMD APU touch screen jobbies)

Seen the 128GB for ~40ukp

[m47een]

The cheap Sandisk drives from Scan are supposed to be quite good.

[Bonebreaker777]

If the are the X110 or X300, then yes. They are very good indeed (bought, installed, tested, compared against Crucial MX100 same size).

[Nezbert]

Thanks. I'll look at getting one of those models.