Cheap PATA SSD on ebay.

[shteii01]

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~otWf3ax

Anyone 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?

[kwass]

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.

[Ampera]

It's 4 times too big for my 486.

[wraper]

This is suspicious IMO. Could be CF card with adapter PCB inside. Or msata/m.2 SSD is you are lucky.

[wraper]

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/

[DimitriP]

I've used a couple of these Transcend 64GB

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQT2LL6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[wraper]

I've used a couple of these Transcend 64GB

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQT2LL6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Price 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.

[kripton2035]

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/

+1

[shteii01]

I've used a couple of these Transcend 64GB

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQT2LL6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I know you mean well, but...  none of my laptops are worth spending 100 USD on.

[vealmike]

but since XP doens't have native TRIM support it will wear more quickly then running on a recent OS.

That'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.

[wraper]

but since XP doens't have native TRIM support it will wear more quickly then running on a recent OS.

That'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.

TRIM decreases drive wear because avoids unnecessary read-erase-modify-write operations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_amplification

[Kevman]

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.

[vealmike]

but since XP doens't have native TRIM support it will wear more quickly then running on a recent OS.

That'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.

TRIM decreases drive wear because avoids unnecessary read-erase-modify-write operations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_amplification

No 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.

[wraper]

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.

msata/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.

As you should know Compact Flash's IO interface looks pretty the same like IDE. In fact it is pin compatible and you can replace IDE devices by CF cards without the driver noticing. Well, there is one problem: CF devices export a bit identifying them as either fixed disk (HDD mode) or removable device (like in USB card readers). Microsoft Windows cannot install to removable devices (but boot from them without problems—no comment) and thus refuses to work with CF cards with the removable bit.

[wraper]

No 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.

Completely untrue. Without trim, deleted data get moved internally. With TRIM it get discarded.

TRIM command for SATA or UNMAP for SCSI   These commands must be sent by the operating system (OS) which tells the storage device which sectors contain invalid data. SSDs consuming these commands can then reclaim the pages containing these sectors as free space when the blocks containing these pages are erased instead of copying the invalid data to clean pages.

You need to move quiet a lot of garbage when wear levelling without TRIM.

NAND-flash pages and blocks
Cells are grouped into a grid, called a block, and blocks are grouped into planes. The smallest unit through which a block can be read or written is a page. Pages cannot be erased individually, only whole blocks can be erased. The size of a NAND-flash page size can vary, and most drive have pages of size 2 KB, 4 KB, 8 KB or 16 KB. Most SSDs have blocks of 128 or 256 pages, which means that the size of a block can vary between 256 KB and 4 MB. For example, the Samsung SSD 840 EVO has blocks of size 2048 KB, and each block contains 256 pages of 8 KB each. The way pages and blocks can be accessed is covered in details in Section 3.1.

[Vtile]

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/

I did know that consumer electronics are often shady business, but didn't know there is even known market for a trash components. 

[suicidaleggroll]

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/

I did know that consumer electronics are often shady business, but didn't know there is even known market for a trash components. 

Yes 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.

[edavid]

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-/331798359824

At least it's a known brand that's been reviewed etc.

[nctnico]

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.

I agree! Get the adapter and buy an mSata SSD locally from a good brand (Kingston, Sandisk, etc).

[kripton2035]

you dont need to bother about trim with an ibook or powerbook, G4 processor does not know what is a trim ...

[edavid]

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.

I agree! Get the adapter and buy an mSata SSD locally from a good brand (Kingston, Sandisk, etc).

I disagree - all the SATA to PATA adapters I've tested have been flaky in one way or another.

you dont need to bother about trim with an ibook or powerbook, G4 processor does not know what is a trim ...

It 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.

[kripton2035]

you dont need to bother about trim with an ibook or powerbook, G4 processor does not know what is a trim ...

It 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.

ibook 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.

[shteii01]

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.

[Neganur]

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?

[Kilrah]

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.

CFs 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.