*HP 2510p Owners Lounge*

[nando4]

Wow Jay2k1! This is impressive work and impressive results. It is great news that the ricoh cardbus chip is mostly unleashed to do it's work. Thank you for posting this for the community. Would you mind posting a pic and model number of the cardbus controller for others' to followup as EBAY links tend to disappear after a while? I wonder if it would be able to thread the sata cabling internally *without* pulling apart the machine.. perhaps just be pulling off the keyboard. I assume you still need to run a separate power lead to the sata drives?

It would be great to know how these SATA to IDE (then to ZIF) converters perform. Care to do more experiments? Dealextreme have them at really great prices. I ask because then there is a norm against which to compare solutions against. The 2nd drive caddy uses these bridge chips internally as well. Various techniques using these SATA to IDE (then ZIF) adapters are covered in another thread. Included are ways of creating a plug and play solution to the smallest & thinnest custom adapter requiring some soldering which may be able to fit into the 1.8" drive bay.

So the oyster is opening to give varying 1.8" SATA options for the 2510p users..

[Jay2k1]

Originally Posted by nando4

On the last point, it would be great to know how these SATA to IDE/ZIF converters perform. Care to do more experiments? Dealextreme have them at really great prices.

I'll try to get it from some cheap German shop, I don't like ordering in foreign shops... There's one shop that has it, costs 17 EUR. edit: I just bought one, should ship in 2-4 days...

you mean this one? I still wonder where to store it.

And I wonder how much power these disks consume :S
You know, I'm afraid to attach a 3.5" SATA disk to that SATA-ZIF-adapter because I think the notebook can't handle it...
I'll only try the 2.5" MTRON SSD...

[nando4]

Originally Posted by Jay2k1

I'll try to get it from some cheap German shop, I don't like ordering in foreign shops... There's one shop that has it, costs 17 EUR. edit: I just bought one, should ship in 2-4 days...

Am mighty curious to know performance data, especially the mtron as it's performance is closest to the 1.8" Samsung Slim SSDs on ebay. How close to the SATA native 92-98MB/s transfer rate would these SATA to PATA converters come? PATA interface is limited to 133MB/s (2510P is UDMA-5/ATA-100 so is max 100MB/s).

[Jay2k1]

Soon we shall know

Would be funny if it'd be slower than my 70MB/s w/ PCMCIA.

Anyways, no matter whether I'll be successful with my adapter or if your idea should be a working solution, I don't see a use in that for myself as I wouldn't buy an MLC SSD. I mean, IF I already walk the SSD path, I want full performance and full reliability (remember the 80%-bug with the Intel SSDs or stuttering with other MLC SSDs?). As of now, that means, I'd have to buy one of the MTRONs (which are ZIF) or one of the Samsungs (as can be seen here) which are SATA. Apparently, the Samsungs perform worse than the MTRONs while being more expensive (looking at the per-GB price), so either way, I end up buying an MTRON ZIF ssd.

[nando4]

Originally Posted by Jay2k1

Soon we shall know
Would be funny if it'd be slower than my 70MB/s w/ PCMCIA.

If this discussion is true, then I believe the SATA to PATA adapter will be faster than the PCMCIA, quoted below:

Bottomline: I bought two of these and I wasn't disappointed at all. I tested it with SiSoft Sandra on my 500GB Seagate and 640GB WD SATA hard drives. The Seagates hd read speed on SATA was 74MB/s and with the converter was 72MB/s. The WD hd read spead on SATA was 64MB/s and with the converter was 62MB/s. The write speeds were also close to the SATA speeds.

Originally Posted by Jay2k1

IF I already walk the SSD path, I want full performance and full reliability (remember the 80%-bug with the Intel SSDs or stuttering with other MLC SSDs?).

Jmicron controller with MLC SSD issue with stuttering is resolved in revision B of the chip. Also, I believe Samsung use their own controllers for their first-gen 90/70 MLC. 90/70 would be a nice upgrade.. would be interesting to see numbers of a X18-M via the SATA-PATA converter

[davepermen]

I have the mtron in the 2710p, which is the tablet version of the 2510p. The performance difference is more than amazing to that slow original hdd. get the mtron, take the old disk out and in a tiny usb-enclosure (there exists one that is sexy and tiny) and use it for big storage. works great.

though i get now a 2730p + 128gb s-ata ssd.. but it DID work great

[Jay2k1]

Originally Posted by nando4

Jmicron controller with MLC SSD issue with stuttering is resolved in revision B of the chip. http://forums.anandtech.com/messagev...readid=2270110 . Also, I believe Samsung use their own controllers for their first-gen 90/70 MLC. 90/70 would be a nice upgrade.. would be interesting to see numbers of a X18-M via the SATA PATA converter

Well, I hope so, I don't trust them yet The only SSD manufacturer that I haven't heard anything negative of yet is MTRON, so until others have proven that they can do as well or better, I'll stick with MTRON.
And it would of course be interesting to see these X18-M numbers, but you won't get them from me
The only thing I'll measure will be a hdparm -tT from linux, booted from an USB stick, of the MTRON 2.5" ssd. Why? Because a) I don't want to attach a 3.5" HDD to the notebook's ZIF port as I am afraid it could harm the notebook's electronics (draining too much power, needing 12V etc) and b) For a HD Tune bench, I'd have to format the MTRON SSD and install XP on it because it will be the only bootable medium in my notebook I could boot XP from. And that SSD is the system disk of my main computer.

In that case though, I would also do the hdparm bench with the SSD attached to the PCMCIA card so we can kinda compare the results.

[Jay2k1]

I already have the SystemRescueCD on my usb stick and I'd use that for hdparm. I can't be arsed to go through the whole TinyXP or formatting process. Of couse, I could make partimages etc, it's just that.. you know.. this is too much for me as I'll use an mtron ZIF SSD later anyway. I've already spent 50 EUR, that's 63US$, on equipment I have no use for.

I can understand the caution about the 3.5" drive. Notice with the ZIF to 3.5" adapter there is a separate Molex to run the 3.5" drive off? There is no need to connect to that, rather, could power the 3.5" drive from an independent power source, avoiding high current drain from the 2510p

I think you misunderstood. I bought the adapter that I posted a picture of, the direct zif-to-sata adapter. That one doesn't have an additional molex connector but a normal sata connector. So I can't put some extra power source there.

[Jay2k1]

For the record: the PCMCIA SATA adapter I bought is this one:


I bought it on ebay.de from a taiwanese seller named "dashop168". As can be seen a few posts earlier, I achieved 70MB/s with a 100MB/s MTRON Mobi 16GB 2.5" SSD.

[DanManTX]

Does anyone think this Transcend drive could be taken apart and used as the main hard drive?

Newegg sells it for $309 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820208464

http://www.transcendusa.com/Products...=-100&LangNo=0