[HH] Alternatives to SSDs for laptops?

[Jon Evans]

Having gone down this path before, my humble opinion is that you should
just bite the bullet and upgrade to SSD, at least in the machine with SATA.
 You can put the 640GB drive in an external enclosure and use a much
smaller SSD -- the performance improvement is definitely worth the hassle
to me (I actually use a NAS instead of an external hard drive, but either
way...)

For the other machine, your options are more limited.  There are 1.8" PATA
SSDs out there, which may work depending on what electrical interface your
machine has (what make/model is it?)
http://www.amazon.com/RunCore-Solid-State-Drive-Macbook/dp/B004A8UNSC/ref=pd_cp_pc_1

Or if you really want to get hacky, I found this thread...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-components-aftermarket-upgrades/356421-those-slow-1-8-pata-drives-wanting-sata.html


On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Bill Bogstad <bogstad at pobox.com> wrote:

> I'm looking for some suggestions on ways to get the benefits of an SSD
> without doing  a full disk replacement in a laptop.  I have two
> configuration that I would like to improve.   Both have Core 2 Duo
> CPUs with maxed ram (2-4 Gig) which is reasonable for their typical
> usage.
>
> One of them has a really slow (4200 RPM) 1.8" PATA drive and generally
> runs Windows.  I have had no luck in finding reasonably priced SSDs
> for that form factor so I'm looking for alternatives.   My first try
> was to make use of the built-in SD slot with Microsoft's ReadyBoost
> software.   It does work (and helps).   Unfortunately, it seems like
> the SD card is via an incredibly slow interface (USB? maybe) and no
> matter what SD card I put into it, it does something like 5 MByte/sec.
> on reads.
>
> The other machine has a large (640 gig) SATA drive which is 90% full,
> runs Linux, and for economic reasons isn't going to be replaced with a
> SATA SSD (and no SD card slot).
>
> Both machines, however, have CardBus slots.   Given that CardBus is
> essentially a 32bit PCI bus connection, that means theoretically up to
> 132 Mbytes/sec.   Can anybody suggest a CardBus solution to access
> flash-based storage?   (Perhaps a SD or CompactFlash adapter?)
>
> I've looked around and haven't been able to find anything.   I have
> found a PCMCIA adapter which lets you plug CompactFlash cards into a
> CardBus slot.   This works because CompactFlash is 16 bit PCMCIA
> compatible with a simple adapter.   My testing seems to indicate that
> this is much too slow to be of any practical use.
>
> I'm hoping for a CardBus adapter card in the $30-$60 dollar range into
> which I can plug my own storage (SD or CompactFlash).
>
> Suggestions?
>
> Thanks,
> Bill Bogstad
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