[HH] Alternatives to SSDs for laptops?

[Shankar Viswanathan]

On Mon, Aug 05, 2013 at 11:23:37AM -0400, Bill Bogstad 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

I had a circa 2002 laptop with a similarly slow PATA drive. I had upgraded to a newer laptop but was still using this old laptop as an email/IM/browser station in the kitchen. One day the disk started showing error messages and it eventually died completely (sometime in 2008). I didn't want to spend a lot to get a new drive, but found an easier solution. I got a CompactFlash -> PATA HDD adapter from Newegg that was specifically designed for internal laptop drives. I don't remember the exact product name, but it was something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812186050

I think I paid approx. $20 for it back then. I then used it with a 512MB CompctFlash card that I had lying around and installed Puppy Linux on it. Worked fine for a few more years till we eventually got an Android tablet to take over those functions. I didn't run any benchmarks to compare performance, but it did seem to be a wee bit snappier.

-Shankar