[Arm-netbook] AC100 Upgrades

[Gordan Bobic]

On 07/11/2012 07:17 PM, Mike Howard wrote:
> On 11/07/2012 19:07, Gordan Bobic wrote:
>> On 07/11/2012 06:50 PM, Mike Howard wrote:
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> I upgrading my AC100 (following Gordon's tips) and rather than follow
>>> exactly the SSD tip at;
>>>
>>> http://www.altechnative.net/2012/02/07/morebetter-internal-storage-on-the-toshiba-ac100-part-2/
>>>
>>> I was wondering if this would be compatible;
>>>
>>> http://www.memoryc.co.uk/products/description/32GB_SuperTalent_IDE_Half_Mini_2_PCI_Express_SSD_Solid_State_for_Dell_Mini_9-80_40MB_read_write_/index.html
>>>
>>> Cheaper, neater and no soldering :)
>>>
>>> Anybody any idea?
>> Unfortunately not. Read the previous article in the series where this
>> issue is covered:
>>
>> http://www.altechnative.net/2012/01/24/morebetter-internal-storage-on-the-toshiba-ac100/
>>
>> The only lines wired up on the mini PCIe connector are for USB.
>> Everything else isn't connected to anything (even though the SoC
>> actually has PCIe in it, it just isn't wired up to the slot).
>>
>> That means that the only mini PCIe SSDs you can use are miniDOM-U
>> (miniDOM-U is mini PCIe form factor but USB connected) The only two such
>> devices I have been able to find are the ones mentioned in the first
>> article. The reasons why I decided against them are also detailed in
>> that article: astronomical price and performance worse than some SD
>> cards. You might as well use an internal miniPCIe-USB SD card adapter
>> (also described in that article), and use plug in something like the
>> SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s SD card:
>>
>> http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005LFT3QG/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=altechnative-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B005LFT3QG
>>
>> Full benchmark of various SD/CF/USB flash media is available in this
>> article:
>>
>> http://www.altechnative.net/2012/01/25/flash-module-benchmark-collection-sd-cards-cf-cards-usb-sticks/
>>
>> (see link at the bottm for details, and look at the bottom table there,
>> scroll down - the important figure is random-write IOPS, everything else
>> you might as well ignore).
>>
>> As far as SD cards go, the SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s card (note - there
>> are Extreme Pro cards that aren't 95MB/s ones, it seems, avoid those) is
>> by far the fastest one. It actually seems to manage random writes at the
>> same speed as a 7200rpm hard disk. You could argue this is attrocious
>> for NAND, but SD cards are really crap. That's why I went to the trouble
>> of fitting the RC8 internally - 2000 IOPS on both writes and reads make
>> a massive difference to the feel of the machine, especially when memory
>> is limited enough to impair caching ability.
>>
>> Gordan
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
> Ah, RTFM :)
>
> Thanks for the info.

Glad to help. The AC100 is a badly under-rated machine, and at least 
here in UK, it is also unbeatable value.

Gordan