Upgrading to SSD

[Guest]

[MyAlterEgoHamish]

I'm looking to upgrade my OQO drive to an SSD drive.  I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on doing that.  What to watch out for besides the voiding of warranty.  If drive has to be ZIF or if a converter would work.  Also where do I get one at the best price of course.  I would be fine going down as low as 16GB but 32 would be ideal.   Help would be greatly appreciated.

[Caleymac]

http://www.oqotalk.com/index.php/topic,1008.0.html

[stuartguthrie]

I'm all for SSDs but can I ask what you're hoping to gain from the upgrade? Do the benefits outweigh the costs (both loss of capacity and $s)? Don't get me wrong I do like the SSDs but will be keeping my 80GB HDD until I upgrade to an 03 or the hard drive dies. IMO 16GBs probably would not be enough room to comfortably store Windows, my applications and my every day data (I'd probably even be hard pressed with only 32).

Not meaning to be rude, just sharing my two cents worth.

Stu 

[Caleymac]

If you can live within the 32GB, which is not too hard unless you have to store music and videos, you'll get:

1. about 15% better performance
2. about 15% better battery life
3. less heat = less time spent listening to the "jet engine like" cooling fan
4. no moving parts, no concern of hard drive head crashes, so you can drop the oqo in your briefcase before it completely shuts down, or use it on an airplane even during turbulence.
5. an 80GB backup drive

What you give:

1. $500 or so
2. 45GB

[edelson9]

Has anyone upgraded to SSD 64? Is this possible?

[MyAlterEgoHamish]

I'm all for SSDs but can I ask what you're hoping to gain from the upgrade? Do the benefits outweigh the costs (both loss of capacity and $s)? Don't get me wrong I do like the SSDs but will be keeping my 80GB HDD until I upgrade to an 03 or the hard drive dies. IMO 16GBs probably would not be enough room to comfortably store Windows, my applications and my every day data (I'd probably even be hard pressed with only 32).

Not meaning to be rude, just sharing my two cents worth.

Stu 

Right now I run the lowest end OQO2 and I use 8GB worth of space in a 40GB drive, so I am no to concerned with the capacity issue.  I want to see a bump up in the responsiveness to applications.  I want to see a a reduction in the time the device comes out of hibernate.  Swap space is used frequently because I am limited in RAM and I want to see a quicker response in reads from the disk there.  And from what I have been reading in others who have compared the HDD to SSD it seems to vary in the range of 15-30% bump in overall performance.  Oh yea and battery would be nice to but since I have two standards, that's not as big of a deal.

[stuartguthrie]

If you can live within the 32GB, which is not too hard unless you have to store music and videos, you'll get:

1. about 15% better performance
2. about 15% better battery life
3. less heat = less time spent listening to the "jet engine like" cooling fan
4. no moving parts, no concern of hard drive head crashes, so you can drop the oqo in your briefcase before it completely shuts down, or use it on an airplane even during turbulence.
5. an 80GB backup drive

What you give:

1. $500 or so
2. 45GB

Don't get me wrong I'm all for SSDs and what they offer and my future OQOs will certainly have them in, but for me at this present time the cost of giving up the storage space wouldn't be worth it. My OQO holds my entire iTunes library, my T.V. shows and goodness knows how many photos.

One quick question, should we not use our OQOs when on a plane during turbulence? If not, why? It's probably a stupid question but I'm only 23 - lol.

Stu

[Caleymac]

A number of years ago I had a hard disk go bad right after using the notebook on a very bumpy plane ride.  Maybe it was a fluke, maybe they've improved...but it's one less thing to worry about, even though I always do an extra backup prior to traveling.

[stuartguthrie]

A number of years ago I had a hard disk go bad right after using the notebook on a very bumpy plane ride.  Maybe it was a fluke, maybe they've improved...but it's one less thing to worry about, even though I always do an extra backup prior to traveling.

Ouch!!! Hopefully it was under warranty.

Stu