c314-ssd?

[RussH]

I am considering putting a 32 gig ssd into my C314. Has anyone done this? What kind of performance improvement can/should I expect.

[sm8ps]

I was about to do the same and decided on an alternative (more on that below). I had been looking for a replacement of the factory installed Seagate 4200 rpm harddisk. Originally I had in mind buying a 7200 rpm Hitachi Travelstart when I observed the SSD alternative.

After some research, I recognized that there are two kinds of SSDs: MLC and SLC. To put it short, MLC is cheap and slow, SLC expensive and fast(-er). Consult the entry 'Solid-state drive' in wikipedia for an overview. SLC being too expensive and the SSD drives in rather small, I turned back to the 7200 rpm disk drives. After some more research, I realized that the disk design seems to play an equally important role.

The article on 'computerbase.de' '/forum/showthread.php?t=354706' (stitch it together for a URL for I am not aloud to post URLs) compares the Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 80GB to the Samsung SpinPoint M5P 160GB (HM160HC) (the article is in German, though the relevant information is the graphics). Surprisingly, the Samsung performs much better than the Hitachi. As far as I understand this is due to the higher density on the platter in the more recent Samsung disk.

The Samsung disk being twice as big and cheaper, I decided on buying one. I cannot wait to see how it performs. I shall post here my experience.

Cheers!
St. Müller

[sm8ps]

The upgrade went flawless. The Tablet now wakes up from hibernation noticeably faster. The response when starting software is quicker as well. So the investement was well worth the cash (~70$) and effort.

Hibernation had become critical because I had recently upgraded the memory to 2 GB. Copying that to HD seemed to take forever on the old 4200 rpm Seagate drive. Prices for 1 GB memory banks sinking lower and lower, the overall investment was less than $150 and made my Tablet ready for the next two years of fulll performance. (I use it as a desktop workhorse more than for travelling.)

Plus there is 60 GB extra space that I will use for installing some additional Linux OS.

The harddisk upgrade was performed using the following Linux based software which all can be downloaded as Live-CD versions:
o GParted for inspecting the old disk and partitioning the new one.
o PING for copying partition images of the old disk to an external HD and restoring them to the new disk.

I recall reading some folks' post somewhere that the Acer recovery partition (~2.25 GB) should not be removed so I did as advised.

Everything works just fine and I am very content with the result in performance.

Cheers!
St. Müller, Switzerland