Runcore netbook SSDs offer speed on the cheap

Jealous your almost instantly-obsolete Eee PC doesn't have that speedy new SSD with integrated controller ASUS is using in newer models? Well, Runcore's got you covered -- it's just launched a line of MLC SSDs with similar integrated controllers that offer 70Mbps read and 50Mbps write speeds. Even better, they're pretty damn cheap: just $70 for 16GB, $199 for 64GB, and a slightly less cheap $389 for 128GB. Sadly, they're mini-PCIe, so you probably can't go sticking them in your daily driver machine for a little speed boost, but you can't have it all, Chico.

[FLaSHBaCK @ Nov 19th 2008 8:49PM]

Noyce.

[nerdtalker @ Nov 19th 2008 8:58PM]

Nice, but MLC not nearly as good as SLC. There's a huge huge huge difference there in terms of speed, and it's the reason why one is much cheaper than the other.

[FLaSHBaCK @ Nov 19th 2008 9:04PM]

Still its a cheaper and faster alternative to a regular hard drive.

[nerdtalker @ Nov 19th 2008 9:09PM]

No doubts there. I certainly think this is more of something which is overwhelmingly good. I want an SSD in each of my notebooks, standard.

The rugged nature of SSDs alone is enough of a selling point.

[Tired_ @ Nov 19th 2008 9:24PM]

Not always, apparently. This one is much faster than comparable SLC mini-pcie SSDs. It's even faster than the onboard SSD in my Eee PC, which is SLC from last year.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Nov 19th 2008 10:06PM]

@FLaSHBaCK

Currently, you can get a 1TB hard drive for $100. So how is a $199 64GB SSD cheaper?

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Nov 19th 2008 10:24PM]

Currently, HDDs still have what it takes for high performance and can be faster than MOST SSDs.

160MB/s for a single drive
http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/hard_drives/SAS/seagate/cheetah15K.6_450gb/p3.asp

[Joshua Ochs @ Nov 19th 2008 10:26PM]

@nerdtalker

Normally you'd be right, but you clearly didn't check the benchmarks on this. This is currently the fastest drive you can put in an Eee. Last week, a 32GB SLC SSD for the Eee would run you $329 and get about 50/25 (MB R/W) speeds. An MLC version would run $89 and get about 40/10. This gets 70/55, and costs $109.

Obviously, there are faster things available for 2.5" or 1.8" form factor, but the point is we're now seeing SLC speed (and better) at an MLC price. For similar drives, check out what Intel is doing with their X-18 and X-25 SSD's.

[Joshua Ochs @ Nov 19th 2008 10:28PM]

@CAPS

Um, SCSI320 goes faster still, and there are always enterprise technologies like fibre channel and such. However, if you then also look at enterprise SSD's, you can get just as competitive. It's all a matter of the market and what you want to spend.

SSD's will completely replace hard drives on the consumer level within 2 years, enterprise in 5 years. Placing bets now.

[RoboDan @ Nov 19th 2008 11:07PM]

I'd like to see a 64GB x2 PCIe RAID0 for my System "partition"
As well as a 512GB x2 SATA RAID0 for my Data

Why? Cause I'm a data-protection junkie.

[Randy @ Nov 20th 2008 4:08PM]

@ RoboDan:

Um, RAID 0 gives no protection. One disk dies, you lose all the data. I thing you meant RAID 1 or 0+1.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:39AM]

Josh, you just don't know anything about SCSI do you?

[digitallysick @ Nov 19th 2008 9:05PM]

Rip off

Newegg has 64gb SSD with better read/write speeds for $150.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231220

[digitallysick @ Nov 19th 2008 9:08PM]

Oh i just noticed they were mini-PCIe ?? guess thats why they cost more than a Sata II, so , ignore my comment

[jason @ Nov 19th 2008 9:12PM]

even better yet -- why bother with a 50 mbps handicap eeek thats slow
get the patriot ssd 32 gig for around around 150$
150 plus mbps read speed -- ah hem -

[Fanfoot @ Nov 20th 2008 1:02PM]

Dude, that's a 2.5" SATA hard drive. This is a 7cm long one sided mini PCIe card. Its the size of a business card. Those are different things. That Patriot hard drive won't fit in many netbooks...

[crushnrushn @ Nov 19th 2008 9:22PM]

Will this fit in a HP Mini 1000?

[decapitor @ Nov 19th 2008 9:46PM]

I don't think so cause mini 1000 needs a 1.8 inch pata drive. The closest thing I could find was this:
http://rocketdisk.com/product_info.php?cPath=1&products_id=82&osCsid=16ac475719095a79250225ec53651561
which has 100Mbps reads and writes. But if you look at the exact dimensions listed in the HP manual and the Mtron manual they are slightly different. I assume that it will fit and that HP has some kind of tray that the different sized HDDs fit into because on the Mini 1000 the 3 drive options all have slightly different dimensions, even between the 8GB and 16GB SSDs. Sorry if this is way too specific but if you own a mini 1000 like me you've probably been looking and I need as many people in on this search as I can find.

[iEye @ Nov 19th 2008 9:22PM]

Don't worry, the day when we will see 16GB SSD on Deal Extreme for $20 is not far away.

[jason @ Nov 19th 2008 9:27PM]

i agree

[scott @ Nov 19th 2008 9:43PM]

wurd

[Cheng @ Nov 19th 2008 9:44PM]

And on that day I'll be ready to order a bunch. DealExtreme.com is a awesome web store :)

SSD is the way to go, conventional hard drives are quickly turning into obsolete technology and I'm fairly certain that within the next five years SSD will have a higher sales volume than conventional hard drives.

[jkkmobile @ Nov 19th 2008 9:38PM]

test

[Nick K. @ Nov 19th 2008 10:18PM]

Quiz.

[Mike @ Nov 19th 2008 10:38PM]

notebook check!



you all fail.

[theproc64 @ Nov 19th 2008 10:36PM]

My dell d620 has an extra mini pcie slot for a wwan card. I really want an ssd for the reliability since I ride my bike with my laptop a lot. Will this work in that out of the box?

[Fanfoot @ Nov 20th 2008 1:04PM]

Probably not. Most of the "PCIe" slots use different pinouts. The Dell Mini 9 for example has three such slots--one for SSD (wired for PATA hard disk), one for WWAN, and one for WLAN. All of them have different pinouts.

The Runcore drives come in two versions, one for the Dell Mini 9s (5 cm long, PATA interface), and one for the Eees (7cm long, SATA interface).

This whole thing is a little messed up right now.

[Matchoo @ Nov 19th 2008 11:00PM]

I think we are missing the biggest point here this drive speeds the computer up by a factor of 6 times. Toys R us is selling the 900A with cheep 4GB SSD for only $269 adding a 64GB RunCore SSD only makes the investment around $469. We are talking mini power computer for $469 with 64GB of space. It could run Vista and all its goodies all day long. These once powerless toys can now be used by much more demanding users. That is unheard of in this industry. Usually small gains are made with simple plug and play upgrades. Also did you catch the retail version will have a USB master and Slave on it. The slave can be used to easily clone your current drive. Then the master can have cool things like wireless mouse receiver, touch screen, GPS, G3 internet, USB drive, and much more hooked up internally instead of hanging off the USB port.

Don't know about yall but those 2 parts are on my Christmas list now.

[kc @ Nov 19th 2008 11:14PM]

Mbps or MBps?

[Joshua Ochs @ Nov 19th 2008 11:20PM]

You're right - MBps. Engadget needs to update the story.

[oliver hart @ Nov 20th 2008 1:24AM]

Maybe the world Chico. Nobody else got the Scarface reference? I thought it was gangbusters.

[dannyry @ Nov 20th 2008 3:18AM]

Where can I buy this? And when does it go on sale? I see nothing online about this even coming anytime soon.

And one question, does anyone know if this can go into that extra 901 pci-e slot (unless I'm misinformed), or can I ditch the 16 gb ssd in there already for this one?

[Fanfoot @ Nov 20th 2008 1:07PM]

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/CategoryProductList.jsp?cat=Browse+By+Brand%3ARunCore%3ARunCore+PCI+Express+Mini+PCI-e+SSDs%3ADell+Inspiron+Mini+9+PCI-e+SSDs

for the Dell Mini 9 version. Dig around for the Eee version, I think its on their front page.

[Adam Zey @ Nov 20th 2008 7:41AM]

Why? The mini-PCIe slot is almost always used up by the wireless card in notebooks.

Putting this thing into a ExpressCard that doesn't protrude from the notebook would have been far more useful, as many (most?) notebooks feature ExpressCard ports. Plus, the 250MB/s transfer rates are more than sufficient for most SSDs.

[Fanfoot @ Nov 20th 2008 1:08PM]

True for notebooks. For those you'd want a 2.5" SATA SSD. But for netbooks like the Eee and the Dell Mini 9 and others there is no 2.5" slot. Instead they offer a PCIe slot that has a PATA or SATA pinout, and support SSDs that plug into that.

[keland44 @ Nov 20th 2008 12:35PM]

where do we get them that's not a bad price for 16gb's be great for a carputer setup

[LondonConsultant @ Nov 20th 2008 2:25PM]

16GB 70/50 for $70 is netbook heaven...

[Luckydog @ Feb 3rd 2009 1:09PM]

I originally bought the 4Gig Asus (701), which I was quite happy with- until I saw the bigger screen on the 20Gig/XP (900), and bought one, thinking it was bigger and better- Wrong! It was so damned slow I was ready to sell it. It kept choking trying to open web pages, etc. I just got done cloning and installing a 16Gig Runcore SSD (less that 2 hours start to finish) and It's great! It runs like I'd expected the Asus to run from the start! I'm actually feeling so much happier now- downright giddy even!

[Mel @ Feb 8th 2009 12:14PM]

I bought a Runcore 64GB SSD from MyDigitalDiscount (ebay, using MS Live Search Cashback) for $219 (and got $66 cashback)

I waited 3 weeks because of customs delays, but it was well worth the wait and the money. The Runcore runs much smoother than the 16GB STEC drive that came with my Dell Mini9. I did also upgrade the RAM to 2GB for about $25.

Potentially, you could get a Mini9 for $200 (refurb, discount coupon) and spend no more than $250 to upgrade RAM and SSD. For well under $500, you have a very useable PC weighing 2.5 pounds that you can carry everywhere. Because it is dead silent (no fans or HDD), you can mute it and boot up in meetings or libraries without distracting others.

I seldom use my other PC anymore.