Buffalo unveils 16GB and 32GB SSDs for Inspiron Mini 9
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Dec 3rd 2008 12:23PM
posted Dec 3rd 2008 12:23PM
It looks like the kids at Buffalo are hard at work making sure that all of you netbook-lovin' Engadget readers aren't stuck with the minimal storage that has plagued early adopters of the solid state drive. In addition to their recent Eee PC-compatible SSDs, the company is now offering 16GB and 32GB drives for Dell's Inspiron Mini 9. Due out sometime this month, the 16GB should set you back ¥5,300 ($57), or you can shell out ¥9,400 ($101) for the 32GB.
[Via Slashgear]
[Via Slashgear]
Anyone know the speed?
They're likely MLC, and I'd be surprised if they even came close to having a good controller like on Intel's. In short, cool, but not cool enough---yet.
Ludicrous Speed!
Speed really doesn't matter, because these are designed for netbooks. They should be a tiny bit faster than a 5400 RPM 2.5" drive, and also more power-efficient, but they're not going to be fast by any measure.
If you think speed doesn't matter, you've never used a slow SSD.
Nice! Now everything printed to the screen would be in plaid.
If the disc based hard drive makers do not want to die the way of Detroit 3 they better start investing into this SSD technology. Because Congress won't be bailing them out.
Oh no you didn't
LOL @ bail out comment
Don't worry, they don't have private jets.
Diskbased still has some like left. They still pack more storage for space and provide a very good price point.
When these SSD's start coming out with 250Gb and 500Gb models for the price of a disc based drive, then they need to start shaking in there boots.
Well, ultimately, that's what's going to happen. But, SSD technology hasn't yet reached the point where entire servers in corporate buildings are being replaced by SSD servers, so, HDD's have some time left. Considering 1TB of HDD will cost around $300 or less when purchase in mass, some companies, especially small businesses won't be upgrading right away to SSD, so HDD won't go extinct right away.
@ KBJ well that should be some time in early 2010.
ask me if id rather have a 15000 rpm disk or a SSD
go on i dare you
Hey Oli, which would you rather have?
So maybe someone here can help me out. Buffalo says this SSD upgrade is specifically for the Dell Mini 9 - they also make SSDs for the Eee. What's to keep these from working in, say, an MSI Wind? Or an HP 1000? They've all got mini PCI-E slots - won't one of these (or, say these - http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/CategoryProductList.jsp?cat=Browse+By+Brand:RunCore:RunCore+PCI+Express+Mini+PCI-e+SSDs:Dell+Inspiron+Mini+9+PCI-e+SSDs) work in any machine with an available mini PCI-E?
The drives in the Mini 9 need to be shorter than the ones for Eee Pcs. The space inside the compartment is smaller.
The Wind uses a normal SATA drive... you can just get any off the shelf SSD that is the 2.5" SATA form factor and it will work fine.
@HeyYa - thanks for the heads-up.
I've got a Dell Mini 12 coming in the mail (tomorrow!), so an SATA SSD is no-go (thanks, Poulsbo.) What I'm pondering is stuffing the operating system (Linux, naturally) on a small SSD and using the spinning disk to store media, which can power down when I'm not using it. Just trying to get compatibility issues ironed out before-hand.
Sorry Brian. I'm really not sure what the situation is with the Mini 12. I've never seen the inside of one. My comments were only in reference to the Mini 9.
So, I guess I'd just check it out when you get your 12. You may be able to stuff some of these other cards in there.
I have a Mini 9, and while it uses a mini PCIe connector for the drive, it uses the PATA protocol to connect to the disk. I thought the Mini 12 used a "regular" (as in convential platter-based) drive, but I don't know which size it is (1.8", 2.5", other) or protocol. Did you try www.mydellmini.com for more info?
The Dell Mini 12 uses a Spinpoint N2P drive from Samsung’s Ultra Mobile range, which are 1.8in 4200rpm PATA drives with an 8MB cache and a 5mm profile. They use some kind of ZIF connector (discrete pins).
I assume the Runcore 1.8-inch ZIF SSDs available from MyDigitalDiscount would work:
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/CategoryProductList.jsp?cat=Browse+By+Brand:RunCore:RunCore+1.8+inch+ZIF+SSDs
Not sure about the sex of the connector though, since I think the 1.8-inch driver market is still a bit of a wild-west.
Those seem like fairly reasonable prices - me likely
Yeah, the size and price are good-- exactly what would put SSDs in my range of consideration.. ...but until I see some solid performance from non-Intel SSDs, I think I'm going to generally stay away from them.
...then there's memristors, and the bi-yearly lithography shrink... I'll wait and see.. I very much look forward to the next few years, always something new and exciting :)
Why must always engadget post the prices in Yen? USD only please.
Uhm, is it just me or does anyone else think Engadget is a wee bit in love with netbooks?
I haven't seen a netbook that could replace my reliable, three year old 12" HP NC4000.
When Apple brings a netbook touchscreen tablet thingy out, wake me up. Thanks.
You're not looking hard enough. There are plenty of netbooks out there that deliver better battery-life, more features (wireless-N, bluetooth, webcam, etc.), and are more than pound lighter than your 12" HP. Also, they only cost $400, whereas you probably paid more than $1000 your computer was new.
I didn't think that I could do better than my 2-year old Dell XPS m1210. Then I picked up an Acer Aspire One, and I was hooked. The m1210 is undeniable more powerful (2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, etc), and is pretty small, but the Aspire One is just that much smaller and more portable, and that matters more to me.
I'm pretty happy now, especially considering I was able to sell the m1210 for more than I paid for the Aspire One.
Mike, I'll have to take a look at these things again. My only exposure has been the EEE they had at BB. Having some decent battery life would be a total plus. If I get 1 hour out of my current battery, I'm lucky.
I know what your saying. I had an old Inspiron 6400 that I was getting maybe 30 minutes of battery life out off. I got a Mini 9 and I have to say - best money I every spent. 4.5 hours of battery and the size really make it likable.
I tested my Dell Mini 9 with an episode of Top Gear (12.3, the one with Mark Walhberg and the V8 blender) that was a DivX/XviD encode. I listened to it with my Bluetooth (Jabra BT3030) headset, and after an hour it dropped to 61% battery life remaining. This is with Vista Ultimate, and WiFi was still enabled. So, I can see getting up to 4 hours of light work out of this. I've already had several 2 hour periods of installing stuff and forgetting to hook up the power cord with time to spare.
when these hit 500gig I'll be interested
Why do you need 500gig in a netbook?
Engadget can only provide us with a rough estimate of the price in USD based on the conversion rate if the companies only announce their pricing in Yen.
They could have simply posted $101 and $57 without the Yen values, but that would be misleading because the final US prices will definitely be different.
Anyone know if this ssd is mac osx friendly for the Mini to work with the sleep function?
Probably not given how slow the Buffalo SSDs for the Eees are.
Mmmm, I think I'll get buffalo wings for lunch.
And a wifi router. Yeah, definitely a wifi router...
for internet browsing I don't see how this is a bad deal? Sure it may be slow, but I'm running Ubuntu off of an 8gb Ultra II SDHC card on my MSI Wind and it's plenty fast for just being on the internet. Flash works fine too. Haven't tried out hulu yet though.
blast! I just ordered a mini 9 this week. I couldn't find any 3rd party upgrades - mydigitaldiscount appears to be sold out for the short term - so I called dell back and had them bump me up to the 8GB SSD (cost $30 or 35 I think). It hasn't shown up on my order page yet though, as my mini isn't scheduled to ship until 10 December, so maybe they will ship it with the 4GB and I will pick one of these up after the new year.
Benchmarks are:
73 MB/s read, 33 MB/s write.
http://project-r.org/cgi-bin/diarypro/archives/671.html
Same as my default 16GB SSD except a boost from 8 MB/s write -> 33 MB/s.
i would like to know if the Baffalo SSD is better then the RunCore ones. Speed/Read