Shoot Out: Intel X25-V 40GB SSD vs. WD3200BEVT HDD vs. Pretec 8GB SSD , Bonnie++ Benchmarks
We've already sold a handful of these Intel X25-V SSDs to customers and listed them on the website. V is for value and it is slower than the X25-M but still boasts a decent theoretical read speed (175MB/s), compared to the Kingston SSDNow value line that is 100MB/s. Albeit, this is alongside a very low write speed (40MB/s). The write speed would seem to be comparable to a 5400RPM hard drive and we're pitting against one our favourites the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 3200BEVT, a very quiet 320GB 2.5" drive that doesn't have the whine that Seagate laptop drives do. But its' about 20% less expensive than faster SSDs (like the ATP reviewed below) and offers 40GB of space instead of 32GB.
Update: added the 8GB Pretec SSD (actually a CF card inside a SATA enclosure) that we sell with the T1.
I installed Lucid Lynx (Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2) and bonnie++. Results are below (all in MB/s)
- Block Output on SSD: 43.735 MB/s
- Block Output on HDD: 82.322 MB/s
- Block Output on CF: 8.160 MB/s
- Rewrite on SSD: 31.022 MB/s
- Rewrite on HDD: 34.232 MB/s
- Rewrite on CF: 10.793 MB/s
- Block Input on SSD: 211.938 MB/s
- Block Input on HDD: 84.112 MB/s
- Block Input on CF: 53.330 MB/s
- Random Seeks Per Second on SSD: 3674
- Random Seeks Per Second on HDD: 162.7
- Random Seeks Per Second on CF: 2167
No surprise but Random Seeks is where SSDs just kill it - no stupid moving platters to spin up. On the other hand they are reasonably matched elsewhere and the hdd is a little more than a third of the cost. Will update shortly with our Fujitsu 40GB drive since these are the 3 we use across our product range.
ATP Solid State Drive SSD Review
We've been given two of these by our distributor (Jactron) to test out.
I've installed Ubuntu on one and just run a Bonnie++ test with the following results:
Sequential Character Output: 10.847
Block Output: 54.399
Rewrite: 33.776
Sequential Character Input: 12.489
Block Input: 167.83
Random Seeks Per Second: 3677
Fanless Atom D510 Processor in Aleutia D1 and P1 Tomorrow
We've already blogged about the D510MO Pine Trail motherboard with lower power consumption and a well thought out heatsink to keep the processor passively cooled. Unfortunately it does not work with Ubuntu out of the box - you have to flash the BIOS at least for 9.10 - but of course Aleutia does that for you before shipping it as part of our free OEM install of 9.10.
We've finished the stress testing of the board and will be offering it in our D1 and P1 starting tomorrow (soft launch tonight). Both feature much lower power consumption. With the D1 we're switching from the Compucase 8K01 case we (and lots of other UK system builders) relied on before to a new, fanless model from Taiwan that is is 2/3 the size. The 8K01 has an internal brick adapter but relies on a cheap 5cm fan to keep it cool, resulting in noise, and meaning there's just an IEC input not a DC input. Moreover, with two of the units, that noise increased over time which just isn't acceptable. Now it will be fanless and have a 19V DC input.
The P1 is still aimed at sailboats and marine customers and so has a 6-26V DC Input with a 40GB hdd or 40GB Intel X25-V SSD (nothing larger is needed for sea navigation). It will be in a wall mount case with the option of a extra Gb lan port, making it ideal as a server. We've also dropped the price £80 and will now offer Win7 with it as well.
Lenovo X100e Power Consumption, X100e UK Review
Over the years I've had both an IBM X30 and X40 Thinkpad, justly famed for their build quality and usability but small and light size. Before netbooks, the X-Series was the only 12" notebook around but that portability (and the enteprise spec within) came at a high price. The X301 (Macbook Air slimness but with an optical drive - watch their cheeky ad here) retails at £1847.
The X100e instead features a similar chassis and display, with an excellent keyboard and pointing stick, but with "netbook" internals. So instead of a Core 2 Duo there's AMD's Neo MV-40 (inexpensive like the Intel Atom but a bit better performing) and the Ati 3200 onboard graphics we have come across and used in Jetway mini-itx motherboards. Supposedly it will drive older games like Half Life 2 at a playable frame-rate but I've been unable to get Big Buck Bunny running at 1080p at least as an h.264 nor will YouTube play at 720p (even with Adobe Flash 10.1 installed for both IE and Chrome). For now I will chalk this up to user error, at least until I install Ubuntu on it using these steps, an OS I am more comfortable with.
Most netbooks have a glossy finish (fingerprint magnet) and glossy display (useless except for seeing your reflection). The X100e has a glorious matte finish throughout and a bright 1366 x 768 11.6" display, it's best feature.
There are better and more thorough reviews online, specifically this one:
http://netbooked.net/netbook-reviews/review/lenovo-thinkpad-x100e-review/
So I'm going to stop giving a general review and focus on power consumption as no one else has and it's important to really establish how netbooks stack up with nettops like Aleutia T1s.
Running off the battery, without cranking down processor and with screen at full brightness (15 on scale of 1-15) it uses 25W. But that's not with the CPU maxed out encoding a movie, but just with Chrome in background and using the Snipping tool:
Keep the brightness high but max out all the power-saving features (i.e. crank CPU down) and you're at 20W.
