We’ve all seen the SSD upgrades for various netbooks from various companies, such as Active Media and RunCore. The companies specify which netbooks the SSDs will work on as currently, different netbooks have different connectors. At the Intel Developer Forum in San Franciso, the SATA International Organization have announced the release of a standard connector named mini-SATA, or mSATA which uses the Mini PCI Express connector. This will only be applied to SSDs up to 64GB, while higher capacity SSDs will still be designed in either 1.8 or 2.5 inch formats.

Hp, Lenovo, Dell, Samsung and STEC are behind the change. Toshiba are also backing the change and have already announced two mSATA SSDs in 30GB or 62GB models.

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Nope, the Sabertooth Z PATA ZIP SSD is not a new character in the next X-Men movie.  It’s Active Media’s branding for its latest SSD upgrade options specifically geared for your HP Mini 1000 series netbooks.

This 1.8-inch PATA ZIF SSD offers up to 82MB/sec transfer speed according to Active Media. It comes in 16GB and 32GB capacity and is being touted to be capable of doubling the transfer speeds of ordinary SSDs. The SSD is also easy to install.

Measuring only 54 x 32 mm, the PATA ZIF SSD uses PATA/IDE interface and a ZIF connector and supports other HP Mini netbooks as well including the HP Mini 1000, 1010NR, 1030NR and 2510P.

In addition, this SSD is also capable of writing at the same 82mbps/sec speed.

The PATA ZIF SSD is available now at Amazon. The 16GB SSD goes for $70 while the 32GB will set you back for $110.

Via Active Media

SSD producers, Active Media, have a range of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB SSDs that fit many netbook models. The company have created a video guides on how users can upgrade their SSD. The company has focused on showing how to do the procedure on the Asus Eee PC 901 and the Dell Inspirion Mini 9.

In the videos, the company shows how to open the netbooks to get to the SSD card and replace it. Unfortunately, instructions aren’t included for how to backup your data on to the new SSD and so you may need to re-install the OS along with backing up your files before hand and then moving them onto the new SSD.
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According to a press release from OCZ Technology, the company is to release a series of Mini PCI-Express solid state drives to their lineup which are specifically designed for use in netbooks.

The new drives will be available in both a SATA interface and a PATA interface configuration and there will be a 16 GB and a 32 GB model in each. Speeds for the PATA version of the SSD will be read: 45mb/sec, write: 35mb/sec and for the SATA version speeds will be read: 110mb/sec, write: 51mb/sec.

From the press release:

We have developed this small form factor SSD product to ensure we are covering as many end-user solid state storage needs as possible,” commented Ryan Edwards, Director of Product Management at the OCZ technology Group. “With the addition of the Mini PCI-Express series to our SSD line-up, OCZ is enabling those owners of compatible UMPC and Netbook solutions to experience the quieter, cooler, and more durable alternative to traditional notebook hard drives.

Pricing for the two new solid state drives is yet to be confirmed by OCZ.

Old netbook models are inevitably going to drop in prices, and this is currently the case in Taiwan, albeit it’s not because of the typical reason one might expect. Instead of dropping prices for their netbooks solely due to the increasing number of new models and reduced component cost, both Asus and Acer are issuing price cuts for their SSD-based netbooks because of their built-in SSDs. SSD adoption isn’t as hot as it used to anymore, and the hard drive remains the premier choice for large and affordable storage on netbooks. Due to this price drop, the Acer Aspire One with 8GB SSD costs only $202 USD while the 20GB SSD-equipped Asus Eee PC 701 goes for $260.

Via Electronic Pulp

The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 can now be purchased in two new configurations. The new options allows buyers to order a Mini 9 running Ubuntu with 2GB of RAM or with a 64GB SSD installed.

The cost of the new 2GB option will be an extra $75 on the regular price of a Mini 9 and the 64GB SSD configuration will set you back an extra $150.  The pricing seems a little high and as Portable Monkey point out, if you are able to do the job yourself, its possible to add the extra RAM for less than $75.

There are restrictions on the Windows XP versions of the netbook that mean it isn’t possible for Dell to sell a unit with any more than 1GB RAM installed and no higher than a 16GB SSD or 160GB HDD installed either hence, no extra goodies for the Windows versions of the Mini 9.

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RunCore have announced that their new SSD line up is now ready for shipping.

The “Low Cost Zif PATA” 1.8 inch SSD range includes a 16GB, a 32GB,a 64GB, and 128GB units and the cost of each unit, respectively is $69.99, $119.99, $199.99 and $389.99 for the 128GB SSD. Considering the possible performance of these drives, the price would seem reasonable.

In February the 2.5 inch 256GB Pro III Hyper Speed SATA SSD will be available too and will cost a whopping $699.99, not as low cost as the Zif PATA range, clearly but, with decent read and write rates of 230MB/sec and 150MB/sec, the price could be forgiven.

Jkkmobile have the drives in for testing so more news on performance will be on the way.

A report has been released by DRAMeXchange which highlights the use of SSD memory, or rather the lack of. Since the beginning of the year, more and more netbooks have opted to use HDDs instead of SSDs when it comes to storage. The start of the year saw 70% of netbooks released coming equipped with SSD, with Q2 of 2008 lowering that percentage down to 66. At the end of Q3, this figure was more than halved and now sees 30% of netbooks using SSD.

It’s predicted that this trend will continue, with the end of Q4 estimated to see 20% of netbooks having SSDs while next year, it could be as low as just 8%. An analysis puts some facts on these statistics, and it’s largely to do with the price of SSDs over HDDs. Netbooks which include SSD tend to increase the price of the netbook as SSDs are more expensive to produce. The more expensive price tag also doesn’t give you more storage space, but rather decreases it.

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Buffalo Technology are the latest manufacturer to jump into the booming netbook components market by producing a 16GB and a 32GB SSD for the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook to accompany their recently announced 32GB and 64GB Eee PC SSD’s.

The official product page for the “after-market” drives, states that the 16GB SSD will be priced at 4,800 Yen (around $52 US, although on the announcement page the price is stated as 5,300 Yen which is around $57 US) and that the 32GB solid state drive will cost 9,400 Yen, approximately $101 US). That’s around the same price that Dell charge for the 32GB SSD upgrade when you purchase a Mini 9 from them now, so Buffalo are presumably aiming their product at current owners of the Dell netbook that wish to boost their Mini 9’s storage capacity.

Both drives are available from early this month, in Japan. There is no news on whether Buffalo will roll the SSD’s out to the rest of the world as yet.

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Japanese company Green House is releasing two new high-capacity SSDs made specifically for the Eee PC. The new Green House SSDs boasts of a 32GB and 64GB storage capacity. That would give our Eee PC’s a big storage boost enough to run Windows Vista, right? The SSDs are capable of 32MB/s reading speed and 15MB/s writing mode.

Unfortunately, the SSDs are currently available only in Japan. If you have immediate plans of going there and wish to get the SSDs, be prepared to shell out around $143 and $292. That’s of course assuming that you know a little bit of soldering works so that you can install the SSDs to your Eee PCs by yourself.

Via Akihabara News