SONY VAIO W - Netbook - HDD to SSD upgrade benchmarks

This is the LAST in the series of posts on the SONY VAIO W.
(continuing from ope box http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=103106 and strip down http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=105177)

Benchmarking through an upgrade from the installed HDD to a SSD.

Before:
TOSHIBA MK1655GSX 160GB
SATA
8MB cache

Upgraded to: Super Talent FTM64GX25H 64GB






COMPARISON

When you look at the benchmark figures, they are rather disappointing. It is nowhere near the speeds that are advertised:

However, the figures hide something... MOST, if not all, of a user's interactive experience with Windows is driven by seek times... and with 0.2ms seek compared to 15-18ms on a 2.5" drive, the improvement is noticeable. So noticable in fact that when you launch Word, or Excel or when Explorer "interacts" with the user, the machine reacts like a shotgun. It really is amazing. Windows snap at you like you have never seen before.

Impressive.

INTERMISSION

While i am waiting for Acronis Disk Director to copy/mirror the HDD to the SDD, here is a quick mini-review of the SONY W, from a 1-month user.

1./ It has the best screen of any netbook, without doubt
2./ It has the best trackpad, completely non-stick, of any other netbook I have tried. It is as good, or better, than the Apple glasspad, except for the Apples multitouch which is nicer than the synaptics featureset
3./ It hsa one of the best keyboards in the netbook format

4./ It has the noisest netbook I have ever heard, so irritating in fact, that many many people are returning their W's. SONY is in big trouble with returns. The price on this thing will bomb, and there will be a lot of cheap "A" grade open boxes

5./ The battery life sucks. It really is only 2.5hrs.


IMO 4 is worse than 5... you can fix 5 by plugging it in. Depending on how you travel and use the machine, battery life might not be such an issue.

But 4 is unforgiveable, and it is very intrusive and enough for sleeping people to wake and complain!

Yes, the W12 is better. What is different?

1./ Bigger HD
2./ Win7
3./ Bigger battery

But the flaws are the same:
1./ Very noisey fan
2./ Poor heatsink design
3./ Faulty spacebar

On a netbook, you DONT need a big HDD. I switched my HDD for a 64GB SSD... And it is plenty. A 250HDD adds no value However, Win7 is interesting. I would have prefered that over XP. And naturally, the bigger battery is sensible. The original has silly short life.

If you want a W, get a W12. But WAIT until December when the prices will have dropped a bit. I bought my W11 6 weeks ago and it cost me EUR 450. Now they are EUR 350. That's the price for early adoption; pay more and end up with a model quickly replaced.

I installed W2k3 onto my W11 using a USB CD drive. By entering the BIOS you can tell it to boot from USB device.

When I got my SSD, i used sharkoon http://www.sharkoon.com/html/produkte/externe_gehaeuse/sata_quickport/index_en.html?id=8 to mirror the drive using Acronis. I didntwant to reinstall evrything, so I just mirrored the whole drive... then swapped them

hello WirezFree,

I have not been active here for a long time. Let me answer your questions, even though the answers might be too late for you... they might be useful for someone else

1./ I am not aware of any new BIOS. You will have to use the standard IDE ATA/ATAPI controller. This might not be a BIOS issue, but the early Atom chipset
2./ I use the regular MS SATA drivers... ICH7-M Family - 27C4... and have never had a problem. Never any bluescreen. Never any dataloss. This has been a very robust laptop... much more so that the previous (much more expensive but now old) SONY it replaced.

In an earlier comment, I said 64GB is enough SSD storage for a netbook. I would continue to maintain this view except for your usage scenario. I use my SSD card reader for uploading photos from my Nikon. I also use the netbook for syncing iTunes on the iPod touch/iPad. I also use it for my email box. I leave my main PC (workstation) free of those applications... and email stays on netbook since I travel for business and take it with me.

I upgraded the original supertalent 64GB drive to Crucial m4 128GB. There was no real "feelable" performance gain... just more storage space. Now, after a few years of email collection, and more apps in iTunes, and me syncing some key folders with my NAS (business documents), I need to upgrade to 240GB.

I have noticed the netbook get slower over the years. I think this is just windows doing its usual thing... and because there is no trim on my ssd or OS, and it is suffering from the usual fragmentation and registry cluttering. The only solution is a complete reinstall which I am avoiding due to some software I have on the machine where the licenses have now expired (but i can still use)... and of course the enormous time it takes to reinstall an OS and all applications and data.

I would also still recommend this netbook to anyone wanting a cheapie off ebay. However, the battery life is laughable now that it is a few years old.

I'm ready to upgrade to a new machine... but need SDcard reader, better resolution, matte screen, full sized cursor keys (not those silly little keys you get on so many laptops these days), and a real non-sticky trackpad. Can you believe I'd still looking?