Transcend 16GB SSD, 2.5- Inch, IDE, SLC

• Form Factor - 2.5" - Internal
• Dimensions WxDxH - 69.85 x 100.00 x 7.40 mm
• Weight - 80g
• Formatted Capacity - 16GB
• Connector -- 44-Pin standard IDE/ATA connector (Pitch 2.0 mm)

I bought this SSD for an 7 or 8 year old 'project notebook' that someone gave me a little over a year ago. I call it a 'project notebook' because it's not something that I need day to day, but it's something that I get to run Linux on that I add various improvements and tweaks over time to see what it can do. Before installing this SSD, I was running Ubuntu 9.04 on a 7200 rpm traditional hard drive with 512 MB of RAM. After installing the SSD, I decided to go with the 9.04 version of Xubuntu, and witnessed a big improvement in load times, but nothing overly dramatic. I think the PIII processor and slower bus hold the system back slightly, but I would definitely describe the system as having more "snap". AbiWord and The Gimp both open in a second or two, OpenOffice's word processor definitely opens far faster than the OS X version that I run on my Mac's (but it has always been slow to load on OS X). The only 'apples to apples' comparison that I have is that Xubuntu runs at the same or slighter faster performance than the same type of configuration running in a virtual machine on either my MacBook or XP-based Dell notebook so as far as I am concerned it has brought my 'project notebook' up to par with modern system for *basic* computing (web, email, word processing). I have not noticed any battery improvements to date, but the machine is whisper quiet at least until the fan kicks on (which is not as often).

One last note, my 'project system' is a Dell Latitude C510 which I only bring up to explain that the mounting holes on this drive are on the reverse side of traditional HDD's that I have had in this system. This is only significant if you are mounting this in a notebook that has you secure the drive to a caddy-type door as Dell and Compaq does basically the drive mounts upside down in this configuration and in my case would not make contact with the connector inside the system. I had to forgo mounting the drive to the door and just pushed the drive into the system until I could feed it make contact with the connector inside (hopefully I never need to take it out!).

Basically, if you can overlook the price and don't have needs for large amounts of space on your system, I would say that this drive was a good investment for an older system. Most older notebooks typically have 20-30 GB PATA drives in them that run at 4200 rpm, and you are likely to see a large jump in performance with this in your system if making that upgrade.

Buy Transcend 16GB SSD, 2.5- Inch, IDE, SLC Now

This is a great boot drive for an older Mac (pre-sata) like a mac mini or ibook, though I'm using it as the boot drive for my first generation macbook where it is installed in the optical bay (pata-pata caddy) as I write this review (tip: you must disable smart sleep for this configuration to work).

I bought it new and the quality is great.

Speed is OK compared to the current generation of SSDs, though it is a vast improvement over a hard disk drive and I am thoroughly pleased with how snappy my laptop has become. I have had no problems after several weeks of use. With a minor bit of application and feature trimming during OSX installation, 16GB ends up being just right for a general purpose laptop that is used mostly for email and websurfing, and at this size SLC is a must for Mac OSX since it doesn't support TRIM.

Though I have seen mixed messages regarding the need for TRIM when running OSX, the fact that this is SLC and not MLC should give great peace of mind. I have seen many, many reports of MLC SSDs run without TRIM where performance goes from blistering fast to molassas over a period of months.

While there are faster, larger SSDs out there, this is still a good value when it can be had for