[kwlug-disc] SSD Drives/desktop

[Eric Gerlach]

On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 2:23 AM, unsolicited <unsolicited at swiz.ca> wrote:
> Darcy Casselman wrote, On 10/21/2010 7:54 PM:
>>
>> I wish I had eSATA on my laptop.  That way I could put a disk image
>> file on a spinning disk and see how that compares to the XP VM I've
>> got running on the SSD on the same machine.
>
> (e)Sata should be slower. (Than SSD.) At least on reads?
>
> PCMCIA?
>
> Got an SD reader in it? e.g. Prices on 32GB have come way down, and on a
> couple of laptops I've seen, SD is much faster than anything over USB. Not
> sure of internal connections, think it's direct SATA not USB, so it may be
> faster than eSata, and perhaps approaching SSD. WAGing here.

I think you're confusing interface with storage tech.  Interfaces are
(e)SATA, USB, PCMCIA, etc.  Then you have spinning disk (HDD) vs.
solid state (SSD).  So, SSD over USB would be bottlenecked by the USB
bus.  SSD over eSATA would be as fast as if it were internal. (eSATA
is the same as SATA, except the connectors are more reliable)

SD readers can be both USB and internal.  The internal ones are nice
and fast, but the USB ones are bottlenecked by USB.

Of course, when USB 3.0 becomes common and we get near-SATA speeds,
this whole discussion is moot.

Cheers,

Eric