Super Talent SATA II Mini 2 PCIe MLC 64GB SSD

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

I picked up my ASUS Eee PC 900 for around $150 a few months ago with the intent to use it as a travel PC so I wouldnt have to haul my 17 notebook around. It was meant to be a way to check email on the road and if I need remote access back to some other machines. I found myself so frustrated with the delay of saving things, even something as simple as text document; I let my kids use it to play simple games on. With the original storage device it was taking up to 30 seconds to save a screen shot and upwards of 15-20 seconds to save a text document.

Then I got the Super Talent drive to review; a quick look at the specs (150MB/s read and 100MB/s write) and I thought to myself, “This should wake up the little guy,” and boy was I right. The drive was a night and day difference to the stock SSD. No lag on saving things or opening files, and the OS even booted faster. Now I even have room to install Windows 7 which is more netbook and SSD friendly. It looks like upgrading to the Super Talent SATA Mini 2 PCIe SSD will also increase the usefulness of the ASUS Eee PC 900 as it can run newer operating systems that weren’t even available at the time the netbook was developed.

Even with the JMicron 602 controller that has been reported to show signs of stuttering while multi-tasking, this drive works like a champ. I was able to listen to MP3s, surf the web, and download some files without a hiccup. The only performance issue with this netbook is when the 900MHz CPU is maxed out, and that was a little graphics lag when moving windows over one another.

The cost of the 64GB drive may be a little steep for some. Coming in at $205 plus shipping, it’s around $60 more than I paid for my ASUS Eee PC 900 netbook. Since not everyone needs 64GB in a netbook Super Talent also offers 16GB FPM16GLSE and 32GB FPM32GLSE MLC models that cost $89 and $128, respectively. If you want to take it up a notch Super Talent also has two SLC versions, 16GB FPD16GLSE and 32GB FPD32GLSE, costing $239 and $445, respectively.

If you own an ASUS Eee PC S101, 900, 900A, or 901 netbook PC and answer yes to any of the following statements then you should take a look at getting the Super Talent SATA Mini 2 PCIe SSD:

• Looking to improve system drive performance by 3x
• Wanting a larger drive for storage reasons
• Would like to upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out in October 2009

Legit Bottom Line: If you are in need of some more hard drive space and want triple your system’s drive speed in seconds, then Super Talent has you covered with their SATA Mini 2 PCIe SSDs.