Good news for Latitude X1 owners!

Here's the URL for the Transcend module described:

http://ec.transcendusa.com/product/ItemDetail.asp?ItemID=TS256MSQ64V6U

 

Memory upgrade up to 2GB is possible. 2,5" SSD won't fit. 1.8" SSD-s do exist.
Someone/somewhere was reporting on no significant improvement of boot times with SSD in X1. However, it may depend from the SSD itself. I would check the specs on read/write speed before purchasing.

I share your love of X1! I would only upgrade the screen to a brighter one. This is a project for the future.

 

Hi all. I just acquired an X1 for travel purposes and I love it. I got one in VERY good condition off ebay for cheap (less than $400). I just ordered an SSD for it as well. My recommendation though is to go for a non Samsung SSD. This is because the Samsung 1.8" SSD controller chips only work up to ATA66 spec which the X1 cannot support. Most likely due to reduced wiring of the disk controller, it only supports ATA33 and ATA100. The Ridata 16gb 1.8" SSD works at ATA100 and thus should work faster than the Samsung SSDs which are capped at ATA33 speeds. My Ridata SSD should arrive within a week's time and I'll post some benchmarks when I get it. I will be installing Vista on the SSD, then supplementing my storage space (because 16gb really isn't much) with a 32gb CF card and 2gb SD card. I love how the X1 has a CF and SD slot for extra storage capacity!!

 

This is a really sweet set of ideas, and I'm looking forward to seeing how your experiment turns out. 32GB CF cards are less than $100 now!

Because the 2 GB SD card doesn't really add much in the way of additional memory, consider setting the SD card as your Pagefile. MS recommends the use of a separate drive for the Pagefile for optimal speed.

 

Ivar, Tony, et al.

After a lot of resesarch I have found that the zif to ide converter isnt necessary for ZIF drives. If you look at how the cable connects to the mainboard on the X1, you'll see that that connector itself is a ZIF 50 pin connector! Thus, I ended up getting a 32gb MTron SSD drive and a ZIF cable, and hooked it right up to the mainboard zif connector.

The method you pointed out yourself which was to use the zif to ide adapter is redundant. So open up your laptop again, and directly connect the ZIF cable to the motherboard of your Latitude X1.

I am absolutely loving this machine, especially with the MTron MOBI 3000 32gb SSD which is one of the fastest on the market and SLC. That, and combined with 2gb of 533mhz DDR2, and 16gb SDHC SD card and 32gb CF card, this laptop has tons of expansion abilities and is a real fully functional transportable laptop unlike the macbook air.

I sent this message to ivar privately as well so he'll get an email.



Now this X1 machine is better than any ultraportable wannabe netbook out there!! Especially with 2gb DDR2 and a super fast SLC SSD drive, and with full connectivity options unlike the macbook air that has only one USB port. This again is the ULTIMATE laptop and there is no replacement worthy for it STILL. My only qualm is that the CF cardreader seems pretty slow, even when tested with faster speed CF cards. It all seems to run in PIO mode this taking CPU cycles, slowing down the system, and hurting battery life. But the 16gb SDHC card works much faster without the same problems. So use the 32gb CF card for less accessed data, or music files or something not that intensive (although DIVX movies at 720p will still play off it). Again, the X1 will support SDHC cards and transfer speeds off it are decent (around 6-10 mbps depending on the card), but I still think it might be too slow for using the SD slot (nor CF as it is even slower) as a swap file. With an SSD though, that isnt a problem.

 

It is cool if it works!

Thanks!

In fact, I tried it before but did not succeed. Maybe we are speaking about diferent zif cables? Which one did you use?

This is how the internal zif to ide cable inside X1 looks like:
http://i6.ebayimg.com/03/i/001/14/b9/eb2e_1.JPG

The zif cable I used with the adapter looks like those ones:
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=310033634174

I thought that one needs a very special zif cable which correctly
connects the zif connector on X1 motheboard with the zif connector of HDD,

I tried to insert the zif cable into the zif connector on the X1 motherboard but it did not work. I hope it is just because I was very unexperienced with zif connectors when I tried it.

Please tell us more details (or I will try it myself once again, anyway).

 

ChannelV
I just got my X1 running with the Toshiba HDD (still re-installing software) so I'm a bit hesitant to dive back inside. Looking at pictures I took of the original cable and the adapter, it looks like you might be on to something here... Any chance you can post a picture or two showing your routing? Thanks.

 

Battery recall for Dell X1 machines... check if your machine is affected:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Ani3GEs6bvU/

 

Perhaps the new "lighter than Air" Samsung X360?

John

 

My CF card would format only in FAT32 mode. That might explain the slowness you observe.