The stock 5400 RPM drive that came with the Aspire One is a good drive, however a lot more space and performance can be gained by switching out for an under $100 Momentus XT 500GB Drive. Using the netbook is just “snappier” though it’s still not going to break any performance records. That said, it’s an excellent upgrade if you are looking for more space and a little better performance. After using the Netbook for a while, I realized how much faster it is. Especially when using programs like Picasa which is fairly processor and hard drive intensive. I like the drive so much, I ended up purchasing another one for my Office PC. Scroll down for some timed tests along with results from CrystalDiskMark Portable 3.0.1.
Before Installing Momentus XT 500GB Drive
Bootup from off to logon screen – 36 seconds *note* Page file defrag runs at each boot
open itunes – 10 seconds
Open Firefox & load igoogle – 19 seconds
Open Internet Explorer & load www.uniquemotorsports.com – 12 seconds
After Installing The Momentus XT 500GB Drive
first bootup – off to logon screen – 57
Bootup from off to logon screen after driver updates and 2 more reboots – 31 seconds
open itunes – 3 seconds
Open Firefox – 18 seconds
Open Internet Explorer – 10 seconds