Intel X25-V vs Crucial M4-Read Only Benchmark – Ubuntu Linux 11.04

Results of read-only comparison between between Intel X25-V SSDSA2M040G2GC and Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 solid state disk drives (SSD).

Test System

Phenom II X6 1055, 8 GB DDR3 1600, 890 GX board SATA3 6 Gbps

Ubuntu Linux 11.04 default kernel – Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 11 03:31:24 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Gnome Disk Utility Read Benchmark

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hdparm Read Benchmark

Intel X25-V SSDSA2M040G2GC SSD:

~$ sudo sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:

Timing cached reads: 6686 MB in 2.00 seconds = 3344.10 MB/sec

Timing buffered disk reads: 1408 MB in 3.00 seconds = 468.82 MB/sec

Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 SSD:

~$ sudo sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:

Timing cached reads: 6726 MB in 2.00 seconds = 3363.65 MB/sec

Timing buffered disk reads: 552 MB in 3.00 seconds = 183.86 MB/sec

 

Benchmarked WD Green 1TB 64MB vs Seagate 7200.12 1TB 32MB on Ubuntu Linux

Results of read-only comparison between between Western Digital WD10EARS-00Y5B1 and Seagate ST31000358AS hard disk drives (HDD).

Test System

Phenom II X6 1055, 8 GB DDR3 1600, 890 GX board SATA3 6 Gbps

Linux Mint (Ubuntu 10.10) – Kernel  2.6.35-23-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP Wed Nov 24 11:55:36 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Gnome Disk Utility Read Benchmark

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hdparm Read Benchmark

Western Digital WD10EARS-00Y5B1 hdd
$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 6714 MB in 2.00 seconds = 3358.17 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 326 MB in 3.01 seconds = 108.40 MB/sec

 

Seagate ST31000358AS hdd
$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb:
Timing cached reads: 6786 MB in 2.00 seconds = 3394.21 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 374 MB in 3.01 seconds = 124.25 MB/sec


Temperature

The Seagate ST31000358AS  hdd is cooler on my test set-up with temperature going up to +10 C above ambient, while the Western Digital Green WD10EARS-00Y5B1 hdd going up top +13 C over the ambient temperature.

Conclusion

The Seagate drive is significantly faster than the WD Green drive of the same capacity. The Seagate drive though is faster, but is  noisy –  when the spindle spins the noise can be annoying at time. WD Green is whisper  quiet and consumes less power. The WD Green hdd is slightly warmer in operation compared to the Seagate 7200.12.

My recommendation is the WD Green HDD WD10EARS-00Y5B1, the speed is adequate for a average desktop, low power and silent. If you are looking for performance use this WD Green WD10EARS-00Y5B1 with a SSD as a boot disk.

OlivePad VT-1000 – 7 inch Android 2.2 Tablet Hands-on Review

OlivePad VT1000 is a seven inch Android 2.2 Tablet computer from India based Olive Telecom.

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OlivePad has been selling for a  few months now, but it has not been able to create the interest Notion Ink has been able to generate  on its yet to be released Adam tablet.   I had been on a hunt for a decent Android Tablet for many weeks and never came across the OlivePad until one day saw one on EBay India.   This led me to Olive Telecom’s website where I found out that OlivePad is available on retail at Croma stores across India.  I picked up my OlivePad from the new Croma Store on the Outer Ring Road in Bangalore for INR 23999 (cheaper than the online prices at ebay.in).

This review is based on my hands on experience of using the OlivePad in the last three weeks.  My familiarity with Android devices which includes a Samsung Galaxy S phone running Android 2.2, a Samsung Galaxy 3 that my wife owns.  In between I also used a ten inch Chinese Apad ZT180 tablet running  Android 2.1.

Lets begin the review  with the Quick Specs of the Olive Pad VT1000.

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Hardware and Build

Design

The Olive Tab is rectangular with glass in front with a shiny black plastic in the rear. The sides are aluminium. The sides are not tapered like the Galaxy Tab which makes it look thicker. Nevertheless it’s comfortable to hold. The key here is the 7 inch form factor that is small enough to hold with hone hand. At 380 gm it’s not comfortable holding it for  long duration. However, its much comfortable using the OlivePad tablet  with the leather diary  styled jacket.

Processor Speed and Responsiveness

OlivePad comes with a 600 MHz ARM11 processor. The Tablet is  very responsive and I do not find any perceptible real world difference between the Galaxy S and the OlivePad in terms of responsiveness. However, ARM11 on paper appears slower compared to Cortex A8 chips being used in most recent Android Tablet, and not to mention the upcoming dual core Cortex A9 chips like the Nvidia Tegra2. Bottom line, the ARM11 chip in the OlivePd is adequate to give a very good user experience.

Storage and Memory

The SIM card and the SD card slots can be accessed from the side.OlivePad came bundles with a 16 GB microSD card. The internal flash is just 512 MB, which just leaves 173 MB for user applications. I wish OlivePad had at least  1 or 2 GH internal flash storage. With Froyo apps can be moved to the SD card, but still a lot of junk accumulates in the internal flash storage. The RAM is 512 MB is  adequate and at par with most of the high end Android tablets or phones.

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Screen

The screen at best can be called average.   It looks nice  and vibrant when looking straight, but at the slightest angle the colours start getting weird. It indicates a cheap TN panel. I am not saying that it is not usable, but this no iPAD IPS panel or the Galaxy S Super AMOLED display.  Fonts look good and crisp providing a good web browsing experience and reading eBooks is a good experience. I would suggest giving the bundled Aldiko reader the skip and installing FBReader or Cool Reader from the market.

Audio

Two speakers have been places on the top and the bottom side of OlivePad. The speaks are excellent for the form factor.  These are clear and loader than the average tablet speaker and better than some Netbook speaker. a +1 to Olive Telecom fro this.  This is a great when playing games and  I can even dare to watch YouTube videos without a headphone.

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Somnathpura Temple – Hoysala Stone Craftsmanship Exemplified

The seven hundred years old Keshava Temple at Somnathpura or Somnathpur, is a fine example of Hoysala stone temples. A very few such places exist. the craftsmanship of the stone workers, sculptors of the Hoysala period cannot be paralleled even today.

Also read the older post on the Somnathpura Temple (click here).

How to Get There ?

Somnathpura Temple is located in the south western direction from Bangalore, India. From Bangalore we can reach this place via Mysore Road or via Kanakapura Road. The Mysore Road would be the most recommended route to take.

Photo gallery follows, get to know what grandeur awaits you when you get there.

Photo Gallery (photos taken on Aug 20th 2006)

 

Install Older Extersions on Firefox 3 Beta

There is a pretty easy way of making older extensions compatible and successfully install on Firefox 3.0 Beta. This should make your test drive on the Firefox 3 Beta build a little more nicer.

Mozilla does not allow incompatible versions of extensions to install on FIrefox for some good reason. Incompatible extension may install through a backdoor,  but there is no guarantee if this will work at all and not cause trouble. Installing is one thing, but making it work is something else. So be cautioned, but if you would still like to try it out read on.

Nightly Tester Tool (NTT) extension –  Lets walk through the process with an example. In my case, AdBlock Plus extension was not compatible with Firefox 3 b5.

1. Download  & Install the Nightly Tester Tool from this link (external link).
2. Once NTT extension is installed, restart Firefox. After Firefox restarts, go to the menu : Tools -> Add-ons
3. On the add-ons pop-up select the NTT plugin and click on  “Make All Compatible”.

The Nightly Tester Tool appears capable of  much more than making older extensions compatible. We will look at this extension itself some other day.

Systems Tested on :

1. Firefox 3 Beta 5 – Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard), 20″ iMac Core Duo (early 2006)
2. Firefox 3 Beta 5 – Windows XP SP2, DeLL D630 Core 2 Duo