Fujitsu U2010 CF mod: lower-cost Solid-State speed boost

The Fujitsu U2010 has only been available in Asia since earlier this month, but that hasn’t stopped owners modifying the 5.6-inch convertible UMPC.  Although Fujitsu sell versions of the U2010 (which will be known as the U820 in the US) with a 64GB SSD, it’s an expensive option above the standard 60GB HDD; UMPC Fever forum member datamate decided to take a different approach, using a 16GB Compact Flash card with a ZIF adaptor.

Storage is much lower than with either of the official drive options, of course, but it’s certainly a more cost-effective way of getting the speed of solid-state.  HD Tune 2.55 shows an average data transfer rate of 31.7MB/s, with a 0.9s access time.  Contrast that with using a 16GB Transcend class 6 SDHC card for storage, which only managed 13.8MB/s average transfer rates but with almost 50-percent more CPU use.

Addonics sell a CF to 1.8-inch ZIF adapter for $23.99.  Meanwhile Newegg have the same Compact Flash card datamate used, a Transcend 16GB 200x, for $165.99.