eMMC or SSD

[Firedevil79]

Dear all, 

Just wondering if there are any reason to exchange the eMMC to am SSD in the pinebook.
Of course there is more disk space available but I wonder about the speed difference.

Kind regards 
Jens

[z4v4l]

50MB/s vs. 1500MB/s

50 MB/s is maximum speed for eMMC, sold by Pine.
1500 MB/s is maximum speed of NVMe SSD achieved with RockPro64.

how is that speed difference for you? noticeable?

[Der Geist der Maschine]

how is that speed difference for you? noticeable?

Running programs like "man" now take not 0.0001 seconds but mere 0.000003 seconds!

Jokes apart, it would be interesting to see how that translates into a real speedup, say linux bootup (systemd-analyze time).

How will that affect desktop applications? I don't think I care how long it takes to start my webbrowser. Once, it's started it runs for several days.

Anyone has some first hands experience with slower vs faster drives?

[Luke]

SSD is obviously much faster and all that, but it comes at a cost of (in some instances significantly) increased power consumption.

[z4v4l]

there could be scenarios*, where disk IO constitutes the largest portion of time consumed during operation - IO heavy operations. they are often found in a normal desktop usage. there, the difference in storage IO speed impacts performance much more significantly, than in the example of running some stupid command. for example compiling linux - the most beloved occupance for many enthusiasts.   ok, more seriously, say, - paging (incorrectly called swapping). exactly browsers are the first candidates to cause paging. paging out megabytes of browsers' bloat to a 12-25MB/s vs. 200-400MB/s (writes) storage makes practical difference, the experiences will compare like "crappy" vs. "nicey", "meh, ewww" vs. "not bad, impressed". also, more space of SSD means less wear out, which is imo even more important, than higher speeds. but yeah, nothing comes for free. insane speeds of NVMe come with the increased power consumption and heating. but the OP asked about speed difference.

that said, still, personally, I'd go with an eMMC   on PBP,  due to the mentioned heat characteristics of SSDs, because for me, it would be very incomfortable to worry all the time what's inside of the firmly filled laptop, aren't its guts melting down? but it's about people's characters and needs. I am minimalist and won't use too demanding software. for others, using some bloat is requirement. then putting more capable (both in speed and volume) storage would be benefitial.

* and there are scenarios where slow storage IO speed is a show stopper. my android tablet refuses to play video from an SD card lying me, the files are "broken", whereas it's IO that is too slow. my PC plays them, just sometimes missing frames.

[bcnaz]

***
RE: EMMc drives, Can I simply use the usb to EMMc adapter to clone from my 64gb,EMMc to a 128gb, EMMc drive.... ?
I only purchased one of the adapters usb to EMMc, should I have purchased 2 of them ?

***

[bcnaz]

add-on :
I realize the drive could be 'loaded' by installing the new 128gb module on the board and install a new operating system thru an sd card.
I just thought a straight clonzilla style transfer from the 64gb to the 128gb module would preserve anything I had already put on the original 64gb drive
and do so quite simply ?