Got an Asus EEE 701... How to make the most of it?

[KorJax]

So I got an ASUS EEE PC 701 for xmas today.  It's a nice gift so I'm not complaining. But... it is admitadly really aged in design and tech so it's a little disappointing since I know my parents probibly got it at around $250 and the newer models are not much more expensive and much much better

Anyways, I just want to know how I can make the most of this.  The small 4GB SSD immediatly negates any real use for this thing other than basic web browsing in 800x480 res.  Is there any possible way I can upgrade the storage of this baby? I don't thnk an SD card will work since that's just basic flash storage and I'm looking to be able to install stuff on it.  Is this possible?

Also, memory.  This thing only has 512 MB of RAM, so Obviously that's something I can upgrade.  I found a 2GB replacement for $36 or so online, but should I bother with that? I mean, this thing has a pretty small res so I won't even be able to use HD video.  I'm thinking it'll be best to just upgrade to 1GB.

I'm goign to want to install XP (assuming I can find a way to expand storage), will that work well enough? It uses a celeron 1Ghz processor.

And I guess that's about it.  Got any suggestions on what to do with it?  I'd of much rather have gotten a 1005HA (and it's non-painful to use keyboard) for a small fraction more (epecially since my dad also spent a large amount of money on an HD webcam that I can't use for t ) but it's still pretty cool and I want to make the most of it 

[CaffeinePowered]

Its got more than enough horsepower for an emulation station, or for piping video over the network to a TV.

You might be able to buy a replacement SSD, I'm not sure how the EEE PCs have them installed but it would be expensive as all hell, even for a small one. Memory would be a no-brainer, I'd get a 2 gig replacement for 512 in a heartbeat.

[KorJax]

Well I'm just afraid 2GB might be overkill.  Considering this thing only has a .9Ghz processor there's no way I can run anything I figure that would ever use the full 2GB anyways.

XP only needs 1GB to run really well right?

[copulatingduck]

use gift receipts and xmas money to craft yourself a better netbook

[Kirby]

Well I'm just afraid 2GB might be overkill.  Considering this thing only has a .9Ghz processor there's no way I can run anything I figure that would ever use the full 2GB anyways.

XP only needs 1GB to run really well right?

I'm running on a semi-stripped copy of XP idling @ 345MB out of a gig, never really seen windows gobble up more than 500MB.

2GB is overkill =x

[zaneyard]

don't install windows on a netbook
that's stupid

put Ubuntu netbook remix or easy peasy on it

[KorJax]

Except I want to install MS office (for school), and stuff like the Fallout Collection on it without massive pains and aches.

[HeK]

Toss in 2gb ram cause you do not want to use a page file, ever.
You can install a PCI-E SSD to replace the 4gb ssd, but the cost is not worth it. Instead, toss in a 16gb SD card and install all your apps to that.

I am currently using a compact copy of XP, about 400mb. Works very well but since XP writes a lot of small temp files, the SSD will slow you down after a few months.

I am planning on moving to Ubuntu.

[KorJax]

How did you get it that small?

Hell I even used nLite and my XP install is about 1.5 gigs.  I'm sure most of that is something like the page file, but yeah.

Also for some reason my computer reports this thing as having 2GB of ram installed... that can't be right... does it read the page file as apart of the ram or something?

But yeah I got XP on it and it's going good so far.  It's like... really old looking XP though with basic explorer even though I'm at SP3 which is strange.

Any tips on how to keep it's storage space usage down?  And I heard SD cards are rather bad to use since they will be slower than even a flash drive is with media.

[HeK]

It was a premade 'EEE-PC' copy I found, it's really stripped down. Hell it doesn't even have calc or command prompt. It's quite useless.
The SD card isn't too bad, I'm running a class 6 SDHC card, and in the current state of my SSD, the SD card is much faster.

I gotta find a way of 'deblocking' my SSD.

[Mission Difficult]

I gotta find a way of 'deblocking' my SSD.

Let me know if you do. My poor EEE could use some cheering up

[KorJax]

How long did it take for that to happen?

I know SSD's have limited read/writes before they kaput but I thought it was like... 6 years of heavy use before that happens.

[CaffeinePowered]

How long did it take for that to happen?

I know SSD's have limited read/writes before they kaput but I thought it was like... 6 years of heavy use before that happens.

The reason they are so expensive is there is a lot of sector redundancy in them so if a sector goes black, nothing is effected, but like you said they still have a limited life....and I've only had one mechanical HDD fail, ever  :-\

As much as I <3 how fast SSDs are I don't like the idea of it having a definite finite lifespan. Even if a traditional HDD's motor goes bad, you can still send it away to a lab to get the data off your platters, I wonder how they would do that with an SSD....maybe if it reached a critical point it would trigger a read only mode to preserve its data?

[Mission Difficult]

How long did it take for that to happen?

I know SSD's have limited read/writes before they kaput but I thought it was like... 6 years of heavy use before that happens.

It's not the drive dying from usage that you should be worried about. Even if you're writing a good amount of data the drives are supposed to be good for something like 10 years. It's the way SSDs write data that causes them to slow down. There's a great article on anand tech that goes into detail about all of this.