Stressing, need some SSD recomendations

just get your self a Samsung 840 250gb and go from there.. is that serial ata 2 or 3 .. if its serial ata2 then any cheap drive will work if you have serial ata 3 then get one of the better drives.. because you will hit a performance wall with serial ata 2

I am referring to your motherboard by the way.. ocz is another good brand..

What exactly do you mean by having a backup ssd? One for all your main storage and one to keep a backup of that drive? If you want to do that you will need two identical drives and run them in raid one. The same data goes to both drives so if one fails you have a clone of the drive. If you just want one with a good amount of storage, speed, and really cheap price I would suggest mushkin ssd. All the experiences I have had with mushkin have always been great and I have a 240gb drive i got a year ago and its still running great. As for refurb'd ssds, I would stay away from that unless you're buying a small cheap ssd to test on and not keep anything important on it. Typically when you buy a refurb ssd it has already been used to some extent and that just reduces the life span of the drive.

For the amount of money that you have to spend I would recommend you this drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226371

If you want to do raid 0 and your motherboard supports it I would recommend: 2x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226236

First off a X58 MB only supports sata II, May Have a 3rd party Sata III Marvel controller which is NOT much better than the Intel SATA II.

Even so, a SATA III SSD is recommended. Just about all of the better SSD will perform very close to the same - So SKIP trying to pick the fasted one, go for reliability/Least User Problems.

Your SAMSUNG 840 Pro is about the best out there. (Remember Not going to see a diff in performance).

The SSD used/recommended by lozotheatheist Has a rather poor User Feedback compared to the better choices.
approx. 30%1&2 egg ratings, SEE: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226226

My Preference is:
Samsung 830 (Getting hard to find), Crucial M4 (DO NOT get the crucial value md), Plextor M3 or M5, Samsung 840 (Hesitant on this one as it has not been out long enough, and the Samsung 840 Pro. Personally, of the Ones I've listed - Buy the cheapest.
IF Only a few bucks diff, OK-> best:
Samsung 840 -> Crucial M4 or Plextor M5->Samsung 830->Samsung 840 Pro.
NOTE: for a Laptop: Samsung 840 Pro Has the Lowest Power consumption, M4 is also a great choice for a laptop.


I have 3 Crucial M4's, 3 Samsung 830's, 1 Samsung 840 Pro, and 2 (Ugh) Agility III's

Example on performance. Using AS SSD (Over all score); the Samsung 830 and the Crucial M4 both score in mid 700's, The Samsung 840 pro will score in low 1100s (on older 6 Series Intel controller and low 1200s if on the newest Intel controller. For Boot time only a bout 1 - 2 sec Max difference, for program loads I can NOT tell the difference between the three - my eye balls just are not calibrated to see a 5 mSec difference - LOL.

Not a Lover of OCZ, Especially the Agility III:
1) They DO NOT perform any faster on SATA III than on a SATA II port. Was reported in a review and I VERIDIED it on my systems.
2) They use Asynchronous NAND coupled with an older Sandforce Controller - Much better choices out there.
3) Bought when they first came out, they were at the time the MOST probmatic drive out there.
4) As the saying goes If a company loses credibility, it is very hard to get it back - Too many of us still remember OCZs management blaming users for the Problems with their Agility/VertexIII SSD - IT WAS a BUGGY controller.

Added:
Majority of My Systems have at least two SSDs Plus HDD(s).
SSD0 = OS, SSD1 = Overflow + files I select, HDD for Back up, My photos/videos, and least used files. Recommend size for SSD0 and SSD1 is dependent on individual.

YES, When Installing OS onto a SSD always DISCONECT ALL other HDs, ALSO verify that BIOS is set to AHCI

The issue there is when your raiding standard hard drives you really need to make sure you get the same model and that they are rated for raid .. sure you can raid 2 western digital black drives but there not rated for raid 0 or any other mode. if it fails then you have to rebuild the array which can take along time. in a situation like that you would want to get either the green drives or a pair of Raptors which are rated for raid.

Its not a bad idea there are just issues with doing what your mentioning and as an fyi serial ata 2 is also compatible with serial ata3. getting a second drive of the exact model you have is another solution to look into .. you would be able to set it up as a raid 0 or 2 if say you bought 3 more of the sam type of ssd drive you have as well. and that would give you the 256GB your looking for and would allow you to break the sata bus speed limit for one drive I cant imagine your drives being too costly you could also look into pairing up say a couple 120 GB drives in the same mannor. just make sure they are the same model.

My statement -
"IF Only a few bucks diff, OK-> best:
Samsung 840 -> Crucial M4 or Plextor M5->Samsung 830->Samsung 840 Pro. "
Was for Desktops.
You said x58, which equals desktop, so I knew you were asking about desktops not laptops.
Only added the tidbit about for laptops as others also read the posts.

Even If you did NOT have sata III ports and only had SATA II ports you are better off going with a SATA III SSD.

Please note, I believe you will find that that sata III port is "2 X SATAIII ports by Marvell SE9128 (SATA7~8)" Might be better off putting that SATA III SSD on the Sata II Intel port.