SSD - Solid State Disks

Hi All,

I want to upgrade my system to run a SSd for my O/S. I currently have 2 WD 36GB raptors (10,000) in raid 0 but think one is on its way out..... I have read a few reviews and have seen the speed benefits of some high end SSD and want to reap them..... i would need about a 60GB drive and wouldnt wanna pay much more than £200 ish

Can anyone suggest anything? Should i be going down the SDD route or sticking to WD velociraptors in raid 0?

Thanks

For random I/Os you just can't beat a SSD - so if you're looking to speed up the types of activities that depend on random I/O (such as booting your system and starting up applications) then they're definitely the way to go.

If you can afford it, I'd highly recommend the Intel X25-M drives - they're the gold standard for consumer SSDs. Make sure you get a "G2" (Generation 2) drive which was just introduced in the last month or so - they're cheaper, perform slightly better, and (with a firmware update) will support the TRIM command used by Windows 7 to keep their performance at a high level even after you delete files (an issue for some older SSDs).

Here's an excellent article on the latest Intel drives with comparisons to some other makes: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] spx?i=3607

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-X25-M- [...] 481&sr=1-6

If you can save the extra money, this is the drive you should get.

Looking around on Newegg, I don't see any OCZ 60GB drives for less than $220. I just picked up an Intel X25-M 80GB for $235 (yes, a G2). That hardly seems like a premium price to me, and the Intel drives win by a substantial margin most of the time.

Not really...

I got mine from B&H, which is the cheapest I've found them so far from a reputable retailer:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod [...] _SATA.html

They ship pretty fast though. It's not a normally stocked item, so they order it when you order it. Mine took 9 days (calendar, not business) from order to arrival. I don't consider that excessive.