Solid State Hard drive

[Frog]

Okay, gonna bite the bullet and finally replace an old machine while Windows 7 is still easy to find.
I know that these solid state drives are still pretty new, though price is coming down, and reliability is still a little iffy, but I find that a 128G  Intel is within my budget. Is that sufficient for my OS and applications? I'll, of course have another larger drive for data. Pros and cons?

[Chadwick]

If you're going to save all your data on a mechanical hard-drive, great.
That is the way to do it. 120gig is tons of room for OS and software ( unless you're a gamer, perhaps ).

Your ssd performance for system bootup and application start will make you smile.

Never defrag an SSD, they have a built in..cleaner, if you will.
A defragmentation program causes an ssd to do extra work, that is not necessary .

.02 off the top of my head.

[GraphicDisorder]

We use ssd in 3 of our rigs and its night and day in performance.  Cons, non other than cost really. 

[mk162]

frog, i would talk to pierre, he has a great source for used systems that will kick the pants off new.  I wouldn't buy anything else.  Just bought one last week...freaking awesome.

[royster13]

If you install an SSD, do you have to re-install everything?....

[mk162]

you can probably mirror it.  I would imagine that as they are out for a while, the price will drop and the size will increase.  120gb won't do anything here...I have WAY to much porn stored.

[Chadwick]

Keep the porn on a regular drive..
 

If I was putting my OS and such on an SSD, I'd just do a clean install.

[Frog]

Funny seeing references to boot-up because the rig I currently use has essentially been on for almost seven years! Oh sure, every now and then during a cyber brain freeze, I'll reboot, and there was the occasional power outage and hardware upgrade, repair and replacement (one power supply, one fan, and one hard drive), but in general, it's always on.

I can only imagine the increase in efficiency I will see with even a meager newer system let alone one of these quad core ivy bridge 8 or 16 meg memory beasts!

[Gilligan]

I built my wife's personal assistant a PC the other day and put a 120 gig SSD in it and it's extremely peppy.  I wasn't expecting much but it was pretty slick.

I'm not putting together another one for my father-in-law's fishing buddy.

It's an A8 AMD processor but for what they are doing (including some graphics work) it's extremely peppy!

120 gig is plenty for OS and programs.

[royster13]

NewEgg has a Samsung 128gb for 139.99.....Seems like a decent price but is it a decent drive?....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL121112&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL121112-_-EMC-121112-Index-_-SSD-_-20147192-L0H

[dsh]

This came yesterday from Tiger Direct, 256K for $159.  I buy from them occasionally, and I got a final price of $129,  but when it doesn't know who I am it was a little higher.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=2983951&sku=O261-9802&SRCCODE=WEM3428BY&cm_mmc=email-_-Main-_-WEM3428-_-tigeremail3428&utm_source=EML&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=WEM3428&cm

[brandon]

This is all good news. Been wanting to switch to ssd for a long time now but pricing and reliability have always been an issue. Thanks y'all!

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

I'm a full-blown SSD fanboy.  These things are just amazing for a boot drive.  Reliability and longevity has improved from the early days.

DON'T store your data on them....unless you only use Vector Art (tiny files) and don't ever anticipate needing mega storage, or maybe a laptop that goes on the road with you.

Frog, I think I have the very drive you are looking at in one of my machines... an Intel 520 128GB I believe.  It is in a custom built XP box....because we have some legacy software. With the SSD that sucker is a racehorse.  I have a Windows 7 box with an OCZ Agility 3 SSD and it's pretty snappy too, but not so much as the Intel 520.  I have 2 other SSD's and the Intel 520 is my favorite.  I'm eventually going to SSD's for ALL of my Boot Drives.

My new habit is to partition them and store the OS backup (Acronis Clone) to the logical backup partition. It takes just over a minute per GB (with a quick bus) for me to clone our OS partitions.  Then that backup file can be copied via Windows to the Network Shared Folders for archiving and easy access, should something happen.  Doing fresh OS re-installs, "gives me a PAIN in a place I can't locate"...to quote a famous preacher, Adrian Rogers. Restoring from an Acronis True Image cloned boot drive is fabulously easy, unless you've stored your data there also.  Don't do that unless you've no other choice......

AND USE BACKUPS of that boot drive. 

[GraphicDisorder]

I have a 120gb in my main rig.  Often only about 1gb of open space and I do not use that hard drive for storage at all other than the OS and Programs.  Just ordered a 240GB today actually. 

[Gilligan]

NewEgg has a Samsung 128gb for 139.99.....Seems like a decent price but is it a decent drive?....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL121112&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL121112-_-EMC-121112-Index-_-SSD-_-20147192-L0H

The 120's I just recently bought were a hair under $100 bucks, not worth $40 bucks for another 8 gigs in my opinion.