Buy Intel 330 SSD now or wait for possible July 4th sales?

Hi guys,
So I plan on buying a SSD for the first time once my Thinkpad W530 comes in. I've been doing some research and it seems that Intel's SSDs seem to be the most reliable with pretty good performance; although I do realize that the 330 is a little unknown as it is using Sandforce controllers that have been having some issues for a while.

I was looking at the Intel 330 prices and see that they're having some nice mail in rebates atm; the 180GB one is $205 but with a $70 mail in rebate, bringing it down to $135. However, I also saw that they had a similar mail in rebate last month too, but only after the first half of the month, so probably not going to have a July 4th sale AND a rebate at the same time.

So my question is, should I just buy the SSD now? Or should I wait until the possible 4th of July sales/the price wars on SSDs heating up some more?

Thanks!

 

You can get a Crucial M4 from buy.com for $169.99 shipped. That's pretty awesome!

 

Newegg has the 180GB version of the 330 on sale for ~$145 after MIR, just like the original rebate Intel had at launch (actually slight more expensive). It's certainly a nice SATAIII drive for now, and has better write (and read?) performance than the M4 (though it's unlikely you'll notice without benchmarks).

However, that 256GB M4 is pretty awesome for the price...

 

Yup, those are the two I'm debating between

If I knew there'd be a sale on the M4 for July 4th, I'd just wait. However, the Intel one is pretty tempting atm..

 

While the 330 has a SF-2281 controller, neither Mr.Mischief nor I have had any problems with them (unless I've missed any threads he's created about it). However, there was a recent article about how the SF-2281 does not support hardware AES-256 encryption (still does -128), so if that's important to you that should be considered.

 

Yeah, I saw that on Anandtech, but I don't really care for that. Also, since we've been talking, the Crucial M4 went up $20 to $200 instead of $180...so I'm probably going to get the Intel. I doubt there will be any July 4th sales for the Intel, and even if it's a mail in rebate, $70 is pretty nice.

Btw, I saw your review of the 330 and saw that you got it during the rebate period last month. How is the rebate process been for you? Good?

 

I subbited my UPC and receipt electronically, and a few days later they approved it and my rebate Visa is in the mail. I should get it this week.

Sent from my HTC One S

 

Intel emailed me a few days ago, telling me that my rebate card has been ordered and I should receive it "soon". Before that, I received an email confirming that they received my rebate request.

I'd rather have a check instead of a card, but pretty much every rebate is a card these days.

 

That sounds pretty good, so turn around time is like 3-4 weeks instead of the 6-8 they're quoting?

 

Maybe, maybe not. Rebates are always a hit-or-miss since companies want to deny as many rebates as possible (naturally). Anyway, here's the "it's shipping" email I received four days ago:

It's annoying that the cards expire after a short time (this case, 6 months).

 

Ah, okay. Thanks for the info!