SSD Recommendation for Dell Inspiron 1520?

At the moment I'm still running my 500GB HDD which is good but with all the extra things I've added it seems to run really hot when I'm using the laptop for a lil while, generally the whole laptop will run hotter than normal for extended period of use, even after adding a cooler to the thing.

I'm not really concerned about space as much but I would like to get something that I can carry on with me to my next laptop. My budget for this is less than $300, anything under this or even slightly above w/tax is worth considering as I'm not going to be using it solely for this laptop.

However, I don't even know where to begin looking. I don't know what brands are reliable, what brands offer the best performance/price ratio. I've read everywhere that I should consider the Crucial M4 (128GB/256GB). However, I see brands like Patriot selling a 120GB for like $50 cheaper than they should be.

Oh and I'll be getting a new laptop some time into 2012, so yeah, when I purchase things, I'd like for them to be at least a bit future-proof, please keep that mind if you guys suggest stuff. I run Windows 7 HP (x64) and have 6GB of RAM.

 

The reason Patriot, OCZ, and others sell so cheaply (comparively) is that they use Sandforce controllers, which are garbage. Fast, and break incredibly fast at a ridiculous rate.

Crucial M4 is a great choice, Intel drives are good, and so are Samsung. The Kingston v+ is apparently good too, but pretty much anything NOT using a Sandforce controller is worth consideration, unless it is OCZ Indilinx drives which are still an experiment.

On another note, putting an SSD into your laptop isn't going to drop temperatures too much. Laptop hard drives don't put out a ridiculous amount of heat, yes some, but not too bad usually. The heat is probably coming from clogged vents/etc. Blow out your heatsinks with canned air, that ought to help a lot.

 

Okay, gotcha, the thing is I might just stick with an older model, like the C300 as opposed to the M4, it just seems like way too much money.

 

Actually the C300 is often more expensive than the M4 owing to the M4 using smaller NAND and is cheaper to make. The M4 is probably the best performing and reliable drive right now and at a very competitive rate among SSDs.

If you can find a cheaper C300, it is a good drive for sure, but the M4 outperforms it and like I said, is usually a fair bit cheaper.

 

Thanks for all your help man, and yeah, after doing about good months worth of research in the past day or two, I've come to the conclusion that I'll purchase the Samsung 470 256GB SSD, as I think it's performance, durability and power consumption seem to have earned praise from many testers.

But I thought about getting the C300 which apparently is it's only competitor and in some cases it was beating it by a large margin. It's only a SATA II drive, but I believe that's the most my laptop can take anyway, I don't think it can reach up to speeds that of SATA III. However, the C300 is far too expensive even for it's stellar performance as the Samsung isn't anywhere near that price range (of comparable drives).

 

Yea, the 470 is probably the best bet for SATA 2. The C300 does stomp it, but it also needs SATA 3 to realize its full potential, while the M4 is even better. Enjoy that 470, I've heard little bad and lots of good about it.