SSD buying advice

I'm in the market for a 256gb SSD. Long story short, my laptop experienced a sudden jolt (not my fault I swear) and damaged the 500gb spinner. With HDD prices being what they are, I don't really feel like buying a replacement right now. I can get a 256gb Samsung 470 (these are good drives, from what I hear) on eBay for ~$275 currently.

My question to you is, does anyone think I'll be able to find one cheaper than this when black friday rolls around? I can probably get by on the 64gb mSATA drive until then, after that point it's going in my tablet

 

Siberia, its hard to say. My gut tells me that they will have some really good deals on the cheaper drives like the OCZ AGilities and Corsairs etc, but the Samsung might not be in that class of drive. ANyways, black friday isn't that far away. i'd definitely wait for it or you might be sorry after

 

$275 is a great price for that drive. That said, Black Friday certainly could have better deals with the 470 being an older drive now. Might as well wait the 2 weeks and see unless you absolutely can't.

 

I should also mention that I don't care what kind of drive it is as long as it is not OCZ. SATA 2 is perfectly fine as the laptop doesn't even have SATA 3. I think I'll wait until the BF ads come out to decide, there will be other eBay drives.

 

Glad to see you know to stay away from OCZ though.

If you only want/need SATA II, the Samsung 470 or the Intel 320 are your best bets. For SATA III, Intel 510, Crucial M4, Samsung 830 are the kings.

 

i'm thinking about getting a crucial m4 256 to replace one of my 750gb drives on a g74. is the gain in speed really worth the loss of storage space? that's the question that i am wrestling with. i would like to put my os on such a fast drive, but hate giving up so much storage. opinions anyone?

 

Depends on what you do with your laptop.

Laptopmags reviews do a good job of showing the difference between a modern SSD and a 7200rpm hard drive.
Intel SSD 320 (300GB) Review

 

I have a Crucial M4 and it uses the Sata 2 without any problems. I have the 64GB one with the 0009 firmware on the SL410. I get 260/105 and the drive is extremely stable. Boots are freaking fast, about 15 seconds from pressing the button to opening the application. Takes a lot of jolting. Tested it myself, honest.

 

Hi!

I have a seagate hybrid hard disk (500 gb hd + 4 gb ssd). I was thinking about buying a dedicated ssd drive.

How much performance boost should I expect? I think I'll wait for the black friday to be here, though.

Thanks!

 

Depends on what you do with your laptop.

These reviews give some indication:
SSD shootout: Real World Performance
SSD vs Hard Drives: A Beginner's Guide to SSD Upgrades
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...pio-black-750gb-2-5-hard-drive-review-11.html

 

Just to add to Phil's comments, SSDs (either SATA II or III) will help greatly with IO and load times for programs, but beyond that your system will stay the same (ie, your games won't play any faster since that's a GPU issue, but the levels will load faster). For everyday usage, an SSD is probably the best upgrade a person can make (besides a higher-res display).

As for which SSD drive will have the best performance per dollar, or any other metric, you'll have to look at the links Phil provided.

Just stay away from OCZ and Sandforce

 

Keep in mind though he's coming from a XT hybrid drive. If he's not using too many applications, boot and load times will hardly improve with an SSD.

 

Thanks for your help!

I think that I'll stay with this system as it is for a bit then

When the price of ssd will drop I'll think about it!
In particular, this review helped me in making this decisions
Seagate Momentus XT Review - Watch CNET's Video Review

 

Bought a 256 gb 470 on eBay for $250, haven't seen any black friday SSD deals yet but I doubt they'll beat that price.

 

I just dropped $350 on a crucial M4 256GB. Bit pricey but I'm really happy with it. None of the Sandforce/OCZ issues and almost as fast too.

 

I would highly recommend that as it's much more efficient and will give solid speeds. I current have it in my 1520 and it's been about 7 weeks and I'm loving it. It was able to extend my battery life significantly as I normally had a 500gb Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (Non-Hybrid).

The Samsung 470 (256gb) is definitely one of the best, if not the best SATA II SSDs as it will give you more performance perks without sacrificing power consumption rates. It's a drive that can seriously give Intel a run for it's money.