Upgrade question for Asus UL20a (SSD and SDHC)

I'm getting an Asus UL20a soon and want to upgrade to a SSD hard drive.

The OS partiton on my current laptop is using 16GB with all programs installed, the hibernation file disabled/deleted, and the swap file on a readyboost flash card.

I figure that a 30-40GB SSD will be enough for this computer since it will just be for school and for travel. I believe the specs show that the HD runs at Sata-I speeds (Mobile Intel GS45 Express Chipset). Do the latest SSD's run faster than the computer can handle and if so, what drive gives me the best possible performance (trim and leveling). I'm hoping to stay around $110 for the drive.

also, what's a good data mangement strategy for files that I create. Do I save and update them on the SSD or on the SDHC or does that even matter if the drive has trim and garbage management.

Thanks for any info.

 

GS45 chipset should support SATA 3Gb/s speeds. Where are you getting that the drive runs at SATA 1.5Gb/s speed?

That being said, as long as you don't get an older SSD with the old JMicron controller, the drive you get should blow away any HDD. Intel X-25V 40GB is about $115 and I think Indilinx-based 30GB/32GB also start in the same price range; the Intel drive is bigger, but the Indilinx stuff will be faster in a few extreme cases (sequential write).

With a good SSD there's really no need to do any data management.If the drive's big enough, you can just scrap your SDHC or ReadyBoost, and if you're using Windows 7, TRIM will take care of cleaning the drive. Even if you aren't, it's really not that big a deal.