What is a good SSD for my situation?

So I plan to order a SSD for my laptop in the very near future. I'm just going to toss out what i'm going to use it for/ how it will be used and any input would be awesome.

I have a Sager np9150 and have opted out of the optical drive for a (empty) caddy in its place. I currently have a 750gb HDD in the main bay as well. I plan to store anything I wish to save on an external drive, wipe this HDD, put it in the optical caddy, put the SSD in the main bay. I want to install my OS, applications, and maybe a couple of games on the SSD while using my HDD to store anything I download and whatnot.

Is there a certain brand (I've noticed samsung, crucial, and intel being mentioned frequently) to aim for?
What size do you think I should get for my needs?

Cheers

 

I would recommend getting the 200GB+ SSDs. Like the 240GB Intel 520 or the 256GB Samsung 830 or 840 PRO or the 256GB Crucial m4..
If you've got a lotta cash to blow, think about getting 512GB variants of the brand models mentioned above.

Since you mention you've got a Sager NP9150, you can also consider getting a mSATA SSD in addition to the SSD!

Check out the Crucial m4 mSATA SSD. 64GB, 128GB & 256GB.

Good luck.

 

I'd suggest the 256gb ssd, although based on what you said I think the 128gb is more than enough for windows, apps and a couple of games

 

Is this just for gaming?

I would have 16GB RAM (2x 8GB PC3-12800), an mSATA SSD (Crucial M4 256GB partitioned to ~150GB leaving ~88GB 'unallocated from first use) for the O/S (Windows 8 PRO x64), a 240GB/256GB SSD (Intel 520 Series, Crucial M4 or Sandisk Extreme) for your 'game installs' - leaving at least 38GB 'unallocated' from first use.

If you really need the space for your games: a Crucial M4 512GB SSD - leaving at least 50GB 'unallocated' from first use. The 'caddy' drive will be your 750GB HDD, of course for video, music, documents, etc.


With Win8 installed: point to your external drive as your 'File History' location for a time machine-like backup.


Of course;
If you wanted to do 'real' work with this notebook: double the RAM to 32GB, make the 'unallocated' part of the SSD's closer to 50% of the available space on each drive and ensure you have an i7 QC IB based platform to let this system give the most performance you can currently have. Depending on the specific usage scenario: I would make the mSATA drive my 'Scratch Disk' location for CS6 and partition the HDD to ~200GB as a WIP (work in progress) partition to hold the current 'project' I'm working on. (The rest of the HDD would still be used for 'DATA'). The 'work and O/S' SSD would be an Intel 240GB 520 Series SSD partitioned to ~130GB - or; for bigger projects: the Crucial M4 512GB partitioned to ~240GB.


Hope this helps.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the responses guys, really appreciated it!

I'm looking into either getting the Samsung 840 Pro 256gb or Crucial m4 256gb drive right now.. a cyber monday sale would be great

and unfortunately the drive isn't just for gaming . I'll need to use it for doing school work (programming, projects, essays, etc.) as well as extracurricular activities.