SSD's in your Toughbooks

At Christmas newegg had SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD250KW 2.5" 250GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) on sale so I picked up one for $159.99 . It's a great drive with very good reviews. Today I got a email from them with this same drive for $149.99 with free shipping so I ordered another one for my CF-53. I have been using intel SSD's but for that price you might get 120 or 160GB. This offer is only good for 24 hours or untill sold out Newegg.com - DEALiCIOUS Weekenders: $60 OFF 250GB SSD, Incredible Deal on a LG LED TV + MORE!

 

Nice deal!
I'm well stocked on Intel SSD's, but I can't recommend SSD's enough. It doesn't make the processor or videocard faster, your front side bus can be snail mail slow, but it makes even an old laptop feel so much faster! Programs open in the blink of an eye, (large) documents, pictures and movies safe the same second you hit the "safe" button and making a backup (to another SSD or the right RAID config) is a breese compared to those old 2.5" disks. Certainly when you still have a 4200rpm disk!
I've used the Samsung 830 in the past (and my dad still uses it daily in is Macbook Pro) and it was a solid SSD.

 

I still haven't got around to upgrading my 19 Mk2 and 30 Mk2 yet, Got the drivers on hand. 160gb intels G2.

 

I got a hell of a deal last autumn (~$140 for a 240GB Intel 330 SSD), so not only Samsung can be 'cheap'. That was intented for my desktop, but got into a CF-F9.

Anyway, what I really like about the 840 (&830) is IDLE power drain (0.3W), which is half or even less then Intel's models. This in my opinion is one of the key aspects of a SSD in a laptop, becasue 90% of the time, the drive is idle, so battery runtime is very sensitive to this.
see: AnandTech - Samsung SSD 840 (250GB) Review
What I don't like about them, is the WRITE power usage (~4W / 5W) which is ~double to Intel's. This will be a significant matter if you use your drive a lot when on battery.

So, I'm waiting for a deal on the 840 Pro, which not only has better power management than the basic 840, but also MLC as opposed to TLC (3bits/cell).
The 840 has unproven reliability (it's still a new model), but I like the fact that's built entirely by Samsung (top-to bottom) and that they also have some Toolbox like tool - SSD Magician (still with some issues, but they'll get there). If anything, 830 was proven to be a dependable drive.

on another front:
What I don't get, is why Panasonic doesn't offer (even as an option) a mSATA configured miniPCIe slot (the 2nd one, used mainly for WWAN).
There are now a plethora of options (see the new Intel 525, up to 240GB, or even Mushkin 480GB !), so there could be a really nice Toughbook with OS and Apps on the mSATA SSD, and a big 750GB/1TB 2.5 HDD as storage.

 

........out of stock........:hi2: