Best SSD options at ~500GB

At the moment I am looking at the Crucial M500 and Samsung 840 Pro ~500GB models. I'm ready to throw my money at one of these, as I am sick of how slow this internal laptop HDD is, and I'd rather buy a high capacity, high quality model and be able to use it in future builds.

For those who have experience with SSDs, which would be most reliable, which would be fastest, and which would you simply recommend as the best?

And if there are better ~500GB options, please make some recommendations! I do plan on using this SSD as my primary, with no other internal drives. I'll probably end up putting my current hard drive in an external case and use it for backup files.

 

I think the 840 pro is among the top SSDs in terms of speed and reliability. I have a 830 256gb in my laptop and a same sized 840 pro in my desktop and I really can't tell the difference in normal use. Then again I'm not playing around with large files that often.

You might also want to check out the 840 evo, which is slightly slower than the 840 pro, but cheaper. Its the newest one from Samsung.

 

i would of gone for a samsung instead of my crucial at the time of buying but the 512gb hadnt been released.
the crucial are great but the samsung have the fastest read/write speed.

 

I've had both a Crucial (M4 though) ,and currently, a Samsung 840 pro. 256GB one and I'm really happy with it. both performed about the same with the samsung one beeing a little faster. both are very reliable. however where i live the crucial one is 100$ cheaper so I'd say that one...

 

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I'll probably end up going with the Samsung 840 Pro 512 GB. *Edit: Alright, I just bought it along with an enclosure for my current hard drive. I'm excited!

I checked out the Samsung EVO as Montage suggested, and the 750 GB model looks great. The larger size is appealing, but I dislike its layered complexity and speed drop once the MLC cache gets filled. That is pretty much why I am going with the Pro. Right now, my 750 GB mechanical drive still has 200 GB empty, and that is after a year of letting crap piling up. I can manage 512 GB easily, and if I do need the storage, I'll use the mechanical drive as an external drive.

I do find it funny that just a week ago I saw an ad for the 840 EVO being ridiculed on reddit for how bad the acting in it was. I didn't really pay attention to the name of the SSD, but the ad did make me want an SSD a bit more. A week later I start getting angry at how slow Windows is and how I miss my older desktop's snappiness, so I then consider reinstalling to see if my system is just bogged down. Then the SSD idea pops back into my head. Hey: SSD+reinstall=happy. I begin looking at SSDs, and then I eventually get to looking at the Samsung 840 EVO. Full circle.

 

I have a Samsung 840 Pro and it is fast.

 

Samsung Pro's were great and ones we often suggested but since they have been replaced by the Evo thats the way to go. Or Intel 530 series, those are also great.

 

If the budget is no issue then the Pro is the obvious choice over Evo. Pro is still the faster and supposedly much more durable (not that its going to be any issue in normal usage though). 840 Evo is cheaper to produce, and thus its price is also lower.

 

The Intel drives are arguably the most reliable/stable, though we scarcely ever have cases or issues with the Samsung drives. I'd recommend both in a heartbeat, and I think you'll be happy with the 840 Pro. :thumbsup:

 

I thought I would post this here and not make a new thread:

When I insert the new SSD and install Windows 7 (burned ISO from digitalriver), will I need to have a 25 character key from this computer ready (or OEM key), or should I use ABR Beta for Windows 7 which transfers the OEM activation?

Also, do I need to deactivate Windows on my current hard drive for the new copy to activate?

 

It would be best to have the key ready to go. I haven't done a 7 install in a while so dont remember if it asks for the key during setup of after Windows is installed.
Legally you can only have a Windows key active on one computer at a time. But I believe if you activated your current computer over 6 months ago you should be ok when you enter the key for the new install.

 

Thanks. It has indeed been more than 6 months. I recorded the key on the back on the laptop, and just in case I'll also use that program to at least have the activation files ready if the key for some reason doesn't work.

Edit: Everything went very smoothly. I used the Windows key on the back of the laptop, and activated Windows through the Microsoft phone service. The SSD is working fine at full speeds with no issues, and the previous HDD is now in a functioning external enclosure.

One thing I expected out of the SSD was for program windows to initially show faster. Programs would open nearly instantly on my Core 2 Duo desktop with a normal 3.5 inch HDD. With the Samsung 840 Pro, things FINISH loading a lot faster, but there is still a weird latency between clicking on a program and the program window opening that I never saw on my desktop. I think there is a bottleneck somewhere else in the system causing that.