Intel 330 Series Solid-State Drive 240 GB SATA 6 Gb/s 2.5-Inch

I have used various SSD drives but have always felt most comfortable with Intel. These drives are astonishingly fast, and also include the mounting bracket you'll need to adapt them to a 3.5" bay (consider that at least a $13 bonus, not even counting shipping, when you're bargain-shopping against cheaper brands).

Installation simply could not be easier: connect power and a SATA cable (ideally to a 6GB/sec port, and no, you don't need a special cable for 6GB/sec) and you're done. After you've installed your Operating System (you ARE buying this to be your boot drive, right?), visit Intel's website for their SSD Toolbox software. This will properly configure certain Windows features (like Superfetch, Prefetch, Defrag and Trim) to optimize your SSD's functionality and keep it running smoothly for you.

Intel 330 Series Solid-State Drive 240 GB SATA 6 Gb/s 2.5-Inch

With Windows 7 64-bit and all its updates installed, plus Microsoft Office Home & Business, I have used only 35GB of my 60GB drive, leaving plenty of room for other software. (Note: if you do the same thing and end up with far less spare room, research "hibernate mode" for one potential reason; also, if you are going to have more than 8GB of RAM installed, your Windows pagefile may need to be bigger than mine and take more room also, so your mileage may vary.)

Intel 330 Series Solid-State Drive 240 GB SATA 6 Gb/s 2.5-Inch I have a large 1TB hard-drive for bulk storage, and with my Intel motherboard (check my other reviews) I get boot times of around 18 seconds---very nice (your boot-time mileage may vary, mostly based on whether or not your motherboard enables you to disable most of the Power-On Self Test functions or not). Two of these striped into a RAID 0 configuration will give you double the storage AND throughput, for those who want to exceed Warp Speed and obtain Ludicrous Speed. For the rest of us, one of these is enough to make us very happy!