Intel X25-M 2.5" Solid-State SATA II Hard Drive - 80GB

Comment:
This is the best drives I ever tried. It make computing into the next level. Everything feels so different because virtually no waiting. It's funny how I still expecting the HDD to grind noisy everytime I shutting down the system, but there's no noise, wierd feeling.. but very cool indeed. Makes my computer into something different now.

Comment:
Bought one of these because my fiance was complaining that her laptop was slow. There was such a massive difference I now have one in mine and two raided on my desktop. Once you go SSD you will not look up. Installations often go as quickly as you can push next. On my desktop I used to have four standard 500MB seagates raided up and it beats it hands down even for raw transfer. Very impressed. Also bought a couple of ocz vertexes making a machine for a friend. No noticeable difference side by side though benchmarks will tell you different.

Comment:
I bought 3 of these Intel X25-M drives to put in a RAID5. The performance is excellent in the RAID5 configuration (seeing 500 MB/s reads and 250 MB/s writes with write back enabled). I ran into an issue where I reinstalled the OS a few times in a day and it caused the drives to go into low performance mode. A secure erase of the drives brought them up to proper performance again and I have been pleased ever since.

Comment:
This drive is simply amazing! However, make sure to update  to the latest firmware as it keeps the drive from getting slower over time. brendon_j's review has the proper links to the new firmware.This drive makes any heavy IO bound apps works like a snap. I've tested this drive as a game development drive (tens of thousands of files used in a build process) and a Win7 OS drive and it's a rocket for both.If you want to eliminate disk access as a bottleneck this drive gives you a huge leap in that direction. This review was modfied by poster @ 06-08-09 01:37 AM

Comment:
I was hesitant to jump into the waters of early adopter - and this is probably my first 'true' enthusiast purchase but my expectations have been met and slightly exceeded with this drive.I use it in my htpc which is now essentially fanless except for one noctura d 5v.Windows boots as fast as i'd ever want it to (no point to enter sleep anymore).Apps load instantly even the sluggish media portal application.I've used several 'tweaks' on my xp install to help limit writes to the drive however with the new firmware (see bottom of summary) that shouldn't be as necessary.-disabled page file and system restore -moved my temporary windows files/temporary firefox files to a ramdisk (if you google you will find a free drive to do this but its limited to 32mb i use qsoft ramdisk).update  THE FIRMWARE TO 8820 http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=17485this will help a lot with fragmentation from preliminary reviews.http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=691 This review was modfied by poster x 04-14-09 06:47 PM This review was modfied by poster @ 04-14-09 06:06 PM