Crucial 2.5" 128GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CT128M225

Pros: Much faster than VelociRaptor. Zero sound. HDTach Results: VelociRaptor: Average Read Speed: 106.3 MB/s Burst Speed: 258.4 MB/s Random Access: 7.1ms M225: Average Read Speed: 210 MB/s Burst Speed: 192.3 MB/s Random Access: 0.1ms Startup time: VelociRaptor: 1:46 M225: 57 seconds Photoshop load time: VelociRaptor: 10 seconds M225: 3 seconds Visual Studio load time: VelociRaptor: 8 seconds: M225: 3 seconds Shutdown time: VelociRaptor: 19 seconds M225: 19 seconds

Cons: Price, but the engineers at Micron/Crucial earn it with this drive.

Overall Review: I copied the 85 GB of data from my previous 300 GB VelociRaptor to my new 128 GB M225 by using the Clone Disk feature of the free trial version of Acronis True Image Home 2010.

Pros: Fast. Yea, it really is that good... ...if you deal with the firmware issue. (yea, it really is that bad.)

Cons: Firmware 1819 is so bad my computer kept freezing. The only solution was to revert to firmware 1571, which in all honesty is a real PITA. Check out the Crucial user forum for details on how to do this.

Overall Review: This SSD is a great deal because it comes with support for the TRIM command, which is a very new feature for consumer grade SSDs that keeps drive write performance from deteriorating over time. Windows 7 default AHCI and IDE drivers are the only ones that currently support the TRIM command. Intel & other aftermarket drivers do not. Make sure to set this in your device properties correctly. Until Crucial releases a fully functional firmware for this drive you'll need to revert to firmware v1571 and also download their "wiper" tool which performs a user initiated TRIM command. Run the wiper tool about once a month to keep the drive performance up. Reverting to the 1571 firmware will erase the disk. So do this before you install your software & files. For you Linux fans: Set the kernel boot parameter "elevator=noop" Set the "noatime" flag on the drive properties And consider researching alternative file systems (BTRFS?)

Pros: I purchased this drive to use in a new mini-ITX build. I installed it in a system running Windows 7, 64 bit, with a DFI motherboard (MI P55-T36), and using 8GB of DDR3 SDRAM, along with other hardware. The drive came with firmware 1819 pre-installed. Windows and the the rest of the system recognized the drive with no issues. The drive has been very fast from the start. For example, installing Windows 7 took about 10-12 minutes. My boot times are about 20 seconds, and my programs launch almost immediately. Because I followd the comments on the Crucial users's forum, I updated the firmware 1819 that came with the drive. I installed the latest firmware 1918. This firmware is necessary to address a decrease in performance over time that some, but not all, users have reported experiencing. I expeienced no such issues, but I installed it anyway, just to make sure I'm up-to-date with this problem. This Crucial SSD drive continues to perform properly.

Cons: Pricey

Overall Review: To install the latest firmware (1918), you need an IDE option in your computer's BIOS. Even if you do (have and enable IDE), some people have had trouble getting the firmware installed. If you get it installed, then user's opinions tend to vary between no noticable difference in performance, to much better, depending on how you were affected by the previous firmware. If you had the previous 1819 firmware running with Trim, and had no performance problems, then installing 1918 won't make much difference. If you had the older 1571 firmware installed, then you likely didn't have the performance problems, but neither did you have anything to stop the write speed degrading over time, so installing the 1918 firmware will give you Trim and GC (Garbage Collection) for the purpose of preventing degrading performance over time. If you had the previous 1819 firmware installed, and were suffering from the performance bug, then installing 1918 will eliminate the problem. (Per Crucial)

Pros: Speed is phenominal. Programs launch right away, boot time cut in half from 45 seconds to 23 seconds from when I push power button. Loading program times are fast as well. 5 year warranty is like the best out there. Update to Firmware 1916 for better performance. I used the ISO file on Crucial's site. Burned it with Imgburn at 16x to CD-R, NO PROBLEMS. BUY IT!!!

Cons: Price. Although it came down $60 bucks over last two weeks.

Overall Review: I have been researching SSD's for over three month's and finally decided to take the plunge. I do not regret it. It truly is like night and day compared to 7200 rpm drives. Loaded Windows 7 Home Premium in 18 minutes. Crucial support is great. I called them prior to receiving the drive and they were truly helpful. After all of the disputes I read about trim and tweaking, I found out straight from the horses mouth. Trim is supported both in ide and ahci modes. This concerned me because I have a Gigabyte ma790xt-ud4p. When running in ahci the system hangs on the starting windows logo for 30 seconds or more. Increasing the boot time. In ide I boot as said 23 seconds. I did a fresh install of the OS to make sure the partition was aligned correctly. Cloning does not align the ssd properly. My WEI is 7.3 with this drive in ide mode with msahci drivers enabled in the registry value = 0. Trim is also showing as functional value = 0 in cmd prompt. Update to FW 1916 for better performance.

Pros: As a computer enthusiast for over 15 years, this has been one of the most outstanding upgrades I've ever seen. It is a bit expensive, and I was very hesitant to spend the money.. but WOW! Its as if your entire computer is pre-loaded into memory.

Cons: The price.. its a huge performance advantage - mostly due to the random access advantage over traditional drives. This one benchmarks 20x higher in random access. If you wanted a better value, a smaller SSD that only holds your operating system and applications would be best.

Overall Review: I compared benchmarks, and decided on this drive due to its high marks in random access while being a relative value compared to other drives. Corsair's drive uses less power, but isn't quite as fast. Intels drive is faster, but much more expensive.

Pros: Immediate and noticeable improvement across the board. The first thing you will notice is how quickly Windows boots on this drive. My startup time from POST completion to Windows 7 login went from 90 seconds to 30. More impressive though is the speed after you log in. From logging in to having Windows completely loaded with all startup programs takes FOUR seconds (yes, FOUR). This is an improvement from 90-120 seconds before upgrade. Beyond that, the speed of everything else that resides on your system drive is improved as well. Applications like Excel, Word, Outlook, Firefox all open IMMEDIATELY. Zero delay. Even large programs like Sony Vegas Pro (video editing) open in < 5 seconds, which is a huge improvement. All in all, the SSD is a tremendous upgrade. My Disk performance in the Windows Experience Index went from 5.2 to 7.3 after installing the SSD.

Cons: Performance-wise: Zero. The obvious con is the price (which Newegg actually increased after I bought the drive). I will agree with other posts here stating that for the average user, the current price is probably a bit steep for what you get in return. However, the "average user" is probably not shopping for a solid state drive, so for those of you willing to pay a premium for a performance edge, you will not be disappointed.

Overall Review: Running Windows 7 x64 Ultimate with Intel i7 920 (no OC), 6GB RAM. Primary program use for this machine: Media Server Video Editing, Transcoding MS Office

Pros: It's a solid state drive that's easy to install and load. Currently have Vista x64 loaded on it and my boot times were cut in half.

Cons: None

Overall Review: As soon as the rest of my X58 build parts come in I'll be trying a fresh Windows 7 x64 Ultimate load. Make sure that you create your partition using the Windows 7 install routine to ensure that your partition alignment is correct. Search the web for 'ssd partition alignment' and you will find more information about this critical SSD configuration than you'll ever want to know about it.

Pros: Everyone talks mostly about how much your boot times will be reduced, but that's not even the tip of the iceberg for SSDs. The greatest advantage to using an SSD is the ability to multitask. File transfers will no longer bog down your system if you're using an SSD. Web surfing will not slow down in the slightest while you're backing up your data to an external drive, installing the latest game, or doing both of those things at the same time. It's absolutely amazing, and there is no reason why you should have to wait while your platter hard drive is being bogged down ever again. Ever been frustrated while Windows is updating and everything else is slowing down? Prepare to be impressed.

Cons: It's making me realize just how slow all the other components in my computer are.

Overall Review: I'm using this SSD mostly because I love being an early adopter of new tech, but I think the price is just a tad bit too high for this to be worth it. I'd say this sort of performance boost is worth about two hundred, maybe two fifty. If you don't have the need for speed, then wait until this drive is down to that price level.