Joined on 12/29/08
Great addition to any build
Pros: I just built a new gaming rig and this item was the gem in the box of components I received. Not only did it come with the drive (that looks pretty cool, btw) but it came with cables, mount, and a screwdriver set. I used the screwdriver on the entire build. It was just a cool little addition to a great kit. Very competitively priced for all that it came with. As for performance, this thing is screaming fast. This (SSD in general, I'd say) is the biggest visible performance boost in computing I've experienced in many many years. If there was a way to get rid of the animation in the windows 7 loading sequence I think boot time would be less than 20 secs. I use this for gaming and loaded the key games on it (Rift, SW:TOR Beta test) and they pretty much don't have any load time anymore. I'm the first one to load and show up in instances everytime.
Cons: None so far. Best investment I made in my entire build. If you have an intel-based chipset make sure you install the Intel Raid management software. I do NOT have this in RAID, but those drivers increased performance on the drive a noticeable amount. I think it just allows the chipset to talk to the drive directly vs. using the Microsoft generic driver. So far I haven't seen any firmware updates - not that I've really seen a need. Just seems like most of these drives have update firmware. Maybe this should be a Pro vs. a Con. =)
Overall Review: Please please please make sure you research how to set-up, install, and tweak your SSD before you do your build. There are a bunch of great guides that talk about the best ways to take full advantage of your SSD in Windows (some great space saving tips too - like how to move rarely used files/folders or file folders that do tons of writes - like temp internet files - to conventional second drive to reduce the space and wear/tear on the drive). I think many people consider their SSD to be bad when it blue screens - but if you set the power settings in windows correctly and tweak a few other settings, it goes away. Do your research!