G.SKILL 2.5" 64GB SATA II SLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) FS-25S2-64GB

Pros: This is an excellent product at a (relatively) inexpensive price. As other reviewers mentioned, this is actually a re-branded Samsung SLC SSD drive with the usual SATA II controller. I installed a fresh copy of Kubuntu onto the drive (yes Linux users, it works perfectly fine). The biggest thing you will note is the SPEED of this drive in normal operations. Using all the same hardware but just swapping in this drive cut my boot times from over 50 seconds down to about 20 seconds. Programs load noticeably faster and many operating system operations that require a high number of small transactions are much faster too. Some of you were burned by OCZ: I can say that my system stays responsive even if the drive is being heavily taxed. Things do slow down, but there is no "stuttering" and the slowdown is not even as bad as a normal HDD that is thrashing. No noise and a drive that draws much less power and heat are also bonuses, especially if used in a laptop.

Cons: It is expensive, but with a $100 mail in rebate the price came to $525 which is much more reasonable than what these drives were going for even as recently as August. Considering this drive has the exact same components as much more expensive brands, I think it is a bargain. My only real problem was fitting this driving into a normal desktop tower. The 2.5" form factor is great, but the drive does not come with extra mounting hardware to adapt it to a 3.5" drive bay. I had extra brackets lying around and mounted it vertically in my case. The drive is a whole lot smaller than a normal desktop HDD and the mounting improved airflow in my case vs. the drive it replaced.

Overall Review: While this drive might not be the fastest thing around for transfers of very large data files (although it's no slouch either) it excels at the type of workload that a system drive needs to be good at. Get this drive, load your OS and major applications on it, and keep a large spinning platter for storing MP3s, videos, etc. For all you Linux users out there: I have my / and /usr all occupying the SSD, while /home is on a conventional 320GB drive. I put swap on the conventional drive, but seeing as how I almost never use it, I could have put it on the SSD for better performance.

Pros: Great drive. Having used raptors in a RAID 0 array on my Desktop. This thing is much faster. I did a clean install of Vista 64 after installing this in my laptop and am using the 300GB hard drive for storage while the OS is on this 64Gb SSD. Boot up is faster and programs load crazy fast for me now. I like it. Buy it.

Cons: Too expensive. Not enough storage space.

Overall Review: I would not hesitate to buy this drive again. Installed without a problem. Buy it now!

Pros: SLC SSDs like this one have incredible read speeds, especially when multitasking. Even game fps is improved, since disk thrashing is no longer an issue. Boot times are faster, but not as fast as you might imagine.

Cons: On the flip side, write speeds aren't stellar. If for some reason one of your main criteria in buying a drive is ultra-fast write speeds, this isn't the one for you.

Overall Review: I'm coming to these drives after having owned every single Raptor drive up to the latest generation. I have two of these SSD drives, which are really rebranded Samsungs - one in my desktop, and one in my laptop. The combination of speed and silence is so incredible that I absolutely would not even consider building or buying another computer without one of these.

Pros: This is Single Level Cell memory not MLC. This means that read and write speeds stay constant throughout the life and capacity of the drive. ALL MLC drives (even the Intel MLC) suffer performance degradation after normal file system usage. This becomes obvious in nature as each cell must be stored and ovewriten with new data as the drive becomes full. Only 2 manufacturer's drives are sold here on the Egg with SLC technology (Intel and Samsung). This drive has good enough performance compared to the Intel's price/ performance ratio.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Note that Adata, Gskill, and OCZ are all rebranded Samsung drives (only the ones that look like a Samsung brushed aluminum drive and come in 32 or 64 GB capacity). Intel has it's two version with both 32/64 gb and using the Intel controller. The intel is faster because it internally raid O stripes the memory chips in the drive. Both Samsung and Intel memory chips meet the same JDEC specs, so it comes down to the controller. MLC cannot compete (even with advanced controllers) for a boot drive. Vertex is claiming to, but you can't buy one here yet, and again, the MLC write cycle is always the bottleneck. Speed costs and SLC is the only SSD really made for what your boot drive does.

Pros: FAST, Multitasking, with a load, under stress, you name it these SSD KICK some BUTTS! This is THE EXACT SAME DRIVE as the awesome Samsung & OCZ SLC Drives! THIS IS A REBRANDED SAMSUNG!

Cons: None at this time. Sure you can complain about the price, but the fact is, NONE of the MLC drives can hold a candle to the performance of the Samsung SLC except Samsungs own MLC which is slightly slower than Samsungs SLC offerings.

Overall Review: I would not hesitate for an instant to save some $ & buy this drive instead of the name brand Samsung or OCZ Branded models. They're all the exact same drive with the same performance, even the same model number which is MCC0E64G5MPP As a matter of fact, if you look closely at the pictures of these, you will see the words Samsung & model MCC0E64G5MPP

Pros: Installed one in an '07 MacBook Pro (2.4 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 4 GB RAM). This drive is fast. Really fast. This makes my MBP fast. Really fast...My PowerPC versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (which are typically my slowest opening applications, owing to their PowerPC origins) all open before I have time to wait...by the time I click the application in the dock and (1) move my hands to the keyboard to start typing or, (2) move the mouse to the menu bar, the program is ready for me to start typing or whatever... This things is so fast that my MBP starts up faster, and opens applications faster than my buddies' brand spankin' new MBP (which has a 2.5 GHz processor and 1GHz FSB, and faster memory too...same amount of memory and same O/S though). Wake times are also faster and, so far, more consistent. I have yet to really do some number crunching and my guess is that this upgrade is unlikely to drastically improve computation times for simulations, estimations, and whatnot...

Cons: I don't know if this is a "con" or not, but the drive was pretty pricey (~550)...especially on a per GB basis. Whatever, the thing will outlast my laptop...and it will probably go into my workstation as the OS/Application/Working-Docs drive when my laptop finally kicks it...what other computer equipment might you say that about? Your keyboard and mouse?

Overall Review: HDDs have been the "weak link" in the computing speed chain for years...this drive opened up that bottleneck for me quite a bit...my MBP just "feels" faster. SSD technology also makes me feel "safer" about lugging my laptop around...now, if I could just keep myself from dropping the laptop! Battery life seems a little bit better, but I have yet to objectively test it...

Pros: Well, its solid state, but I have mechanical drives that beat this thing...

Cons: Super expensive and only gets 100MB read...What the heck?

Overall Review: G.Skill has another SSD 64GB that gets 155MB reads, and for the low price of 130 dollars.