Bumping an old thread for an update. I also just pulled the trigger on an SSD drive for my laptop. The original HDD was starting to make death noises (only a year and a half old, but the laptop has been dropped several times, aside from being rattled around on chases) so I wanted to get it swapped out before it totally kicked off. I got a 120 gig OCZ Vertex2 from Newegg for $200, and there's a $30 rebate on it. I honestly could've got away with a smaller one and save a little $ since I don't do downloading or anything on the laptop, but I wanted to make sure I had room in case I needed to dump memory cards or video while on the road.
I can definitely say I'm impressed with how fast Windows boots, and how fast programs open now. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was concerned about the write speeds, but it seems to not be an issue with the drive I got. From my research the cheaper ones from several brands are still slower on the write though. These drives are made for use in kiosks and other applications where there is a lot of reading and not much writing.
There is also a significant reduction in the power usage. I now get about an extra half hour while running on battery versus the old drive. The palmrest above the hard drive bay is also not hot anymore (heat= wasted power). So all things considered, even though it cost much more than a new hard drive with less capacity, I think it was a worthwhile upgrade.
On a side note, I still do not completely trust it not to fail being as the technology is so young, so I do still have my laptop set to backup nightly to my network server. However, it does have a 3 year warranty, so if/when it does fail there will have been improvements made and the new drive will be better than the old one.
