News - SSD price war in full swing

[krazy_olie]

ooh, I reckon in a few months it will very plausible to buy a couple big ones and run them in a raid 0 with plenty of storage space (unless you enjoy hoarding years of video in which case HDD will be king for a while

[BerZerk]

Amazon is doing it for 79.99!! Darn, I paid 89 for mine 2 weeks ago...

[davidcrofter]

Prices are good but personally I can't be bothered arsing around with installing a new SSD boot drive as my windows 7 system is running without fault at the moment - sure the SSD would have it running even better but I personally will be holding off on SSD until I build a new rig or upgrade to windows 8 ... whatever comes first really.

[bradyjames]

I think I will hold out just a little longer. The 128GB ones are in my price range now but I could really do with a 256GB drive because I'd like to get my most played games onto it too.

[Smudger]

What puts me off is that it seems to be either 128 or 256, where are the 180s and 200Gb? I'd like to replace my OS drive with an SSD but I don't think 128 will be enough, and 256 is still a bit too expensive at the mo...

[Phage]

I've been running my OS and BF3 plus a few other apps on 120Gb for a year or more...not close to full.

[AGTDenton]

What puts me off is that it seems to be either 128 or 256, where are the 180s and 200Gb? I'd like to replace my OS drive with an SSD but I don't think 128 will be enough, and 256 is still a bit too expensive at the mo...

Assuming your are referring to a desktop and can install more than 1 disk, 128GB should be more than enough if you are OK with installing all other apps such as an office suite onto a secondary drive. You don't need applications or Users folder to be on the SSD drive, just the OS. I have a 300GB SAS drive for my OS, as at the time was cheaper and more reliable than SSD, I currently use 80GB for OS (over 3 years).
Of course with a laptop or limited to a single disk 128GB is really pushing it these days.

[jnutt]

Just started using a Crucial M4 256gb Well pleased

[FRISH]

Yep, jumped for an ssd for like £97 including the bracket since I remade my system recently and thought it was a decent price. I think a lot of people should consider an ssd now.

[Nelsaidi]

I'm really tempted (for an intel one atleast), ive been growing more and more annoyed at my hard drive and hadnt been able to replace it due to the was ridiculous pricing of hard drives, so will hopefully do so in a month or so Then again, if you search through the forums you'll see ive probably made 100 posts like these but never getting to it :/

[Crazytom]

And now only £79.99 for a 128GB M4:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004W2JKZI/

Damn, just bought one of those last week for £89.99.
Totally worth it though, been wanting one for ages

[ed^chigliak]

Prices are good but personally I can't be bothered arsing around with installing a new SSD boot drive as my windows 7 system is running without fault at the moment - sure the SSD would have it running even better but I personally will be holding off on SSD until I build a new rig or upgrade to windows 8 ... whatever comes first really.

It's a bit of arsing about but not that bad IMO and here is how I went about it:-

I used perfect disk trial to defag & consolidate my files so I could shrink my C: partition under 256GB using windows 7 disk management.
Some CCleaner & restore point off, indexing off preparations thrown in for good measure. I soon had me some serious shrink on!
That done I used the windows 7 in-built backup to image C: drive onto an external USB drive. It's fully SSD aware when it comes to re-imaging.
I then unplugged my HDD and attached the SSD (because normally I do some thing dumb and overwrite the wrong drive)
I then booted from a windows 7 SP1 DVD and chose repair > from image.
I was patient for once and eventually MS clunkyware found the 'latest' image on my USB drive.
Clicked what the hell 'all drives' OK button.
I am now 100% re-imaged onto the SSD... perfectly aligned with benchmarks where they should be for SATA2.
All software / desktop / settings looking good. One app wanted me to re-activate my license otherwise damn near perfect.
Checked defrag scheduler was off. It was... windows re-image fully SSD aware it seems.
Had a bit more fun in the registry setting some AHCI value to 0
Went into BIOS and change IDE to AHCI
Re-booted. Got them found hardware popups and then some drivers auto installed.
Windows needs to re-start so once round the loop on the new SSD. No longer the pain it one was... much faster.
Benched again and Q32 4K results got some extra awesome.

I had Windows Home server drive images before I started the above. Just saying... backup first.

[ilh]

Got my M4 just a few weeks ago. Can't believe it's nearly 2/3 of the price already. Glad that prices are coming down though.

[3dcandy]

£66.99 for 120 gig Sandisk here...

http://www.dabs.com/products/sandisk-120gb-ultra-sata-3gb-s-2-5--solid-state-drive--read-280mb-s--write-270mb-s--7N6G.html?src=2

[1stRaven]

I just fitted an M4 256Gb to my work laptop. A light and day difference on a dell e5420. Also just started to order the work Dell laptops in with ssd's already fitted as they are pretty much the same sort of price now. Users seem to love the upgrade difference on them.

[=assassin=]

Nice to see prices are finally starting to look acceptable. Still a lot of room for lowering though. Would be nice if they were half the price they are now.