Customer Reviews

Intel 80 GB X25M Mainstream SATA II MLC Solid State Drive SSDSA2MH080G2C1

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Putting an SSD in my original black MacBook is the best thing I've ever done. Literally anything I do happens instantly, and this is on SATA 1.5 gb, I'm sure 3.0 is even better.

This OEM version arrived in a small padded package barely bigger than the drive itself, but thats fine as there are no moving parts. It also has the latest firmware, 02G9.

This review is for the product itself, not about stock or sellers!

This is a fantastic upgrade to a computer system. The Intel G2 drives support TRIM when upgraded with the latest firmware. Windows 7 automatically support TRIM. TRIM increases the drive's performance and efficiency.

Upgrading from an HD to a good SSD like an Intel SSD will result in a SIGNIFICANT performance improvement unlike make other upgrades you may make, like a bump in CPU performance, memory, or video card. An SSD is many times faster than an HD in many important ways and has a big impact on the responsiveness of a computer.

The Intel is even price competitive with other SSD offerings.

Pros:

* SPEED

* Significantly faster than a VelociRaptor 10,000 RPM hard drive

* Superior controller design vs other manufacturers

* Windows 7 scores this drive a 7.8 (highest possible is 7.9)

* Low power consumption, great for notebooks especially (but also good for desktops)

* Works just like a regular 2.5 inch drive so works great in SATA notebooks

* Retail version comes with a metal 2.5" to 3.5" adapter for desktop use

* Supports TRIM with latest firmware (G2 - second generation drives)

* Latest firmware upgrades sequential write speed to about 100MB/s from 80MB/s (160GB version only)

* Can download "Intel SSD Toolbox" to view drive information and optimize the drive

Cons:

* Expensive compared to HD's

* Slower sequential write speed than some competitors - but for many this does not significantly affect overall performance

Other:

* My suggestion: Use an SSD for OS and applications and an HD for storage (like a Western Digital green drive)

Purchased 80 GB OEM version. Also purchased Vantec NexStar CX external case to allow cloning. Put SSD in housing, attached to usb, then used Acronis True Image 2010 to clone the drive onto the usb (Trial version is 100% functional in this). Went very smoothly, cloning a 320GB onto the SSD. Then swapped the drives and I now use the original as a 320GB external. Downloaded the new firmware from Intel website (SSD came with 02G something) and flashed to 02HD. Just follow the directions on the website, burn the download as an ISO and boot it up. Flashing is automatic really. Drive shows up as 74.53GB. Windows 7 with full MS Office Enterprise takes up about 20GB. Previously, HD Tune reported 40MB/s read (I only have the free version so no write stats). Now read is 196 MB/s. The bootup is much quicker, but not the 10 seconds others have reported. I get about 19 sec from the 'starting windows' to login ready. About 2x faster I think. I still have 63 services running (never know which ones I can disable), so that probably slows things down a bit. The real boost is program launch. Office apps are there as soon as the start menu disappears, instantly. It is really impressive. I'll have to tweak the system when I learn a little more from user forums, but I am very happy with the purchase.

By the way, the windows performance index for this drive shows up as 7.7 on my system. All the stats seemed to come up a little with the new drive. Even the graphics index (which is the most limiting on my notebook) went from 3.3 to 3.6.

Toshiba T135-S1310

Intel SU4100

4GB

Windows 7 x64 Home

Note that I have 2 drives striped in raid-0. Q6600 running at 3.2GHz. 4G 1600 DDR3 on Asus S2E.

Windows 7 64-bit now loads in 1/3 the time it used to take. Shutdown takes 4 seconds flat.

Office applications start within a second.

Windows experience index gave it a 7.9 before the firmware update and 7.8 after the update.

I use it mainly for applications and games that I run most of the time (it's only 150GB after all).

I gave it 4 stars because I still think it's slightly expensive for the performance gain you get.

Been using the hard drive for about 3 months now. Very excellent drive. Performance is excellent although I am using an i7 with 12gb of ram so theres not much thats going to slow this machine down but the drive itself is performing outstandingly

Ordered via amazon.com, delivered to the usa, brought home to the UK. Installed it in my wife's creaking laptop (the subject of much complaining). Re-installted windows 7 plus office 2007. wow. outlook opens in 1 second, likewise for other office products. Laptop is generally much quicker and more responsive. Very easy to install device, didnt even read the instructions. Now I need to wangle another trip back to the USA so I can order one of these for myself.

After using this SSD for several months now I can tell you that this is a wonderful upgrade. It will breathe new life into an older system or an aging laptop. You will realize that CPU speed increases over years have only marginally improved performance for the majority of users. Transitioning from a mechanical, spinning hard disk to an SSD is a major advance in technology and performance. Things happen much faster, you wait less and you get used to traditionally sloggy and slow applications like Quickbooks and Sage ACT, opening much much faster and performing better. Take for instance searching for email in Outlook using Outlook's built in search... a simple thing.... with an SSD, the search just tears through a multi-gigabyte file .pst file and the emails show up very quickly. Virus scans, file searches and general mutli-tasking improve greatly. Your system will finally be able to strut its stuff!

A little expensive but totally worth it if you spend more than 4hrs/day on your computer. In 3 years mechanical disks will be used primarily as backups and archives devices and most new systems will ship with SSD's. That's what's coming. Why not have that future today?

If you get an Intel or any other SSD, look for one that has TRIM support. The new Intel (version G2) has this support and this makes it so that your SSD doesn't degrade in performance over time. Many of the older, cheaper SSD's don't have support for TRIM or other clean up routines and they will degrade over time. Get one that has this feature. Also, you'll want to use an operating system ideally that gets the most out of an SSD, such as Windows 7. You'll have to do your own research about that aspect.

All in all, a great investment.

Easy to install in my home desktop PC- didn't need a drive bay adapter, as it was so light, I attached it to the curent drive bay with 2 screws on one side. It is significantly faster that the traditional drive. I had a 7200 RPM SATA drive in there. This boots up in probably 30 seconds and opens applications like MS word or Exchange in 1-2 seconds, almost instantaneous. It is expensive but makes a big difference in speed.

I replaced the stock (slow) drive in my wife's Mac Mini (Macmini3,1) with the Intel 80GB X25M and the result is staggeringly good. Launching apps, or Garageband "How Did I Play?", things that used to take 5-20 seconds to load... now happen instantly. I'm not exaggerating when I say that most apps now launch much faster than on my Mac Pro at work (MacPro4,1 6GB of RAM and Quad-Core)!

The Good:

- It really feels like we bought a new, crazy fast computer, with just a ~$100 upgrade.

- Read / write speeds are inline with Intel's claims.

- Installed as expected, just like any other laptop-sized drive would.

The Ugly:

- SSD is still expensive, in particular the fast stuff like this one.

- Now I'm going to want one in my Mac Pro at work.

These Intel SSD drives are simply awesome; buy one to upgrade your laptop or netbook and you'll be pleasantly surprised at the ease of installation and the data access speeds. A nice bonus is that your machines will get greater battery life too. Use EaseUS Disk Copy to copy your old hard drive or SSD to this one, [...].