Let's get busy and I'll tell you the story of my installation, and the SSD's characteristics, both good and OK and somewhat OK (none bad, mind you, just some could be *better* for all that $$$ we're spending on this SSD), but most of all please attend to the *DETAILS*, details, details of installation, and yours will be all that much better in your own machine if you do!I am *not* going to get overly technical with this review, after all it's not for a class on SSD's, it's for the Amazon.com marketplace, and computer users of all types, so it will remain mostly generic and easy to read...hopefully! So let's get going and let's have some fun!You're probably reading this because you either want an SSD, already have one, or are adding a 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th to a system you've built, or are improving your notebook, or desktop PC or Mac with this fantastic new technology an SSD offers us, so we all have that in common, plus there's a general interest in SSD's that borders on fanaticism at this time in computing history, so here's some data of this SSD's attributes and characteristics.The X25-M 160GB SSD has a formatted capacity of 149GB, it is a 2.5" form factor hard drive generically speaking, with a 9.5mm height to fit into most any notebook; it weighs roughly 72 grams (about 2.5 ounces); has SATA 1-2 (I-II) connectivity and throughput of 1.5GB/sec or 3.0GB/sec, depends on the controller in your notebook, desktop, or RAID system controller interface. Its internal formatting is in 4096KB sectors, which is an important thing to understand right away, because we have to think of "Alignment" of the sectors with SSD's, and how they read, write, and seek data depends on sector parity with the system it resides in.Unlike platter HD's we cannot 'vary the sector' count by formatting, as it is fixed at the 4096KB (4K) size by virtue of the MLC cells themselves, or SLC cells the case being, (Multi or Single-level cell structure inside the SSD configuration) thus even if we wanted to change the structure of the SSD with 16k, 64K, 256K etc formatting we cannot, it is fixed and "aligned" with 4K sector parity.Windows 7 is "SSD Savvy", as is the Mac OS X disk formatting scheme from both the installer DVD-ROMs, and their respective Disk or Hard Drive utilities, the native HD formatting and partitioning software programs that come bundled with the operating systems. Thus when you install Windows 7, or Mac OS X 10.5.x+ onto an SSD with the 4K sector alignment, the installers will automatically format the SSD correctly for use, beginning and ending the partition(s) the user wishes to use, however many there are relative to the SSD's size, on an integer of 4096KB, so that when the SSD writes data to a sector it comes out "even" and all is well, ie 2+2=4! I only want to mention this now, because it is important as we get into the whole subject of Parity and Alignment.Let's take a couple examples, and we'll get through Parity and Alignment quickly. I prefer a single Partition for small HD's or SSD's in general, so in my case all I had to do was open the Windows installer DVD ROM, and it automatically formats and aligns the SSD in 4096KB sectors, beginning with the Primary Partition (and only partition) with an integer of 4096KB, and ending the partition at another 4096KB sector, so all is well, my setup is simple.Let's say, however, that a user wants 2 Partitions...one for the OS, and a 2nd for DATA...in this case the installer would begin the 1st Partition on a 4096KB sector integer, and when the user wants to "break" the SSD up into the two partitions, (for example the OS in 59GB and DATA in 90GB sized Partitions, 59+90=149GB, occupying all available space), the installer would Align the 1st Partition at a multiple of 4096KB, end that partition at another integer of 4096KB, then begin the 2nd Partition for DATA at a 3rd integer of 4K, and end it at a last 4K integer, and all would be perfectly "Aligned".There might be a very small amount of contiguous space 'wasted' in all of the alignment to get the SSD into perfect parity with the 4K Alignment standard, but the installer utility's job is to get the sectors Aligned correctly, without wasting any space if possible, beginning and ending each Partition on a 4K sector, ideally.So, the whole idea being that Alignment must be perfectly apportioned by the installer or an alignment tool of some sort, or the SSD will waste its internal space and be searching aimlessly for data, and writing it to odd-sized sectors if we were to format it with 112KB sectors, for example. The SSD's great speed would slow to a crawl, space would be "wasted" every time there was a new write made on the cell structure because it wouldn't add up to an integer of 4096KB if it were formatted in 112KB sectors, in short the SSD would be a jagged tangle of non-interleaved data, its speed would be compromised, and the SSD's entire premise of 4K Alignment would be negated by non-conforming formatting, a very bad thing!Why am I dwelling on this subject right now? Well, for one key reason straight away, and that is that some Cloning or Partitioning tools are NOT SSD 'Savvy' and will not perform Alignment correctly, so avoid them at all costs!My favored Paragon Software's Partition Manager 10.x Professional is not yet SSD Savvy, though they are working to make it so with its next edition. However, Paragon has developed for Western Digital Corp, and also made a special version for their own uses, a special PAT (Paragon Alignment Tool) that must be used if you are utilizing PM 10/Pro to Clone your data and OS from a normal platter HD to an SSD. Otherwise the Clone will be out of Alignment and hopelessly out of sync with the 4K standard, and basically any unaligned Partition would be terribly slow, data would be "all over the place" instead of organized into nice, contiguous 4K blocks/sectors, and the SSD's high theoretical speed would be impossible to achieve.Getting this SSD up to high speed is also the result of having the latest firmware in place, so that process must be done with an empty SSD, ie when it is freshly installed, before you place your OS and key data (if any) onto the SSD, format it, Align it, etc, so I'm going to briefly go over the firmware updating procedure using a BOOTABLE CD ROM with the Intel firmware ISO Image correctly BURNED into the CD ROM with a proper burning software/utility, and how to avoid problems with such a procedure.With a notebook this is relatively simple, as there is usually only one or two SATA connections in a notebook, ie one for the HD and one for the optical drive, if the notebook has an optical drive (netbooks, and small form-factor notebooks like my Asus UL30Vt-X1 don't have optical drives, so doing the firmware updating on my new notebook was a breeze!).There are a couple problems that can occur, and they are best handled by understanding the pitfalls themselves, and how to avoid such problems. First, you must disable any HD passwords or Administrator passwords before doing the firmware update, in BIOS, or the CD ROM with the firmware update on it will NOT start up the notebook or desktop. Second, with most desktops with multiple SATA connectors it's best to install the SSD onto one of the Primary SATA connectors, not those meant for optical drives or accessories, so that is usually SATA connectors 1-4 numerically speaking, not those farther "downstream" in the chain of SATA command. You want the SSD to be flashed on a primary controller interface of the desktop, on the primary or South Bridge SATA controller, not one for accessories or North Bridge administered SATA connectors.Sometimes the firmware flash cannot be administered from the AHCI driver/connector of some notebooks because of a driver conflict. When that happens the notebook won't let the CD ROM start up the computer, and one must accomplish the firmware flash on a desktop, then reinstall it into the notebook...this is not so common, but it does happen now and then, so if your notebook refuses to start up with a correctly made CD ROM with the firmware ISO image burned into the disk properly, this is probably the case, so proceed accordingly.Speaking of firmware flashing and ACHI controllers, the ACHI controller MUST be enabled in BIOS rather than the "IDE" controller, or "RAID" controller, or the "RAID+IDE" or "IDE" setting for the controller in BIOS. The setting must be "ACHI" and ONLY "ACHI" to accomplish the firmware update with an Intel ISO image on a CD ROM, or USB Flash Drive, made BOOTABLE using the proper procedure for doing that hat trick.Now if you don't have an external optical drive, or internal drive, or if you prefer to utilize a USB Flash Drive to do the procedure, by all means do it that way, but I'm not going into it here. I have been using CD ROM's for doing firmware updating, updating the BIOS of my computers, etc, and prefer it to this day over USB flash drives, so I'm old-fashioned that way, but it works for me.The next subject of this review is a special treat I have in store for those of you who don't know about the newest Intel Storage RAID/SSD Driver for your IDE/SATA Controller of your desktop or notebook computer, because guess what? Intel *Just Released* a new, extra-special driver for RAIDs, SSDs, and Desktops/Notebooks with IDE/SATA AHCI Controllers who will be utilizing SSDs, and I have the URL for it in the first Comment, which I made at the end of this review. The editors here at Amazon.com removed the link from the review, so there you go, it's in the Comments area at the end of the review.The SSD-compatible Microsoft and Intel IDE/ATA ACHI Controller/drivers up to now have not been SSD-specific like the new driver is, and it works a TREAT! I am certain that it accounts for a fair amount of speed in my notebook's charting of SSD Read and Write Speed, as I showed in my additions to the SSD Images in this review. I don't think that too many people are getting up to 270MB+/sec read speed out of their Intel X25-M SSD's at this time, unless they are also using that driver for SSD's specifically, and RAIDs specifically, from the Intel software download web site.When you navigate to the Intel web page for the download, download the EXE file, and it's ready to ROCK! Just double click it, and WHAM! It installs instantly as your controller's driver. You can check and see if it installed correctly by going into Device Manager, then to IDE/ATA ACHI Controllers, Right Click on the Controller/Driver symbol in Device Manager, then go to Properties of the driver, and check to see if it has been updated to v9.6.0.1014.You can go ahead and Clone your HD to the SSD after doing the firmware update to the SSD, and the Driver update to the IDE/ATA ACHI SATA Controller, using Acronis True Image, or any number of Cloning softwares that are "SSD SAVVY", but just be certain they are JUST THAT before you do the Clone operation, and all will be well.Those of you using Paragon Utilities at this time, please obtain the PAT(Paragon Alignment Tool) to use after the Cloning operation. Your Paragon Software Support Agents can supply it for you in the Help Section at Paragon Software, ie make a Support Request, tell them that you are Cloning an SSD with PM 10 Pro, etc, and ask for the newest Beta PAT.If you are using the Windows 7 Installer in any flavor you choose, it is SSD SAVVY natively, so you can just go ahead and safely install Windows onto the SSD and all will be fine, no problems to anticipate there.My WEI Score went up to 7.8 points, just one/10th of a point from perfect, which I have uploaded for you all to see in the Images section of this Review for the SSD.I uploaded several images to view about performance with my SSD installed in my new Asus UL30Vt-X1 notebook, and they are quite enlightening, so be my guest and check them out for yourselves. The most interesting and accurate image for performance of the new Intel X25-M High Performance 160GB SSD is the ATTO Tools Benchmarking Tool scoring, which is xlnt!If you'd care to look at that index, you can see that from 16KB through 8192KB, with the 256MB test file, the Read speed was anywhere from 238MB/sec through 272MB/sec with the Write speed consistently between 110MB/sec and 115MB/sec, which is top drawer for this particular SSD.The ATTO Tools test is especially regarded as the most accurate of all the benchmark tests along with HDTach Professional, but I didn't have time to run HD Tach Pro on an empty volume, and that is how that is best utilized. My scores are with the OS and my applications installed already, so those are pretty amazing numbers from an Intel X25-M High Performance 160GB SSD, filled with almost 40GB of data and the OS.BE SURE and disable your Disk Defragmentation in Windows Disk Management!! Don't forget to do that! Also if you can, if you are running maximum RAM like I am in my notebook, you can eliminate the Page File from the HD also! I have turned off my Page File in my HD, and that's easy to do also...here's how to do it:1) Click on Computer in the Start Menu2) Right Click on Computer Icon in Start Menu3) In the Left Column Click on "Advanced System Settings"4) Under System Properties, go to Performance Options5) Under Performance Options, Go to Advanced Tab6) Click on 'Virtual Memory' "Change"7) Under Virtual Memory click "No Page File"8) Close all those Windows and Restart the computer!9) Done Deal, and your computer will operate with a ZERO Allocation for Page File! ONLY DO THIS with maximum RAM in your computer, and it will improve the performance of the computer up to 25% over normal fast SSD performance!I am very pleased with this purchase, very much so! I give the Intel X25-M 160GB High Performance SSD HD the Wavey Davey Ultimate Performance GOLD AWARD, for being the best SSD for the $$$ in the Amazon.com marketplace!This is the one to buy, the RETAIL BOXED SSD from Intel X25-M-Land! It was packed to beat the band, no way anyone was going to tamper with it, being sealed and protected inside of the box like a little vault! Reminded me of buying one of their CPU's! I'll always buy a retail boxed HD or SSD as long as it's within reason, it just makes sense to do.Enjoy the graphics that I posted--and I hope that you enjoyed the review, and that my tips and help will come in handy for you.This one was a bit of a pain to install, it had a lot of special things to do to it to make it ready for Prime Time, but when I was done with the optimizing, and the install of the special SSD/RAID Driver for the ACHI Controller, I knew that I'd done the right thing because my performance was very high! Use that new Intel ACHI Driver! That thing is the BEST! Update your firmware! Then sit back and enjoy a whole new notebook or desktop experience, because things will be happening very, very fast with the new X25-M in place!!Wavey Davey - 3-28-2010