Hexus: "Premium solid-state drives (SSDs) are now coming in thick and fast from a wide range of manufacturers. Looking at the other end of the scale, small-capacity SSDs, aimed at users who want a fast boot drive, retail for around £75 for a 32GB model.
Increase the SSD spend and you get the twin benefits of larger capacity and a better-performing drive. At very top of the consumer SSD tree sit drives powered by the SandForce controller, which we first took a look at here in the form of the Corsair F100.
Corsair is now bringing a trio of revised Force SSDs to market with larger capacities and a lower street price. We take a close look at the Force F120 and see if it's deserving of a £300 price tag."
Corsair say they have identified a number of stability issues with the 120 GB variant CSSD-F120GB3-BK, and are urging customers to return their faulty SSDs for a replacement drive.
Unfortunately the problem can’t be fixed with a simple firmware upgrade alone; it also requires changes to the hardware. Corsair are footing the shipping bill so at least it won’t cost you any money.
Tsardom.net tells you how to give your computer a major performance boost in one simple and affordable step.
If your OS is on a separate drive or partition then moving it to a SSD is a stroll in the park with software like Acronis True Image home. I've used it many times to clone partitions/drive and automatically resize and it's very simple to use.
ill buy an ssd when they come down more in price and have more space. until then im good.
I think we're still a number of years away from SSDs being able to replace traditional hard drives but I can't wait for the day they do!!! They are now pretty affordable to use as a separate boot drive though.
But you don't need that much space for an OS a a FEW main programs. The problem is that the average user is not "neat" enough to install non-essential programs on a different partition. They simply cannot stay away from C:\program files\ so they tend to dump everything there. Before you know it, a regular user's 32 to 64gb SSD is full of crap. If you are serious about organizing your PC files, programs, and managing your partitions, then SSD for an OS would be great.
I ALMOST went this route, but I had enough Sata drives lying around the house to do a decent RAID, so I did that instead and it cost me nothing. I suggest checking the ratings/reviews on those SSD drives before you dive into buying one. Certain ones tend to have better reputations at a "reasonable" cost if you are set on buying one.
I think casual users would be ok but gamers who install a number of games like Dragon Age: Origins could soon fill up the drive. As prices keep coming down it's on the verge of a decent 120GB SSD being pretty affordable although jumping to a 250GB is still expensive.
I agree about checking reviews - I urged the same caution and mentioned a few of the more reputable brands in the article. From research I did before getting the Corsair F40 for my parents their Force Series seems to offer the best balance between performance and affordability.
