OCZ AGT3-25SAT3-120G Agility 3 120GB SATA III 2.5 inch SSD

I'd been look to upgrade my laptop for a while I put the max ram in (4G) upgraded the HDD TO 500G the CPU runs at 2.1GHZ (Dual core)but the thing was getting sluggish did a fresh install of windows still sluggish, Most laptops in my price range had the same specs so I didn't want to spend money on getting the same! thought for ages should i get a SSD, thought I'd wait until the price gets near to HDD but I took the plunge, best investment I've made.

Did a fresh install of Windows 7, had a few problems with updates freezing, but what a difference it's like having a new faster laptop (Sata 2 not 3) boot up from cold less than 30 second, power down less than 10 seconds, Itunes in under 3 seconds, internet Pages load way faster. I also bought an HDD adaptor which slots into the DVD drive (I put my old laptop HDD in it (didn't really use the DVD drive but I have a USB one anyway) so I now have SSD running OS and programs and HDD running everything else.

I will get another one for my netbook

UPDATE...

bought another one £10 cheaper! off here,
used my Acer back-up disc and there was not much difference between HDD and SDD took all the bloatware out, still the same, a little bit faster but not much more, so I put a clean install of Windows 7 64bit hopping it would make a difference, well it did, big time, my netbook Acer 1.5G dual core, 2G ram runs really fast now (for a netbook)
A very good upgrade

Had a 32GB Esata external drive hanging around so modified it to use as C drive in a desktop. Results were so impressive I bought one of these from Amazon for my 'main' desktop. (Skip to the end if not interested in technical mumbo jumbo :)

I see several reviews commenting that the speeds are nowhere near the published theoretical speeds. As this depends on hardware, disk block sizes, physical disk size, position of file on the HDD, file access types etc my approach was 'is it better than ehat I have now?'

My main system is an intel m/b SATA II Quad processor. Disk storage is: this 60GB SSD, Samsung spinpoint 500GB 7200.2 3.5" HDD, Seagate Momentum 160GB 7200.2 2.5" HDD To compare performance I shut down as many processes as possible and used ATTO disbench32 which reads and writes increasing size blocks of data, and h2testw which writes and reads (verfies) a continuous block of data.

Results (which should always be regarded as approx as not a lab test):

Using ATTO diskbench32

With very small 0.5KB block write/read (more is good)
SSD 14/16k 3.5" HDD, 3.7/5.5k 2.5" HDD 5/6k so 3.5" SD best and HDD worst.

As block size increases to more typical values, in a given time, maximum write/read speeds are:
SSD 185/270K (128KB block); 3.5" HDD 107/106K (64K block) ; 2.5" HDD 47/50K (16KB block)

So as expected the SSD is significantly faster and leaves a 2.5" laptop HDD in a poor 3rd (as expected as for the same speed HDD, 3.5" disks are always much faster than 2.5" disks)

Just to try something else I then used h2testw with similar outcome although not as clear cut (read and verify 1GB continuous data )

SSD w/r 75/132MB/s (13/7sec)
3.5" HDD w/r 97/96MB/s (10/10sec)
2.5" HDD w/r 43/44MB/s (22/22sec)

write then read/verify 1GB continuous data is not a typical activity for me (my largest files are typically photoshop image files) but shows the SSD and 3.5" HDD have similar performance and as expected the 2.5" HDD is much slower.

finally a practical test: loading Windows 7 from 'Starting Windows' to username prompt and how long till 'catherine wheel' stops when logging in. With 3.5" HDD 30/15 sec with SSD 10/3 seconds. Couldn't test on this system with 2.5" laptop HDD but based on Dell laptop with similar startup load would expect a lot worse.

Conclusions - using SATA II interface (as I don't havea SATA III):

SSDs are much better than HDDs for most tasks but particularly when loading large files such as Windows startup and big applications such as Photoshop or Microsoft Office.

If you routinely write and read very large files then there is no particular advantage with SSD over 3.5"HDD

I would certainly replace laptop/netbook HDDs with SSDs every time (subject to cost of course.) Also I would always use SSDs for C: boot drive of desktops, and 3.5" 7200 HDDs for D: (user data and swapfile) - until of course the price of SSDs drop to the stage when a 500GB SSD doesn't cost the same as a the system its in :)

*EDIT 30/01/12* - Windows Experience Index now rates this as 7.5 out of 7.9 - my 7200 RPM Hitachi 250GB HDD scored 5.9 and itself was very fast.

I'm sorry but please just forget all the numbers for a minute, including the advertised 'Read' and 'Write' speeds, and all the other numbers. I've just installed this into my Dell Studio 1749 as the primary Hard Drive. I paid £66 for this, not on Amazon. I then installed Windows 7 64-Bit onto it, after formatting it and assigning it a letter so My Computer identifies it. OK...

Firstly, the installation was really quick. Within about half-an-hour, which is amazing, Windows 7 64-Bit was installed and ready, including the 2 or 3 automatic restarts.

Secondly, and most importantly, Windows 7 64-Bit starts up within about 20 seconds. From the Windows Logo, it's about 15 seconds. Anything you subsequently install on the OCZ SSD, well double click on it and it jumps at you, instantly. I've just opened the Start menu and clicked randomly on several applications - Solitaire, Control Panel, Help and Support - instantly they appear right after you clicked them.

Thirdly, copying or cutting and pasting movies or big games around is about 5 or 6 times faster than my old HDD. Even transferring files to and from external HDDs being limited by the other HDD's transfer rate is still about 2.5 times as fast.

Yes, we all know SSDs are expensive, but you know what? If I can open up my laptop thinking that I am never going to be annoyed by random pauses and loading times of applications, and things conflicting, and then more waiting - the fact that I won't be staring at an annoying blue circle going round and round forever or, if you're on XP, where it would be even faster because it's lighter on system resources, that hourglass which keeps flipping around as if to makes the ridiculous loading times aesthetically pleasing, then I am utterly sold on this. And believe you me, it is fast, stupidly fast. Just forget those numbers, you install this SSD, you will be sold, and I guarantee that.

This is undoubtedly the best upgrade I have ever installed on my laptop, by a very long way. It will make a huge difference.

NB. You may have to buy something called an interposer which slots into the SSD and connects it to the area on your motherboard or laptop board. Usually if you take out your old HDD there will be one attached to the motherboard anyway. If you have a spare HDD bay on your laptop, then you may need another laptop-specific caddy to hold it in place.