Samsung SSD 830 2.5inch SATA III 6GBps 128GB Desktop Accessory Kit with Free Norton Ghost 15

Its an awesome drive.
Bought in preferance to a OCZ
Has its own biult-in samsung controller, so no problems with conflicts which some ssd's are having probs with
Less read time than some ssd's BUT a huge 256mb cache that apparently means the overall performance is better than higher read/write competitors.
Ive got one installed and its FAST, and its only running at 3GB/s
Improves startup a lot, program open & close a lot (esp lotsa tabs on internet browsers), program running (photoshop is better)

I was used to a samsung 1TB F1 spinpoint hard drive, which apparently had high read/write times anyway.

I got the basic kit and theres no 2.5-3.5 bracket with it, might be worth getting the more exprensive upgrade kit (this one) if you need the bracket. this comes with more software too, and a sata cable.

Read up a bit b4 you buy, there are ssd problems are about on the web, it seems the samsung 830 is problem-free, very good quality.

In short very reliable and very fast. Just what you want from a drive
Worth the extra because of reliability. Who wants a drive that dies 6 month down the line? Data loss :(

Tips for looking for SSD upgrade -
- Make sure you mobo supports AHCI in the bios. read some info on the web if u dont know what this is. (Mine supports it but im currently running at IDE, need to check how my other HDDs are affected if i change, and if i can continue running my SSD in IDE safely, but works fine now)
- If youre spending on sata3 (6gb/s) make sure your mobo supports it (might only be sata 1 or 2 - 1.5 or 3gb/s)
- Make sure you got the power and dta connections to spare - a sata power connection from your power supply, and a spare sata port (and cable) on your mobo.
- Make sure you got a spare slot in your case!

Remember - dont defrag your SSD! Not good for it

Bundling the Norton Ghost software partly explains the price being higher than for some similar products. However this SSD also has a 256MB cache which is used by the Samsung software to optimise performance. I Have mine installed as the Boot drive and am very pleased with it. I do not have comparative performance figures but it is certainly quicker to boot and load programs, even though my computer is already fairly high spec. I use quite a bit of Samsung kit (TV , BluRay, Sound, Laptop, Hard disks) and like their quality. 4 weeks in and I am delighted. Will possibly buy another.

This review is from a pensioner who is on the wrong side of 70 and not particularly tech savvy. I own a Dell Dimension 8400 which is approximately 7 years old and it was running out of hard disc space, so an upgrade rather than a new machine seemed to be the least costly option. Reading the reviews of SSD's was helpful, if at times a little confusing, however after reading a review by Ab I decided to pick up the courage and give it a try. The SSD has now been running for some weeks and it is a significant improvement over the mechanical version in terms of speed, capacity and it is also quieter. I did make some mistakes in the process and listing them here may help anyone else who may be considering a similar venture.

1) My computer does not support SATA 3 and so the disc read and write speeds are much slower than than the SSD is capable of, however as previously mentioned, it is still much better than the mechanical disc that it replaced. I guess that I could have chosen a lower specified SSD and saved some cash.

2) On copying the mechanical hard disc I was not careful enough on the selection of options and now have a partitioned hard disc, one partition being the same size as the original disc and the other utilising the remaining capacity of the SSD.

3) After copying the original drive, the boot up files have been amended in some way, so that there is an option given on start up to choose the operating system. This is not much of an issue as one key press continues the start routine. However the greater concern is that I used to hibernate the computer rather than shut it down, so that start up was much quicker. Now if hibernation is selected, it will shut down and then immediately reboot which is annoying. I feel sure that there is a way around this issue, but that will be in the minds of some one much more technically aware than me.

Overall despite the issues mentioned it has been a good move and I would recommend the change and the Samsung product with ghost supporting software. The remaining concern is one of ongoing reliability and this is an unknown quantity at this time. The mechanical drive gave good service over many years, time will tell if the SSD does the same.