Best SSD for T400/500

I'm going to be purchasing a T400 or T500 in the next week to 10 days. I plan to get the basic 80GB 5400RPM HDD and upgrade it with an SSD myself, as I can buy one at NewEgg for half the price.

That said, what would be the best drive to purchase? I'm looking at spending around $250 on it, so I'm assuming it will be a 128GB model.

 

I am not an expert, but it's my understanding that the Intel X-25M is pretty much the state of the art these days for practical use. Someone else may provide a more nuanced answer.

I believe that would cost you approx $400 for an 80GB drive.

PS Decided against the X301?

 

you might have to wait awhile to get a good performing ssd for $250 (128gb)
the x25-m is nice but costs like 370 at newegg and is only 80gb
I heard good things about the gskill titan $350 (128gb)

What i did was bought a samsung slc for 210(32gb) off fleabay for like 200(put the os and other programs in there) and bought the ultrabay adapter for my t400 and put a regular gskill mlc for 130(64gb)(i put all my files, pics, data..)
I never really use the cd/dvd so i had no problem. And the battery life is still good. about 5-6 hrs just typing with integrated video card. If i start doing web surfing, itunes, word i get 4-5. all on a 6 cell and i am running xp

 

Yeah, it's still pretty new tech. I'm just looking for something that will give a noticeable improvement in speed, power consumption and heat over a standard HDD.

I can't tell you how I've been agonizing over that choice. I *really* would like to have an X301, but there are just three things that are borderline deal-breakers:

1. Price. No matter how I spin it and try to justify it, it still lands just outside what I'm willing to spend.

2. I haven't been able to find much at all in the way of reports of how it would handle the development apps I would need to run (Visual Studio 2008, Windows server environments with IIS and SQL Server on virtual machines, etc.)

3. Intel X4500. If this thing came with even a Radeon 3470M, I'd be tempted to sell a kidney for it. I'm not a hard core gamer by any stretch. I just want the games I *do* play to look great - mainly RPG's, RTS's and adventure games. For example, if I could expect it to run Diablo III in high detail, I'd be ecstatic. As it stands, the X4500 pretty much qualifies it as little more than a work machine, and that's just a lot of money for that.

If I do rule out the X301 (which...*sigh*...I still can't say with all certainty I have), then I look at the T400 and T500 and the fact that the size difference really isn't a lot, so I'm weighing the feature differences against what size difference there is - the difference itself being weighted by the fact that I was looking for a portable solution to begin with.

My wife is on the verge of staging an intervention.

 

The gskill MLCs are not a bad choice, but with regards to the best drives with the better controllers...intel and samsung builds are the way to go.

 

I think everyone agrees that the Intel is top dog right now, but they are also cost prohibitive. I'm looking for something in the neighborhood of 128GB for around $250 bucks.

Something I just noticed and found interesting, upgrading from 64GB SSD to 128GB on a T400/T500 will run you about $550. On an X301 the same upgrade is only a couple hundred bucks. Are they just playing games with the customization pricing on the different lines, or using different parts for the two?

 

Who knows since it is lenovo...I'd still buy 3rd party since the market pricing will not reflect as quickly in lenovo's build to order. I think if you the intels are too pricey to look out for the gskills.

 

Anyone have any experience with the SuperTalent models? They make some of the best RAM, so I wonder if that translates at all into their SSD's.

 

The new OCZ SSD lines are coming soon, don't buy the SSDs are made by 2008
They are out of date, and the price will be dropping super fast! like the gas!

Or you can wait the sandisk G3

 

Ya the new sandisk might be interesting. The gskill titan 128gig is close to your target range though.

 

Code:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/11/ocz-intros-vertex-line-of-2-5-inch-sata-ii-ssds/

I don't think it has been reviewed yet. But this one seems to claim speeds that best Intel X-25 claimed speeds. $400 something for 128GB.

Code:

http://i.gizmodo.com/5126848/sandisks-g3-ssds-deliver-40000-rpm-speeds-without-breaking-the-bank

This one should run you $250 or so for 120gb. It hasn't been reviewed either. But claims to best Intel X-25.

 

I hear ya on the X301 agony. I'm a developer too, and have a T60. My problem is there is really nothing wrong with my T60 at all, so it's hard to justify the X301 to myself... except that it is just so light and neato! I saw one in a store and it's been hard to not think about since.

From what I've read about most compilation / development environments wrt SSDs is that in general they are very friendly to SSDs because they are all about *tons* of reads of little files (in general). Clearly it depends on what you are doing, but my understanding is that most development tasks are RAM- and disk-bound more than they are CPU bound... in most cases.

That said, once you're putting your servers in VM's and stuff, yeah maybe you want some more raw horsepower there.

The video card thing doesn't bother me at all so it's not a factor for me... but it sounds like the T400 would be awesome for you if you go that route. IMO the T500's are just too big and bulky and I would never consider one, but that's just me.

Anyway good luck with your decision, I know about those wife interventions... if she's like mine though you can just say that this is your equivalent of watching the E! channel....

 

So, which SSD did you decide to get?

 

I'm putting off the purchase as long as I can in hopes of getting the best price I can. At this point the G-Skill units are looking good.

 

Anyone knows what kind of performance improvement in bootup speed will I get when I switch from a 320GB 5400rpm to a SSD?

 

some have been reported to be lousy, and others very good.

I have used the mrton 3500 and Samsung SLC, both 32gb, and they are much faster than my 160gb 5400

 

This is great. I too get a little obsessive when it comes to purchases like this .

 

Yeah, we've reached a bit of a compromise. In exchange for a little more patience and understanding on her part, I've agreed to give up the custom F5-key auto-actuator I had implemented for use on page 1 of this sub-forum:



Baby steps.

 

Intel has reduced price on X-25 harddrive by $100. It's one of the best SSD in the market. Other than this, OCZ Vertex also seems like a great drive.

 

I have the Samsung 256 GB in my T400 and it runs great.

 

How much did you pay for it?