Intel SSD 520 180GB Solid State Drive SSDSC2CW180A3K5

I resisted the SSD urge for a couple years, and finally switched. I was holding off until the MTBF rose significantly compared to what it was a while ago. Also, the trend toward affordability made it pretty tantalizing. A trusted friend just installed one and reported amazing performance, so I felt it was high time to jump. The short version amounts to: using the Intel OEM / Acronis migration wizard made this a complete no-brainer migration from an existing Windows 7 installation on magnetic media, to this 180GB SSD. I'm glad I did it, and as a nice bonus, I also get a very recent full-system backup (my old hard drive) as a result.Pros:Drive- and package-specific:* Drive is fast, like really fast. How fast depends on lots of factors, too many to name here, but very importantly it depends on which tool you use to the speed test, and what block size you test with. Using DskSpeed, the linear read speeds using 128KB blocks, typical for most data, topped out at 315MB/sec for linear reads and 279MB/sec for random reads. This is nearly 5x the speed of the drive this replaces, and the performance certainly bears that out.* The drive is very small -- it's a 2.5" form factor appropriate to drop into modern laptops* Intel generously includes a 2.5" to 3.5" drive adapter bracket so it fits neatly into the cage* Intel generously includes mounting hardware (both necessary sizes of screws) and a 6GB/sec SATA III cable* Included is a short instruction sheet that makes it seem too easy, but in reality it *is* that easy* The drive is silent; no moving parts* It's very light; a comparable magnetic drive in the 2.5" form factor weighs in at around 5 oz., while this one tips the scale at less than 80 grams (3 oz)* Power consumption is lower than a magnetic driveWindows pros:* Startup speed (from where the OS starts, not including the BIOS screens) went from around 25 seconds down to 4 seconds* Start-up for most apps is practically instantaneous. For office apps, browser and e-mail, it's in the half-second range where looking away for a moment means you missed it* WEI disk score (for those of you who at least think it is helpful to look at) jumped from the "forever stuck at 5.9" doldrums to 7.9* The Intel optimization software, which one really should run, does an excellent job of quickly adjusting Windows settings to make best use of the drive, and degrade it the least in the long term* The Intel OEM version of Acronis makes migration super-easy*. (See below for why I added the asterisk. It's a strange case, but one that certain users should be aware of.) Acronis worked exactly as I had hoped. It uses a wizard-like interface to talk the migrating user through which drive to clone (e.g. your old, slow one), and where to make the new clone (e.g., your new hyper-fast one). You can go step-by-step using its wizard, and also change things you've already answered by just clicking the history states at the left side of the app. It runs a short Windows portion to gather your info, then reboots, finishes the migration, and that's all for it. It tells you your system will turn off when you hit a key, then it's time to pull your old drive out, make sure the new one is set as the boot drive in the BIOS, and then you're off to the races.Cons:None* (see 'other thoughts' for the specific case that won't affect most users, and thus really shouldn't be considered a con.)Other thoughts:For most users, that's the end of it. This is a super solution for slow drives. It doesn't excuse you from good maintenance practices, registry cleaning, removing unnecessary services and all that if you are a bit of a power user. It tremendously accelerates load times (by my tests, 3x the fastest magnetic drive I own, and about 5x the speed of the one it replaced) and per the MTBF, it should be a long-lived solution.There seems to be only one fly in the ointment for this, and it's not the drive itself. It's the Acronis software. As stated above, this is the perfect solution for most users, and it performed beautifully for me after I resolved an unexpected issue that it could not work around. I won't dock a star for this, since I'm ever so grateful for how superbly easily it went after I manually fixed a holdup. See below for that special case.For me, this was the issue: I had a Linux partition at the end of my boot drive, which I put there using my BIOS. It served as a sanity backup of the system state from 24 months ago. I had not removed it, expecting that I could specify only the Windows partition to Acronis for it to clone. Not so; it wanted to either 1) migrate the entire disk as is, which would chop off a partition partway through, or 2) migrate the entire disk, shrinking partitions proportionally, or 3) let me direct it. So I chose the manual method (#3), hoping that it would let me choose only the Windows partition. It didn't; it instead wanted to migrate both the Windows partition and the Linux, which I didn't want. It provided no way to work around this. Thus I had to exit out of the app, run diskpart, and delete the Linux partition (since disk management cannot do it). If you find yourself in this situation, you must also use the "override" switch to delete the partition, after choosing the disk and choosing the partition. This isn't the place for a tutorial, but I wanted to raise the awareness of certain users who are migrating an existing partition, which is one of at least two partitions on the drive, where at least one of the others is a Linux or other OEM partition.

I added an SSD to my office workstation a few months ago to deal with some large GIS program and files. I was amazed at how well my PC functioned after the upgrade, though the other components are fairly decent by today's standards: quad core, 8 gb ram, windows 7 enterprise. When I bought a 3rd gen i7 laptop, I was disappointed in the boot speed by comparison and started looking for an SSD for it. I was replacing my 2008 Dell 530s desktop with my laptop, though using the laptop as my home workstation was a pain, but the Dell was old and slow, so I started considering upgrades for the desktop.I started with an SSD, the Intel 330 180gb. Tne Dell has a dual core E2160 and 3gb of 800mhz RAM, Windows XP, and booting from a standard 7200rpm Western Digital HDD. Even the most basic desktops these days are light years ahead (except with the HDDs). After cleaning its registry, dumping all the temp files, and making every tweak I could find on the internet, I was able to get Windows XP boot time "down" to 6 minutes. That's a bit misleading as I couldn't immediately boot up other applications like Word, Outlook, Chrome, etc. They all took another minute or so to start.I bought the desktop version of the drive (as opposed to the notebook version) which had everything I needed (except proper screws, see below). The I WASTED A HUGE AMOUNT OF TIME worrying about and researching info about cloning a 180gb SSD from a 250gb drive, partitions, etc. Absolutely a non-issue with the supplied Intel Data Migration Software. As long as the amount of data on your original drive does not exceed the capacity of the SSD, there won't be a problem (though I'd suggest you not exceed 75% of the SSD's capacity to be sure). The installation manual/disk that came with drive had clear and complete instructions, and installing and cloning the SDD is a breeze. Simply download and run the Intel software as instructed, it's fully automatic, no guess work, and doesn't take long at all. The SSD was partitioned perfectly. Then download the Intel SSD Toolbox to optimize the drive, and if you have XP like me, run the Disk Alignment Tool as instructed. Swap the drive and reboot, and voila, instant system improvement.The only issue with the install was that the SSD came with hexagonal-head mounting screws instead of round-head screws, which don't seem to work in the Dell's drive bays. That wasn't a problem because I was pulling the old boot drive anyway since I have a 1TB drive for data files. But be aware that your computer may need special mounting screws.My motherboard has SATA 2 ports. My PassMark Performance software indicates I'm only getting 175mb read speed and 200mb write speed, which seems strange, and maybe I'll look for some tweaks to get the speed up some. That said, the test speed is not the story, the resulting system function is: Windows XP now boots up in 45 seconds! And at that moment I can immediately boot working programs. That's faster than my new laptop and how a computer should run. I could not be happier with this drive and the install process, and I can't wait to upgrade my other two laptops!

I bought this because of the nice price for the best SSD brand. I removed the Seagate Momentus XT-Solid-Hybrid 750GB SATA 6 Gbps HD. I realy do not notice any reduction in start-up boot time or shutdown time because of the fast boot and shutdown of the Seagate. For the way I use my laptop it seem to perform the same. But for the benchmarks it shows a big increase in speed. The Seagate-Momentus XT-Solid-Hybrid 750GB at SATA 6 had a WEI of 5.9, The intel 330 180GB at SATA 6 Shows a WEI of 7.9. I like the Intel SSD Toolbox and the Intel Data Migration software. I bought a external HD 2.5" SATA usb 3.0 enclosere to use for Data Migration. Now I have a reduction in the HD size from 750 to now 180 but I do not realy use or need a large Hard drive. I belive in the near future the price of SSD are going to drop or you may get a much larger size. DV6t-7000 Quad Edition 8GB 1600, i7-3610QE. I installed Kingston HyperX DDR3 PnP 1600 and my WEI droped from the stock 7.9, HyperX 7.8 so I left the stock memory in.

Purchased two of these. Neither will load an OS. It will allow an installation but the computer cannot access it as an OS startup. After that the drive will fail after you either eject it or remount it. Both of these failed in different ways. This was not user error. I own a lot of hard drives and everything I did was systematic, nothing out of the ordinary that I don't do with other hard drives. These Intel drives are cheap for a reason and now I know why! Please take my word on this, DO NOT BUY!!!!!!!! You will regret itAlso I suspect the drives I got from Amazon were used because the plastic casing seems to have been cleaned by some sort of liquid cleanser that stained it.