Review on Intel Solid State Drive SATA 2 5 Inch by Fredrick Edwards

A few months ago I added an SSD to my office workstation to handle some large programs and GIS files. I was amazed at how well my computer worked after the upgrade, although the rest of the components are pretty decent by today's standards: quad-core processor, 8GB RAM, Windows 7 Enterprise. When I bought a 3rd gen i7 laptop I was disappointed with the boot speed in comparison and started looking for an SSD for it. I replaced my 2008 Dell 530s desktop with my laptop, although using the laptop as a home office was an issue, but the Dell was old and slow, so I started thinking about a desktop upgrade. I started with an SSD, Intel 330. 180GB. Dell has an E2160 dual-core processor and 3GB of 800MHz RAM, Windows XP, and boots from a standard Western Digital 7200rpm hard drive. Even the most basic desktop computers are light years ahead these days (with the exception of hard drives). After cleaning the registry, resetting all temp files, and making all the changes I could find online, I was able to reduce Windows XP boot time to 6 minutes. This is a little misleading as I wasn't able to load other applications like Word, Outlook, Chrome etc right away. They all started in about a minute or so. I bought a desktop version of the drive (as opposed to a laptop version) which was all I needed (other than the matching screws, see below). I wasted a lot of time worrying and researching information about cloning 180GB SSD from 250GB drive, partitions, etc. Absolutely no problem with the included Intel Data Migration software. As long as the amount of data on your source drive doesn't exceed the capacity of the SSD, there won't be any problems (although I'd advise not to exceed 75% of the SSD's capacity, just to be safe). There were clear and complete instructions in the installation guide/CD that came with the drive and the SDD installation and cloning is very easy. Just download the Intel software and run it as instructed. It's fully automated, requires no guesswork, and takes no time at all. The SSD was perfectly partitioned. Then download Intel SSD Toolbox to optimize disk and if you have XP like me, run Disk Alignment tool as instructed. Replace the drive and reboot, and voila, instant system improvement. The only issue with installation was that the SSD came with hex head screws instead of button head screws which don't seem to work in Dell drive bays. It wasn't a problem as I removed the old boot drive anyway as I have a 1TB drive for data files. Note, however, that your computer may require special mounting screws. My motherboard has SATA 2 ports. My PassMark Performance software shows I'm only getting 175MB read speed and 200MB write speed, which seems odd and maybe I'll look at some settings to increase the speed a bit. However, the speed of the test does not matter, the final system function is: Now Windows XP boots in 45 seconds! And at that moment I can immediately load the working programs. It's faster than my new laptop and works like a computer should. I am very happy with this drive and the installation process and can't wait to upgrade my other two laptops!