Review on 💾 High-Performance Intel 40GB X25-V MLC Solid-State Drive - Retail Box SSDSA2MP040G2R5 by William Mistretta

I bought this drive about a month ago and I have to say that it has really speeded up the startup times and application load times for my computer, Intel Core i7 860 with 8GB RAM. PRO: In a word, SPEED! This increased the Windows 7 hard drive rating from 5.9 to 7.2 (the highest rating is 7.9) and, better yet, accelerated app launch and load times. This is a notable update, unlike some other updates e.g. I didn't notice any acceleration when I increased the system RAM from 4GB to 8GB for the same price as the SSD. It operates silently, consumes little power and is immune to vibration damage. or drop it, which would make it a natural fit for a laptop application. Because it uses so little power, it doesn't heat up the system, causing the fans to run slower and quieter. NEUTRAL: I have the same complaints as everyone else - the cost per gigabyte. SSDs are still cost inefficient, resulting in small drives. I use this drive as my startup drive and put my most used applications on it, but there isn't enough free space for all my applications. All my data is stored on other drives. I had to download a firmware update to use the Intel Toolkit with the TRIM utility. Fortunately, this update is non-invasive and does not erase data from the drive, unlike firmware updates from other manufacturers (Patriot). I suspect this drive has been in storage for a few months since the firmware update came out. Intel recommends running the TRIM utility once a week, otherwise performance will be impacted. With my drive being 2/3 full, it only takes a few seconds. Like all hard drive manufacturers, they measure a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes, not as a binary measurement of 230th power or 1,073,741,824 bytes. This means that on my Windows 7 system the drive is formatted with NTFS to 37.1 GB. This doesn't come as a blow to this drive as it's industry standard, but be aware of this issue as 40GB is already good enough for most people. CONS: This drive is not as fast as some other SSD drives due to its single-channel architecture. Large Intel drives (and large drives from other manufacturers) are faster because they use a dual-channel architecture. However, remember that this is a VALUABLE drive and is slightly less expensive than larger drives. CONCLUSION: Overall, this was a very good purchase as my system runs faster, cooler, quieter and uses less power. I only give four stars because of the comparison to larger, faster, but more expensive SSDs. Highly recommended!