Intel 320 Series 80 GB SATA 2.5-Inch Solid-State Drive Brown Box

I am an IT consultant and have purchased and used quite a few Intel SSDs, not just the 320 Series extensively, but the prior generations like the fantastically reliable X-25M series. I just love these SSDs. They transform ANY computer into a "new" one by decreasing the boot times of an OS and load times of small and major apps so dramatically. Throw one of these in a 5 year old laptop and you've got a machine that will outperform the newest off-the-shelf laptops with spindle-based hard disk drives. I particularly choose Intel 320 series for:* Reliability, which is legendary. I've used the cheaper OCZ products before, but once one of them literally bricked on me just a couple days after setting up a new PC, I don't even bother to price-compare other brands against Intel SSDs. I have been using Intel SSDs for about 2 years now and have never ever had a single issue with any one of them. I would say I have purchased at least 100 Intel SSDs.* Price. There is a major hard drive shortage going on right now which has raised the prices of hard drives considerably. Granted, while the GB to GB, apples to apples comparison is still not in SSD favor, you just cannot beat the performance benefits of an SSD vs. any HDD. I only use hard drives for storage. OS and Apps go on an Intel SSD, period.* Software. The Intel SSD Toolbox is absolutely awesome. It will tell you if there is a firmware update available, easily allow you to upgrade the SSD firmware, and will actually show an estimated life remaining. All flash memory have a finite number of write cycles which eventually WILL deplete, so it's nice to FINALLY have the technology where we can replace something up to, and right before, it fails. I don't believe other SSD brands even offer this kind of a software utility of this caliber.For those of you who are reading reviews that claim their Intel SSDs failed after so-and-so number of days, weeks, months, whatever, please take note that the reviewer themselves probably most likely did not take the necessary precautions in preventing *static electricity* from damaging these sensitive flash devices! Additionally, even though they do not generate much heat at all, if you put them in a hot environment, it will shorten the lifespan of these sensitive drives dramatically. Exercise proper care!For those of you who are trying to compare Intel SSDs with any other brand out there, stop looking and just buy an Intel and be done with it. It's worth every single penny and it will enhance your computing life so much, while giving you the reliability you deserve.

I bought this drive to replace a Kingston SSDNow V+100 96GB SSD. The drive was being used as my Windows 7 boot drive, but I decided to use it for a Mac instead, and buy this Intel for my Win7 drive.I'll post the Windows Experience Index scores that I've received from my various hard drive configurations for your reference. All scores are from Intel-based, quad-core desktops running Windows 7 64 bit.Hitachi 2.5" 5400 RPM 160GB (boot and storage): 5.3WD Caviar Blue 640GB (boot and storage): 5.9WD Caviar Green 2TB (boot and storage): 5.9Kingston SSDNow V+100 96GB SSD(boot)/WD Caviar Green 2TB (storage): 7.0Intel 320 Series 80GB SSD (boot)/WD Caviar Green 2TB (storage): 7.4Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD (boot)/Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB (storage): 7.9(2)Intel 320 Series 80 GB SSDs in RAID 0 (boot)/(2) WD Caviar Green 3TB total (storage): 7.9The Intel drive thoroughly outperforms the Kingston drive, and is actually a tad cheaper. The PC runs noticeably faster with the Intel drive, and I'm very pleased.Update: The drive is still running strong (in spite of having been run almost every single second of the last 7 months or so that I've owned it).I decided to upgrade the PC that this drive was in, and since I wanted a faster SSD, and these have become fairly cheap... I bought a second matching drive to run in RAID 0.With two Intel 320 series 80gb SSDs running in RAID 0 (striped) on Windows 7 64 bit... I got a 7.9 in the WEI and absolutely stunning performance (matched with an Intel Core i7-2600, an Intel DZ68DB motherboard, and 16GB DDR3 RAM). I also have a 7.9 WEI on my Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD in my other desktop.So the RAID 0 setup may not be the best bang-for-the-buck OS drive, but it was certainly a good choice since I already owned one.

Product works perfectly.Very fast, from cold boot to window in less than 30 seconds, used to be 3 minutes plus on HDD.Applications are more responsive and thus more productivity.Games load time noticeably shortened, tested on Battlefield 3 and Elder scroll V : Skyrim.The only flaw is its exterior, the bottom part of the metal case is rough and unpolished.Overall, it's an excellent product for its price.

This product so far works very well after over two months of use. Sometimes it takes a macbook pro 10-15 seconds to recover from sleep though for some reason. System performance is noticeably faster than with a conventional hard drive, and the system also boots faster, within about 15 seconds or so. I believe the drive allegedly has a lower failure rate than some other SSDs. It also seems to use less power with average use than a conventional drive and is a few grams (maybe 10 or so) lighter than a conventional HDD. Additionally, you of course don't hear any annoying sounds that you do from conventional hard drives when they're accessing the disk.

Hard drive is fast. But after one month, my PC start " Blue screen(crash)". I try everthing, but nothing change.I don't install unnecesarry soft, only Microsoft software.