Looking to buy a new laptop. SSD memory seems very quick. Besides price - steep I know - any downside ?? Any helpful hints or suggestions appreciated.

Thanks.

Price per gigabyte is the downside.

Other than that there is no reason to not get one.

Price per gigabyte is the downside.

Other than that there is no reason to not get one.

There is since there's such a difference is performance with an SSD. Only makes sense with a high end laptop though.

Another possible downside is the storage size. The most common sizes are 128GB or under, and that might not be enough storage if you travel with games, movies or lots of data files. Price of 256GB (and larger) SSDs are rather expensive, IMHO.

One workaround is to buy a reasonably-priced 128GB SSD and a 32GB SD card to keep permanently in the card reader slot of the notebook for extra data storage. (Or, a couple 32GB cards to swap out.) Reading/writing data from a SD card should be okay, speedwise. I wouldn't want to try running apps or games from one, though.

Another workaround for notebooks with a built-in CD/DVD drive, is to replace the drive with a traditional hard disk drive to supplement the faster SSD on which you'd only load the operating system and as many frequently used apps as would fit. You could feasibly use a 64GB SSD, or maybe even a 32GB SSD, with a supplemental HDD for the rest. On my desktop I have a 64GB SSD with Windows 7, all my apps, and some of my data, and still have 24GB free. Granted, I don't play games and all my movies, photos and archived data is on a traditional HDD.

Thanks to all for the replies. Good stuff.

Sounds like Operating System on SSD, with movies/pics/files on HDD

Can't wait for those sub-10 sec boot-ups !!

Take care

Can't wait for those sub-10 sec boot-ups !!

You're probably aware of this and just being humorous, but just to make sure: You won't see your Windows desktop screen sub-10 secs from starting the computer. Loading of Windows may well be that fast, but the BIOS boot-up stuff your computer does will remain unchanged.

By having your OS and (most of?) your apps on the SSD, though, you definitely will notice how much snappier everything feels.

[edited to add:]

You could well see 10-sec "boots" if you use hibernation. Resuming from hibernation is much faster from an SSD than from a HDD.

ssd is very useful upgrade for laptop - it's much faster and takes less power, resulting in longer battery life. It wont fail if you drop your laptop from a table or use it in a bus on a bumpy road. And it's absolutely silent.

As far as I know ssd's based on sandforce chipset are the fasters (for common SATA II laptops) at the moment. Some models you may want - Corsair Force, OCZ Vertex 2, G.Skill Phoenix.

I got mine 120GB Corsair Force of ebay, I use external USB HDD for music, movies etc.

Use this site to get an idea of prices. I use them all the time, but I don't know if they ship to Thailand.

They sell all sorts of memory and storage products.

MyDigitalDiscount

Replaced the CD drive in my MacBook Pro with an opti bay HDD adapter, and a SSD. SSD contains the OS, apps, and my work, HDD contains movies, pictures, and other large stuff. It works very well.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9134468/Review_Hard_disk_vs._solid_state_drive_is_an_SSD_worth_the_money_

SSD supposedly not as reliable or long lasting as HDD at the moment.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9134468/Review_Hard_disk_vs._solid_state_drive_is_an_SSD_worth_the_money_

SSD supposedly not as reliable or long lasting as HDD at the moment.

Wrong. SSD's are more reliable than mechanical drives. Only downside is the price on larger drives.

Got my SSD 160GB Intel drive running O/S and a normal HDD in other drive bay of laptop for data. Boots Win7 in about 20 secs, but I have a lot of start up programs installed.