If you are looking for write speed use 10000RPM platter drives in raid zero. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136296
Not really "looking" for write speed, just curious. And aren't those Raptor drives on the noisy side?
Not sure about the noise, I would imagine heat is an issue. I don't do a lot of writing, mainly reading. I'm happy with these value drives from intel. Using Intel Rapid Storage adding the drives was a snap. The on board controller has a 600mb cap. So if I added more dives the only gain would by capacity. I would need a dedicated controller like an LSI 9260 they run around $500.00 But for now this is fine.
If anyone is looking for better performance out of an older machine buying a solid state drive is the best way to achieve this. Two drives in a raid zero configuration you will never go back to platter drives. You wait for nothing, your trading programs open quickly,Adobe,Word,Excell, snap there open.
Just received my X25-M 120GB SSD. Holy cow... this thing is small and lightweight! 75% of the weight of the shipment package went to the shipping box itself and the mounting bracket that came with it!
This is my second. I got an Intel X25-V 40GB for my desktop. It's been over half a year or so. Memory is vague. Yes this X25-M is to replace the laptop sinner drive. Oh... I meant spinner drive. I will keep the old disk. Probably will buy a caddy to enclose it and use it as a USB-drive to backup files when I travel.
Just installed my X25-M 120GB on my HP laptop (SATA 3.0 GBps interface). My numbers: 244.6/111.9 178.5/113.0 14.07/22.45 And compare to my X25-V 40GB: 182.8/44.0 135.8/32.0 22.72/37.75 Quite a bit improvement on the writing speed! My app benchmarks: Starting up: 1min45sec before, 30 sec on SSD Starting RealTick: 26 sec before, 18 sec on SSD Starting TradeStation: 2min30sec before, 1min28 on SSD All around improvement definitely! Thanks for this idea Scataphagos!
Oh yeah, forgot about your "V". I have one too and still like it. Not a bad idea to record "system image backups" on an external USB drive. I use Acronis, but I think Macrium Reflect gets good reviews and is free.