Intel 330 240GB recent install thoughts...

[Hulk]

I picked up an Intel 330 240GB in the hot deal from a few weeks ago. With the buy.com rebates points, forget what they're called, the drive cost me $126. Amazing considering I spent $220 for my smaller, slower Intel 320 120GB SATA II drive about a year ago.

Anyway, using the Intel supplied download link for the Acronis software made cloning my C drive an absolute breeze. Connected the drive to an open port, ran the software, which basically consists of selecting source and destination disks and two reboots and it was done. Then remove the old boot drive and connect the new one. Booted up and bam!

The extra space on the new drive allowed me to put all of my day-to-day files on one drive, documents, music, photos, etc... I now use my 1TB mechanical drive for back up and large video files.

As for the speed of the drive there is a small but noticeable speed up. The little dots upon boot don't get as far as they used to before they freeze and all of my apps open a little faster. Nice easy and relatively cheap upgrade. I'll move the old Intel drive to my HTPC now.

I was going to do a wipe of Win 7 for the new drive since that's how I generally do it but decided I had nothing to lose trying the cloning software and I'm glad I did.

So it is a good experience so far.

 

[razel]

You did the right thing and it shows... You are beyond satisfied and are done. You can spend less time in front of a computer and can enjoy life.

 

[snoylekim]

330 Series is an underated SSD...good bang for the buck

 

[Hulk]

Actually it's more than "a small but noticeable increase." When I open up some of my applications that used to be painful with a mechanical disk, and were pretty good with the old Intel 320, they're really fast now with the 330. Applications like CorelDraw X5, Sony Vegas Pro 10.0, and Photoshop Elements open in just a few seconds.
Now I'm putting the old V100 in the HTPC and the Intel 320 in my laptop.
I love SSD's.

 

[JBT]

I recently did something similar going from an OCZ 120 GB Solid 2 to a Samsung 256GB 830. I noticed but it wasn't huge, nor did I expect it to be. The benefit was gaining another 120GB or so on my box and moving the old SSD to my wife's computer and her off an old 74GB Raptor. Its was a great upgrade for me and her

 

[Emulex]

320's are underrated. when you drive the 320 @ 200gb out of 320gb it lasts years and keeps up with 10 SAS drives in raid-10 . 330/520 is going to have serious issues with steady state and no trim (raid-1/10)

 

[sep]

Hulk - I got almost the same setup. I have the Intel 330 240GB with a P8Z68 mb. Are you using IRST? What about Firmware?

 

[hhhd1]

$126 for 240gb drive is a great value.

 

[Auric]

From 1 to 150 MB/s random read is noticeable but from 150 to 250, not so much.

 

[Hulk]

Hulk - I got almost the same setup. I have the Intel 330 240GB with a P8Z68 mb. Are you using IRST? What about Firmware?

No I'm just using whatever drivers I installed with the mobo and Win 7. I used to download this from Intel or that from someone else to try and speed up something and never used to notice a difference except for a conflict.

Are you using Intel RST? Is it showing definite speed gains?

I just put it in last night so I haven't even looked at the firmware. That IS something I'll update if it's not the latest.