Wow, it's been awhile since I've checked in! (Something about getting married and having 2 kids will do that to you!)

So, anyone else here hoping to get a second-gen Intel X25-M when they're available? I'm looking to upgrade my work laptop to the 80GB version as a boot drive, then either use an external drive or replace the optical drive for mass data storage. And since I'd have to rebuild anyway, I'm planning to concurrently jump from Windows XP to 7.

If nothing else, it'll sure be nice to launch Illustrator in under 30 seconds!

Here's one article on the X25-M for those not familiar: AnandTech: Intel X25-M G2: Dissected and Performance Preview

The 80GB version would make a nice boot drive ... might want to go all the way to the $160 to load a bunch of my games. But I'll keep my movies / music / etc in an HDD, as speed there is less of an issue.

The Intel is just more than I want to spend on a hard drive. I've been looking at the OCZ Agility 120GB. I'm waiting for Windows 7 and a price drop, if I'm lucky

When the Intel was $229, I was ready to drop the cash right away, but they were out of stock. And now that Newegg has them back in stock, they've jacked the price up to $499! Well, I guess they're free to charge whatever they want. And I'm free to call them shameless money-grubbing opportunists and wait to buy elsewhere -- when they're back to $229 -- on principle.

The OCZ does look awfully tempting given the more reasonable price. I just don't like the idea of it slowing down as it fills up (see here). But even "slow" is more than 4x faster than the VelociRaptor in the test on that page!

I thought this part of the article was interesting:

The Competitors

For the most part, Intel doesn't let anyone else manufacture drives using its controller (the lone exception being Kingston). Indilinx and Samsung however both sell their controllers and designs to many other vendors, who then repackage them and sell them as their own SSDs. The table below is a decoder ring of the drives I tested and their equivalents in the marketplace:

Drive	Controller	The Same As
Patriot Torqx	Indilinx Barefoot (MLC)	Corsair Extreme Series X128 G.Skill Falcon OCZ Vertex SuperTalent UltraDrive ME
OCZ Agility	Indilinx Barefoot (non Samsung MLC)	N/A
OCZ Vertex EX	Indilinx Barefoot (SLC)	SuperTalent UltraDrive LE
OCZ Summit	Samsung RBB (MLC)	Corsair Performance Series P256

While I used the Torqx from Patriot as my Indilinx MLC drive, it's the same drive and uses the same firmware as OCZ's famed Vertex drive or the new Cosair Extreme Series SSD. The only exception on this list is the OCZ Agility. The Agility uses the same Barefoot controller as the Torqx, Vertex, UltraDrive ME and Corsair X series, but it uses non-Samsung flash memory to lower cost. The Agility currently ships with either Toshiba or Intel flash, but should be roughly the same performance as the other Indilinx MLC drives.

Quote: Originally Posted by FunkyFresh When the Intel was $229, I was ready to drop the cash right away, but they were out of stock. And now that Newegg has them back in stock, they've jacked the price up to $499! Well, I guess they're free to charge whatever they want. And I'm free to call them shameless money-grubbing opportunists and wait to buy elsewhere -- when they're back to $229 -- on principle. The OCZ does look awfully tempting given the more reasonable price. I just don't like the idea of it slowing down as it fills up (see here). But even "slow" is more than 4x faster than the VelociRaptor in the test on that page!

Im totally with you on that one man I went to buy a radeon hd 4850x2 2gb model from newegg once and the price went up like 60-80 dollars over night i was pissed about that.

Just a quick follow-up...

I ended up ordering a retail-box second-generation Intel X25-M at PCNation.com for $248. It shipped out same-day. And they throw in free 3-day shipping, so it should be here Monday!

For the record, the same drive at Newegg is now $366 shipped, down from $386 earlier this week. I wonder if anyone's actually buying them there now that others have them in stock for much cheaper (even ZipZoomFly is at $300, which is still overpriced).

If I hadn't found a reasonable vendor with them in stock, I was considering one of the Indilinx-based drives godling listed, since they have decent performance and more capacity than the Intel.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

glad to see you are finding other sources besides newegg =)

when ordering 1 to 2 parts, you can typically find a better deal at other sites (when the item is on sale)

but when you are ordering a full system. you will find newegg to be on the cheaper side when you add up shipping and tax