delivered the performance i was hoping for, this could well be my first SSD but still think that the price is a little high

dont have much need for high write speeds tbh for my intended use of th drive

Is the Bit-Tech recommended award on the last page suppose to say: Crucial C300 256GB?

So, this seems perfect as a boot drive to hold Windows, Office, browsers and the like. Everything else can sit on a Spinpoint F3.

I'll probably get one this week, but would appreciate advice on installing Windows (7x64) onto the drive - is it true that you should install fresh Windows onto a clean HDD and then ghost the image across onto the SSD or I am safe to perform a standard Windows install directly onto the SSD?

Many thanks,

Cleggy.

Originally Posted by Cleggmeister
So, this seems perfect as a boot drive to hold Windows, Office, browsers and the like. Everything else can sit on a Spinpoint F3.

I'll probably get one this week, but would appreciate advice on installing Windows (7x64) onto the drive - is it true that you should install fresh Windows onto a clean HDD and then ghost the image across onto the SSD or I am safe to perform a standard Windows install directly onto the SSD?

Many thanks,

Cleggy.

Direct install is fine.

Originally Posted by Andre_B
Is the Bit-Tech recommended award on the last page suppose to say: Crucial C300 256GB?

thanks for the spot - fixed

You're good to go straight off the bat, no ghosting required. I think you still have to perform alignment when installing XP, but 7 waves a magic wand so you don't have to faff about doing that.

I think this could be my next PC purchase!

Originally Posted by Cleggmeister
So, this seems perfect as a boot drive to hold Windows, Office, browsers and the like. Everything else can sit on a Spinpoint F3.

This is exactly my setup as of last weekend, and it's working well so far :)

The only thing I can't really put on there is games, but then if I wanted to do that I would need to spend £500+ on a 256GB SSD with similar performance, since the vast majority of my games are now on Steam, and AFAIK you can't split a Steam install and games across multiple drives - they all need to be on the same one, so swapping them across isn't an option for me.

i Love the diea of this drive especially as i have 2 sata 3 ports. but i have noticed that corsair have released 40gb, 60gb and 80gb versions of the F100 SSD and they have the same SandForce controller as the existing models. I wonder how these would stack up against C300.

The C300 has a faster read speed (if your port can provide it) but the corsair ones have a better write and random 4k write proformance.

Its a shame that there isnt just one drive that is the best like the F3 to makes things simpler!

relatively simple fix,

Easiest on Windows 7 / vista, but dooable on XP is make an NTFS junction,
what that intails is install it as normal on your HDD ( D:\ ?) ...
you then move the contents of the install folder into a new folder onto your SSD (should be a sub folder in steamapps ? can't get at the details, at work!)
once you've done that, There's an app out there called junction magic that i used to create a junction point.

junction points make read and writes that look at "D:\Steam\SteamApps\HL2\" actually go to "C:\Games\HL2"

Because it's at file system level, the program doesn't see any of this, you can even do it on windows folders.
As soon as the junction's active, the files "appear" at the old location in windows explorer.

so far i've junctioned my user profile & temp drive off the SSD onto the Hard drive so that gets write thrashes, and junctioned a couple of games off the HDD to the SSD for faster loading.

i wont be considering ssd until they have much higher capacities, and prices fall inline with hard drives

Excellent, I just ordered one :D I might even be able to fit about 20 GB of my Steam folder on there as well by junctioning it. Thanks for that tip WarMadMax, have some rep!;)

Just Ordered one of the highpoint controllers for my maximus formula, shall see what sata 6Gb/s brings over Sata 3Gb/s :)

This is exactly the sort of review I've been waiting to read - excellent, thank you.

Originally Posted by RichCreedy
i wont be considering ssd until they have much higher capacities, and prices fall inline with hard drives

You will be waiting a very long time.

The line beneath the second photo reads - 'The 64GB model uses the same 128GB cache as the 256GB version too. Click to enlarge'

Please correct it to 128MB cache. :P

Am I the only one wodering how 4 of these with a decent SATA-6Gbs raid card would perform?

Originally Posted by Arkanrais
Am I the only one wodering how 4 of these with a decent SATA-6Gbs raid card would perform?

Nope you're not the only one lol

Am considering putting my 80GB Intel (M) drive into my laptop, and then getting two of these in a RAID array on my Marvel 6gbps motherboard controller.... hmmmm will have to talk to the boss ie wife!

Well, I would be getting one of these to partner an F3, but I just had to buy two new tires for £120, bum :(

I'll wait for them to be cheaper at higher capacities so I can use it as a boot drive and for my games.

You can do that now stormbringer if you look into junction points.
just need a HDD to take the big storage duties on.

I have my OS on my 80GB Intel SSD, and my users folder etc on my 1TB drive using junction points, works a treat, I have the page bookmarked on how to do it on one of my machines if you are interested?

To hit these speeds, you do have to get a fast SATA 6Gbps port, and we're extremely sceptical that on-board ports deliver this. The most reliable way to unlock the full performance of a Crucial C300 drive is to buy an add-in card such as the HighPoint Rocket 620, which adds £40 to your upgrade.

What's wrong with this £24 one by Asus? http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=35291

for anyone that is interested this is currently £109 at dabs with free delivery (tho not in stock)

im especially tempted as i just recieved a £10 off £100 spend at dabs :)