500GB Samsung 840 Series 2.5" SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive SSD (MZ-7TD500BW) $290 + Free Shipping

I'm currently building a fairly high performance Desktop computer. I had to jump on this deal for the Samsung 500GB SSD (repped) even though I've already purchased a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD. My Motherboard has a Z77 chipset and I am wondering which of the Samsung SSDs I should use for my boot drive and how best to use the other SSD in my new system. I'm new to SSDs and I am not sure how best to use the two Samsung SSDs in my new build - with the 256GB Samsung 840 being the Pro version compared to this non-Pro 500GB SSD (which I just bought - thanks OP!). Should I use the 840 Pro for my boot drive and use this 840 (non-Pro) 500GB for a data drive? I would appreciate opinions on the best way to utilize these two SSD Drives. Thanks in advance for any advice that may be offered.

Some of my New Desktop Build Components:
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H WIFI BT
• mSATA: Intel 310 Series 80GB SSD for Gigabyte MB
• CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K
• CPU Liquid Cooler
• Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GV-N670OC-2GD GeForce GTX 670 Windforce OC 2048MB GDDR5 256-bit PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI
• Memory Modules/RAM: Corsair Vengeance CMZ16GX3M2A1600C9 16GB Memory Module Kit - DDR3, 2 x 8GB, 1600MHz, CL9, DIMM, XMP Ready
• SSDs: 1 Samsung 840 Pro 256GB and 1 Samsung 840 500GB SSD.
• Power Supply: Seasonic 860W Platinum
• Case: Cooler Master HAF XM Chassis
• SATA Hard Drives on hand WD 300GB Velociraptor, 2 each 74GB Raptors, 1TB WD Caviar Black, 2TB Seagate Barracuda Green + a few other SATA Drives.

Quote from LiquidSmoke420 : I believe if 1 fails, you lose everything. Depends on your scale of risk vs reward.

You need to backup everything anyway, so that's a moot point. He is not looking for redundancy, but for performance.

Quote from Randolphjo : Should I use the 840 Pro for my boot drive and use this 840 (non-Pro) 500GB for a data drive?

Yes sir.

Quote from Randolphjo : I'm currently building a fairly high performance Desktop computer. I had to jump on this deal for the Samsung 500GB SSD (repped) even though I've already purchased a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD. My Motherboard has a Z77 chipset and I am wondering which of the Samsung SSDs I should use for my boot drive and how best to use the other SSD in my new system. I'm new to SSDs and I am not sure how best to use the two Samsung SSDs in my new build - with the 256GB Samsung 840 being the Pro version compared to this non-Pro 500GB SSD (which I just bought - thanks OP!). Should I use the 840 Pro for my boot drive and use this 840 (non-Pro) 500GB for a data drive? I would appreciate opinions on the best way to utilize these two SSD Drives. Thanks in advance for any advice that may be offered. Some of my New Desktop Build Components: • Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H WIFI BT • mSATA: Intel 310 Series 80GB SSD for Gigabyte MB • CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K • CPU Liquid Cooler • Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GV-N670OC-2GD GeForce GTX 670 Windforce OC 2048MB GDDR5 256-bit PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI • Memory Modules/RAM: Corsair Vengeance CMZ16GX3M2A1600C9 16GB Memory Module Kit - DDR3, 2 x 8GB, 1600MHz, CL9, DIMM, XMP Ready • SSDs: 1 Samsung 840 Pro 256GB and 1 Samsung 840 500GB SSD. • Power Supply: Seasonic 860W Platinum • Case: Cooler Master HAF XM Chassis • SATA Hard Drives on hand WD 300GB Velociraptor, 2 each 74GB Raptors, 1TB WD Caviar Black, 2TB Seagate Barracuda Green + a few other SATA Drives.

I'm no expert but the Pro has higher benchmarks so it would make sense to me to use it as the boot drive.

I have this SSD that I installed in a rather old HP HDX16 laptop which has the slower eSata bus. Nevertheless, I can now boot into Windows 7 in less than 30 seconds whereas it took a full 4 minutes before. Plus, all programs open instantly as if they were minimized instead of loading from scratch. Love this SSD.

Quote from Skootch : I have this SSD that I installed in a rather old HP HDX16 laptop which has the slower eSata bus. Nevertheless, I can now boot into Windows 7 in less than 30 seconds whereas it took a full 4 minutes before. Plus, all programs open instantly as if they were minimized instead of loading from scratch. Love this SSD.

Of course. Even with SATA I, if you can saturate it all the time using SSD, you'll see a huge improvement over conventional HDD.

Does Dell Precision M4600 accept 7mm or 9.5mm SSDs?

Quote from bultago : Does Dell Precision M4600 accept 7mm or 9.5mm SSDs?

"The hard drive shaft accepts drives with a height of 9.5 mm."
two seconds in google

Quote from BloodGain : The current generation of SSDs is also faster in writes most of the time, though this varies with the drive. Mainstream drives like this one are faster, but not the double (or more) write-speed of high-end SSDs. As far as read speeds go, it's a huge gap. SSDs are not only measurably 2x-10x as fast (depending on the drives and benchmark compared), but they make your computer feel much more responsive. I swapped my laptop/HTPC's drive for a hybrid drive, which just has a 4GB SSD for read caching, and the difference was astonishing. It boots faster and loads common-used files and programs almost as though they were still cached in memory. An SSD does this for *every* file operation, and as such my upcoming dedicated HTPC build will definitely have one :-)

Thank you. Repped.

How is this versus a WD VelociRaptor?

Quote from brisar : Adorama has 500GB Samsung 840 Series 2.5" SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive SSD (MZ-7TD500BW) on sale for $320 - $30 off with coupon code S9999991 = $290. Shipping is free. Thanks yuugotserved Price Research: Our research indicates 500GB Samsung 840 Series SSD (MZ-7TD500BW) is $54 lower (16% savings) than the next best available price from a reputable merchant with prices ranging from $344 to $393. - yuugotserved

Have a feeling this will go $250 very soon. rule of thumb buying ssd is don't pull the trigger until its price drops at least 50% since debut. A lesson learnt from last year.

Quote from robdam1001 : How is this versus a WD VelociRaptor?

In performance? In car terminology, it's like a stock VW Golf going against a Corvette ZR1 in the quarter mile.

http://techreport.com/review/2388...reviewed/7

http://www.anandtech.com/show/633...b-review/9

Boots Win8 in 12 seconds flat.. cuz I have it. 2 secs from sleep on my 32UXVD.

Whats the lifespan of this SSD before it just dies??

still too pricey, 290$ for a hard drive. im waiting till its ~100