Strongly recommend SSDs (Solid State Drives). Whether in the market for a new PC or laptop OR wanting convert an existing machine from HDDs to SSDs...solid state drives are absolutely brilliant. There are several reasons why this is the case. Solid-state storage technology typically provides faster system performance than traditional magnetic media drives (aka hard disk drives or HDDs). In addition, there are no moving parts in SSDs and therefore the risk of mechanical failure is near zero. Solid-state drives also provide improved overall system responsiveness while consuming much less power than a traditional hard disk drive. This translates into a cooler, quieter platform. SSD technology provides longer battery life, faster system responsiveness, and more durability, for a better user experience. SSDs are a wee bit pricey, @ least @ this point in time but, worth every penny. Especially since one of the primary features about them is longevity and reliability... HDDs can & do fail due to mechanical issues... as opposed to SSDs not failing due to no moving parts. CI for IT Drew MS Partner / MS Beta Tester / Pres. Computer Issues Pres. Computer Issues www.drewsci.com

Can I just replace the harddrive in my 2 year old notebook? I want to upgrade its storage to at least 1 TB without straining the battery. Are there any downsides to SSD (besides the wee pricey)?

Yes, you should be able to do that. Depending where you live there are sources where you can find out more including sizes available, prices & where to purchase. Downsides? No, not really. Again there sites that can give more details & greater info. Let me know & I can direct you if this would interest you or be of value. Drew CI for ITDrew MS Partner / MS Beta Tester / Pres. Computer Issues Pres. Computer Issues www.drewsci.com

OCZ seems the have the best price per GB and REad / Write Transfer times. Average 285 reads 275 writes on a Sata2 interface. OCZ also developed an SSD called ISIS that runs using HSDL (High SPeed Data Link) Protocol they wrote that connects via a PCI(e) port and a card. Those ISIS have the transfer rate on reads are 740Mbps and writes 690Mbps - They have one drive that does 1Gbps read but I cant locate it or afford it. Here is a good link with many illustrations and options for HSDL, SATA2 coming SATA3, also a drive that installs to a PCI(e) that isnt an ISIS and a couple USB3 drives are present there as well. I blew it and bought samsung prior to noticing the lower OCZ price per GB and the increased speeds over Samsung. http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid-state-drives/hsdl/ocz-ibis-3-5--high-speed-data-link-ssd.html Let me ask you folks what you think is a good benchmark performance tool to test these with to ensure throughput as just because they print it does not laways make it true. There is a huge downside but I have yet to see it printed in legalize terms however DiskKeeper has an option on there 2010 version that helps prevent it they say. The issue is apparantly over a three year time span disk drives thake about 60 million or 60 billion writes and memory was not yet built to with stand that much pounding or activity (as it was explained to me) and after 3 years the performance will generally drop by 50% and to me thats a BIG ouch - On top of the price per GB but there is no doubt they have bridged a huge bottleneck that has existed for 20+ years - I have 3 systems Booting to them and get a login screen in 10 seconds on Windows 7 Pro (64) and the I7 with a GTX 260 video has the highest numbers I have seen yet. I am hoping after three years the price drops a lot or they have an option to replace the chips. I dont even think they have tried overclocking yet so that might bring even more performance.... Thanks

The pricing will drop over time... as always the such things. And as use & demand increases, makes prices drop. www.newegg.com or www.newegg.ca has some. http://intel.com/go/ssd is a good informative spot to look Cheers, Drew CI for ITDrew MS Partner / MS Beta Tester / Pres. Computer Issues Pres. Computer Issues www.drewsci.com