A review unit of the Samsung PB22-J 256GB Solid State Disk (SSD) arrived on my desk a month back. When the release candidate of Windows 7 came out, I decided to install the 64-bit version of the OS on the whopping 256GB SSD to see how it would fare. Windows 7 is of particular interest here due to a number of tweaks that Microsoft incorporated to benefit the unique way SSDs work.
Anyway, I finally found some time last weekend to get Windows 7 and various software applications that I use installed on my Sony Z laptop. Despite my heightened expectations, the experience blew me away.
My laptop has a 2.4GHz (P8600) Centrino 2 processor, and I loaded it up with my full complement of productivity software - which includes Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007. Used to grabbing a cup of coffee while waiting for computers to boot up, I was surprised that the boot-up time in this instance averaged just 15 seconds upon leaving the BIOS screen. Going into hibernation with 4GB of RAM took between 15 to 20 seconds; my fastest boot-time on a clean installation clocked in at 11 seconds.
Overall performance was snappy too - it was as though I changed to a new laptop rather than did a swap of the OS and storage device. Battery life took a dip, but that's probably because I wasn't able to install the optimized device drivers from Sony.
With Windows 7 due out by October 22, it is clear that the only real option for performance freaks who demand the absolute best would be to go for a kit fitted with Windows 7 and a fast SSD. Of course, the Samsung PB22-J 256GB is considered one of the fastest SSDs around at the moment. Samsung's Jim Elliott, who is the VP of memory marketing, in an earlier report by DailyTech compared the Samsung PB22-J to "having a 15,000rpm drive, without all of its size, noise, power and heating drawbacks."
Samsung told us that it has no plans to sell the drive directly through retail, though the identical drive is already available through its partners in the form of OCZ's Summit, Corsair's P256 - which was launched last month, and SuperTalent's MasterDrive SX. The Summit and P256 are available at Newegg and are priced at $729 and $659 respectively.
In addition, the drive is available as a storage option on the Dell Precision M6400. The SSD is also currently shipping in a number of OEM laptops as listed here. If you are getting it as part of a PC or laptop, make sure you switch to Windows 7 when it becomes generally available.
