Hello, I'm building a gaming pc and have decided that I need a SSD. At the moment I'm actually under my initial budget so I'm willing to spend a bit more money to get myself a high end SSD with around 400-500 gb. I'm not too picky on the memory just as long as it's over 400 gb. Also I believe I needs to support TRIM. This computer is going to be almost solely for gaming. Which SSD would you recommend for me?
I've decided to go for the Samsung 840 pro. This is my first build so is there any advice anyone can give me in regard to installing the SSD? Will I need to buy a bracket or cables or anything like that?
Good choice on the SSD drive, it would have been my recomedation. As for installing, you need something like 2.5 to 3.5 bracket. e.g. http://www.ebuyer.com/168671-kingston-2-5-to-3-5-hard-drive-bracket-and-screws-sna-br-35 There are alternatives available that look nicer. You also might want to enable SATA ACHI mode in BIOS. Lastly apparently its better to do a clean install, rather than clone existing OS to SSD drive.
Nice choice, Samsung's SSDs are great! If your Chassis comes with HDD/SSD mounting brackets they would fit there easily. SSDs somewhat has the same screw holes like an HDD, 2 on each side, and 4 on the bottom, whichever way you want to mount it. Or you can use a double-sided tape and stick it somewhere in the back or at the bottom, or just leave it hanging lol! And no, you won't need any special cables, just 1 SATA cable and 1 SATA power cable. Lastly, yup as Sniper says, enabling/switching from IDE mode to ACHI mode boots your SSDs performance, if your on IDE mode and your main drive is the SSD, your Windows Performance Index will score lower, while if you use ACHI mode, it will increase dramatically. Have you considered going for RAID 0 on like 2-3 250/256GB SSDs?