Originally Posted by
tentseller
2.5 yrs ago this was the bleeding edge for the last version of the X201. It was posted with the wrong price; there should be a "1" in front of the 999.99. So I will be looking at another 3 years as my primary portable.
In that case, an SSD rather than a hard drive makes a lot of sense. The X201 is one generation too old to get the very fastest sequential performance from an SSD, but there are very few applications where the difference between ~270MBbps and ~550MBps will make a difference.
My HDD usage is about 350-400 at any one time so I am caught in no man land between 240/256 and 480/512.
There are a few 360gb drives out there (and some other odd sizes, although those are usually pricier) although the amount you'll save from one of those over a 480/500/512gb drive is not very big.
Which drives are you looking at? Off the top of my head, I'm not aware of any 480gb drives quite as low as $300, but the less expensive better models are getting close to that so having some non-brand ones down there would not surprise me.
I've had multiple data-loss incidents with the Crucial m4 (which uses a Marvell controller), although it was a very old firmware by present standards. A lot of other people tend to say "stay away from OCZ" or even "stay away from Sandforce controllers in general" but I've had very good luck with both, personally and in very large numbers at work (although I prefer Corsair or Intel for the Sandforce-based drives, especially now that OCZ has moved away from Sandforce.)