I decided to do some hardware upgrades this weekend, and as prices on SSD continue to drop, I found a pretty good deal at my local MicroCenter.  The Crucial M4 256GB SSD normally retails for $239, but you save $50 instantly, and an additional $20 on a rebate, so you can take it home for $169 all said and done.

I installed it into my Dell desktop this afternoon, and thought at the same time I would start with a fresh build from the OS on up.  I timed some of these operations just to have an idea of the performance increase you can see when switching from spinning disk to SSD.  Of course, this isn’t a full comparison, since I don’t have existing data on these operations, but nonetheless, we all know how long we sit and wait for a new install of Windows or Office.

I’m pretty impressed with the performance.  There was a recommended firmware update for this drive, and I was able to install that directly from within Windows with only a reboot required to make it happen.

All in well, this seems to be a good investment.  After all, I was pretty spoiled when I received my XPS13, which also has an SSD on board.