Make sure AHCI is turned on in your BIOS, many Mobos have it turned off by default. Be aware though, if it is currently turned off on a working computer, it may result in a blue screen of death since your OS has loaded the non-ahci driver. You can google ways to get around it, so research the workaround before switching it on. If you are loading a new OS, then no worries.
Windows 7 is optimized for SSD drives in that the installer, if it sees a SSD drive, should disable the prefetcher and maybe the defragger. You can disable it manually on Vista and XP.
Few things come to mind when comparing drives:
(1) Read the specs on the manufacturer's web site so you get the maximum information. You should compare sustained write speeds rather than the super fast read speeds. Most HD bottlenecks are during sustained write operations. Read reviews on the product and you can usually find somebody who has done a benchmark using the linux tool dd (awesome program by the way) and can compare an actual measured write speed compared to manufacturer's spec.
(2) Read through the fine details of the specs and make absolutely sure the SSD supports the TRIM feature (See Wikipedia). This will sustain the life of your drive and will avoid storage decrease over time.
(3) If you are looking to just load your OS on the drive and use a separate data drive, you could consider investing in a Single-level cell (SLC) SSD drive. These are fundamentally faster (read and write), with less latency, and longer life. They are a lot more expensive, have less storage density, but are manufactured from higher quality material (they have to be). Multi-level cell (MLC) SSDs are more common, less expensive, and have at least double the storage than their SLC counterparts. A drive is either SLC or MLC (see Wikipedia again or the plethora of web explanations.
(4) I would stick with the name brands for support purposes. The major manufacturers, like Intel, will be quicker with firmware updates and problems quicker resolved.
We just bought one of the Intel X25-E for a new laptop at work, but we are waiting for the laptop to get here.
Hope this helps
