Conclusion:

OCZ Technology's new Solid 2 series of solid state drives are definitely worth considering by anyone looking for solid performance without spending an arm and a leg. Testing proved that the drive can live up to its published specifications (read speeds up to 200 MB/s, and write speeds up to 120 MB/s), and that it can hang with drives costing just as much, or even more.



If you haven’t priced an SSD, and if you think in terms of cost-per-Gigabyte, be prepared for sticker shock here. While the 500GB Western Digital hard drive costs a trivial $0.11/Gigabyte ($55.99 at Newegg.com), the OCZ Technology Solid 2 60GB SSD costs about $2.98/Gigabyte ($179.00 at Newegg.com). While the cost-per-gig might seem extravagant, the pricing is close when compared to similar SSD products.

If you place just your programs on the SSD and let a mechanical drive do storage duties, you can really get a great deal of performance for a (relatively) low amount of money. A quick scan of Newegg’s 60GB and 64GB (64GB drives use some of the space for firmware and other things and will show ‘unformatted’ as 60GB) put the Solid 2 square in the middle of the price leaders’ group. While some drives rate higher in terms of read/write speeds, the OCZ Technology Solid 2 60GB SSD is spot on as far as our suite of tests show.

In the end, the OCZ Technology Solid 2 60GB SSD performs well enough to earn the Bigbruin.com "Recommended" award, and it also earns the "Good Value" award for its excellent ‘bang for the buck’ appeal.



Pros:

» Good mix of space, performance, and price.
» Solid performance.
» Great read speeds.
» Good write speeds.

Cons:

» No upgrade kit to help migrate a laptop.
» Limited capacity for heavy laptop use.
» If you want noticeably better performance, you’d need to spend a LOT more money.

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