very sleek and stylish
What is the quality of the software?
I have been using my desktop for over a month now with this SSD as the main drive, and I am incredibly pleased with its performance. Keep in mind, I came straight over from primarily using HDDs for my mass storage devices, thus the difference to me was more noticeable than for someone moving between SSDs (depending on their quality, of course.) For those who are more technically inclined or interested, I will paste benchmark data for the drive's performance at the end of the review.The design of the drive is very sleek and stylish. It boasts a smooth, polished, black exterior to house the powerful internals. You see what you expect out of an SSD: a lot of performance using a very small amount of space. I was a little bummed when I had to install it out of view as it was quite pleasant to look at.Installation is simple just like any other SATA drive; plug it into your motherboard and power supply, and you'll be smooth sailing from there.I'll discuss performance in terms of what's visibly noticeable, and following the conclusion, as aforementioned I will post benchmark results. From the moment I power on, to when I reach the login screen is only a span of about ten seconds or so (possibly slightly less); this is honestly a very quick process. If I didn't have a password lock, I would obviously boot into my system much quicker without having to input the keystrokes for the password. After I log in, I am instantly able to begin opening programs, and they load quickly. Anything from Firefox or Chrome, my large Steam library, or large movie files. I have not attempted to utilize any hungry video/photo editing programs, but you can rest assured that your loading times with those would be low as well. Furthermore, I play very high performing games such as Skyrim with high-res texture mods, Battlefield 3, and Anno 2070 to name a few.When considering this SSD for purchase, keep in mind the cost per GB when thinking about what size of SSD to get. Of course, if you just want to boot your OS quickly and some important high performance programs, you are likely better off with a smaller SSD with a larger HDD to store other files. In my case, I've installed the OS, all of my programs, and games to the SSD, while having a couple of other much larger HDDs to store the large movie files, music libraries, etc. Keep in mind, I don't install all of my games simultaneously to allow more room for other purposes. I purchased this SSD during a sale, thus granting me a better value per GB of space on this 256gb drive. If budgeting is important, considering waiting for a big sale as an option. Should money not be a concern, Samsung will be releasing high performance 1TB SSDs to the market for a much higher price point, but you will be able to get HDD storage sizes with the incredible speeds of an SSD.In summary, purchasing this SSD will not disappoint you or your wallet. You get a nicely designed product with stellar performance at a great price point, especially during a good sale. If you're coming from primarily using HDDs, you will be blown away by the colossal difference in speeds. In most cases, price will be the major deciding factor between what size of SSD to purchase. With this particular drive size, it would behoove you to consider using it in tandem with a HDD of a much larger storage capacity.Pros:-Amazing, noticeable performance, especially if coming from HDD usage-Stylish design-Great value per GB, especially if purchased during a saleCons:None encounteredBechmark:As promised, here are the results I obtained from running CrystalDiskMark:Sequential Read :  503.236 MB/sSequential Write :  478.656 MB/sRandom Read 512KB :  447.499 MB/sRandom Write 512KB :  154.937 MB/sRandom Read 4KB (QD=1) :  31.125 MB/s [  7598.8 IOPS]Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :  99.221 MB/s [ 24223.9 IOPS]Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :  337.172 MB/s [ 82317.5 IOPS]Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :  141.240 MB/s [ 34482.4 IOPS]Finally, as a reference point, these are the specs of the system I use this SSD with:Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H moboIntel i7 4770k 3.5GhzCoolermaster Hyper 212 EvoGigabyte GeForce GTX 770 4GBCorsair Vengeance 2x4GB (8gb) 1600mhz 9-9-9-24Samsung 840 PRO 256gb SSD(primary)Seagate barracuda 500gb 5400rpm HDD (data storage)Western Digital 1gb HDD (data storage)Samsung 24x DVD driveCorsair HX750Coolermaster Storm Trooper 