Actually the drive only cost $91.00 including standard shipping but I also got a 2.5-3.25 inch bracket and paid for next day air. Total was $113.00 and some change. It is already here.
Here is something for you that I would have never guessed. I've confirmed this on three sites/forums so far. This is brief and says what needs said.
Quote:
Partitioning a SSD has no real effect, negative or positive, except for organizational purposes.
Partitioning an SSD does not create extra wear. The drive itself does not "see" partitions. It does wear leveling across the drive evenly.
I will go ahead and partition. I figure that I will not bother pulling the box out if its niche to mount the drive until all is proven. I will use the 'external/internal' connections I set up... LOL! see how handy that has been already...
I will use EaseUS Partition Master to partition. Since EaseUS has been so much help to me lately I'm giving it the first shot as to migrating Win 7 to the SSD, I want to see how it works out. The migration tool in EaseUS includes an option to optimize for an SSD. If I don't like how EaseUS does I'll restore an image. Once I see how some different options work as to migration I may or may not just start fresh and do a clean install.
Once a good boot is proven I will copy my data partition to a 640GB drive that initially came with my laptop and mount both the SSD and the laptop drive in the double bracket I also got. Pull the 1TB drive currently in use and mount the bracket. The 1TB drive will then be used for images since I dropped and destroyed one of my old image drives...