[ScottW]

With prices on SSD drives coming down, I want to make the leap for my laptop and desktop. I bought a new thinkpad with a standard drive, and plan to drop in the Intel X-25E SLC which from what I've read is a sweet drive. I don't use much space on my laptop, and I think I can work with 32GB.

BUT, I want to go SSD for my desktop too. I can't stand lag, delays, hard drive chugging - too many years of waiting for my computer while my mind is 5 steps ahead of it - and that's with a fast processor and 3GB of RAM on XP.

Right now, I have two 160GB western digital SATA drives in RAID 1. I really need RAID because this is my business machine - I can't afford the down time even if I have my data backed up. I've thought about the Intel X-25M MLC drive which is supposed to be fast and not have the write-issues of other cheaper MLC drives. Anyone have experience with that drive? Ever hear of it being used in RAID 1 or is that silly since SSD drives are unlikely to fail like mechanical drives? Would the X-25M still be much faster than the fastest mechanical drive if used in RAID 1?

Onto my other question... I want to find a hot-swappable RAID array external backup, that automatically backs up my desktop via USB or firewire, and maintains two drives cloned at all times. The array must be encrypted but not compressed necessarily. Then, periodically, I would pull out a drive, put it in a secure place, and then swap in another drive - and so on and so forth. So I'd always have one drive in a safe place with all my data, and the two drive RAID array will always have all my data too. Is External Hard Drive, Portable Hard Drive, Rugged Hard Drive, Mobile Hard Drive, Transportable Hard Drive - Olixir any good? Any alternatives?