OK, I have a Dell XPS laptop which I bought 2 years ago. It is running SATA 2. I have tested it with my friend's Sata 3 SSD and it was backward compatible.

Now, the HDD starts to make a bit of noise and so I want to upgrade it to SSD. I am looking for something 240gb, one which performs fairly well, less chance to break down (reliable brand) or if break down, easy to warranty in Malaysia.

Corsair Force GS 7mm 240GB = RM699
Kingston Hyper X 240GB = RM649
Intel 520 Series 240GB = RM769
Plextor M5S 240GB = RM599
Plextor M5 Pro 240GB = RM849
Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB = RM599

Which is recommended brand?

SSD doesn't help in photo edition, video rendering AT ALL

so you just place your software in the SSD, and leave the save work at the normal harddrive

Read wont kill your SSD, only write(but it take a lot of time to wear out your SSD lahh), but normal user shouldn't worry that much, you will probably change the SSD to bigger capacity every a few years,
else ppl buy SSD for what? like buy a new car but worry tires and engine wear kah LOL

That piece of metal also that expensive?  i think most SSD includes bracket one, ask the seller before buy one.
I bought 3 different model of SSD before, 3 of them also got bracket inside.
If not, use double-sided tapes stick to your pc, cheapest solution lah

Can also consider Intel 335 240gb ~RM569

Why doesn't it help? It helps in picture loading times what...and we're talking about 30MB+ per Raw file here..

In the end, I got the Kingston HyperX 3k.

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Driver 12.6.0.1033 WHQL

http://www.mediafire.com/?41jbl46ml73xbdz

DriverVer= 04/22/2013,12.6.0.1033

Nice...but why HyperX?

That was the only one available in the store and also the fastest among the Kingston SSDs.

Mind if I ask you how much did you bought?
Heard that Kingston SSD price increase a little a month ago.

I bought it for RM649... 240gb Kingston Hyper X 3k

Best contender..

Plextor M5S 128GB SSD RM 299

The best value and good performance. Don't always judge on benchmark, judge on how good it works on daily usage.     

for me SSD is about performance............
if dont want performance better using HDD.....

but the big problem is price....
too get performance u need to pay....

What else is new?
You never seen a car with the price of perodua kancil with the speed of a Ferrari.
But seriously, IMHO I prefer reliability over performance...
even you paid about RM4xx for a SSD (Kingston, OCZ, idk), the speed compared to a RM2xx Plextor only makes little difference.  

how can kancil speed same ferrari.... ferrari more quaity and more power full....

kancil top speed 150km/h
ferrari top speed 340km/h (2.2x more speed)

kancil price rm35,000
ferarri price rm900,000 (25x more expensive)

kancil get price / performance..... but still have people want performance buy ferrari...........

but the big problem is price....
too get performance u need to pay....

What else is new?
You never seen a car with the price of perodua kancil with the speed of a Ferrari.

for me SSD is about performance............
if dont want performance better using HDD.....

but the big problem is price....
too get performance u need to pay....

Honestly speaking, no matter how fast the performance. Waste money as you're not bench-marking daily right??

For daily fast usage, Plextor is more than enough.

If you can afford it, is your money, is your way.