Low-priced, refurbished, guaranteed Corsair SSD?

We live in a price sensitive world, so when KitGuru noticed that Aria was offering 80GB and 240GB refurbished SSDs from Corsair, we decided to dig a little deeper and consider what actual value these offers have. We warn you, if you have been seriously considering putting an SSD in an old laptop etc, then there's a good chance you're about to enter the land of ‘Ah, but what if'.

Corsair's reputation was made with the TwinX products. Once PCs gained the capability to access more than one memory module at a time, the fact that your memory modules had similar performance characteristics became a key issue. The company hasn't looked back since.

While Corsair was certainly ahead of OCZ on DDR memory, it's not the same in the SSD space.

In velodrome terms, OCZ went early and hard – and the the rest of the SSD-field has been peddling hard ever since to try and catch up.

So, we have a market where Corsair is behind and has, quite possibly, underestimated how big SSDs would become in such a short space of time. That has led to rapid development, with the launch of several generations of new drive. With all products, something can go wrong. No matter how small it is, customers go straight for the terms of their warranty and demand a refund, repair or replacement. Because the UK places huge emphasis on making the customer happy, companies inevitably end up with refurbished product on their hands.

In the case of Corsair's F80 and F240 SSD drives, Aria has managed to acquire a load of these refurbished drives and is now able to offer them, with a ‘one month after delivery' warranty. So, basically, you get the drive and install it on the day you get it – load up your software and run whatever checks you want to run – and Aria is guaranteeing that it will run smoothly for the next 30 days. Given that there are no moving parts, you need to make your own judgement call on how much that tells you about a memory product.

So, that brings us to the crucial questions, how much are they?

Corsair F80A SATA II Drive is £39.95

Corsair F240 SATA II Drive is £99.95

KitGuru says: Whether you go for new or refurbished is a personal judgement call. In either case, you should back up your data anyway – it's just good sense. If you have an old laptop that you were thinking of dumping and you can now choose to install a clean version of your OS on an SSD – you will definitely get a jump in performance.

Comment below or in the KitGuru forums.

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