Thanks for the advice, Ken. I just read an article on anandtech.com and was aware about the risk of data loss using the maximum performance setting, which does raise concern, especially because I don't have a UPS.
There's the increased performance boost, at a cheaper price than a SSD (I couldn't see me getting one smaller than 150 GB for the OS and some programs), but the risk of data loss.
With a SSD, would you load a browser and other daily used programs on it? That's my understanding.
Thanks