I have been using OCZ Vertex drives for years without any real issues. I had one set (my original Vertex 120 GB drives) which finally killed over on me after a little over five years of constant wear and tear, but that is far beyond the standard "usage" of any person in their normal computer environment. I've heard of several having issues with the Vertex 2 drives, but into the Vertex 3 series those issues have been addressed and little complaint remains. Even now the Vertex 4 series is selling well and to great applause from what I have heard. There are a few good brands out there, Intel is definitely one of them (and I've used several of their drives too) but I would have to say OCZ is still one of my favorites for price and performance balance.
If all you are looking to do is 2D graphics work, such as vector graphics, Illustrator and Photoshop or Flexi, etc. then having a high-performance graphics card will do you absolutely no good. All of this type of graphics production work is CPU intensive, not GPU intensive as nothing model or shader based has to be rendered. This means that even your integrated graphics card is adequate for doing design work. Not ideal, but adequate. Spending $800 on a Quadro 4000 graphics card will gain you no benefit in color quality, performance, or reliability in doing 2-D design work over a $100 or $150 Quadro 400 or Quadro 600 graphics card, anything more is never utilized unless you're working with complex 3D modeling and rendering. Put that money towards your storage system.
