Hard Disk Drive Replacement Options

Question

Hi:
I have a 2009 MacBook Pro. Recently it started acting funny and a friend suggested it might be the hard drive. I got a copy of Scannerz to check the drive and about 10 minutes into the scan it started finding problems. I ran Scannerz in diag mode to confirm it wasn't the SATA cable, and it passed that with flying colors. I need a new hard drive.
Here's my dilemma: I'm on a budget. The most I can afford is between $125 to $150 to replace the hard drive. The question is, can I get a decent SSD for this much money?
Before I continue, I should state that I use a dual boot system. I still have a 100GB partition with Snow Leopard on it because I have some old applications that are older PPC applications. They're rarely used, but they do get used a few times a year. The rest of the drive is Mavericks.
I see the following as possible options:
1. Get an SSD that I can split so that I have 2 partitions again. It would need to be at least 256GB, and that's probably pushing it, probably more like 350GB is what I'd like.
2. Just get a hard drive. I've read on here that some of the Hitachi drives are fast for old mechanical drives and they're cheap too. I'd have money left over.
3. Create a Fusion drive with a smallish SSD and a hard drive. Setting it up using an article I read about in CNET doesn't look that hard, but the idea of taking out the optical drive and putting some type of adapter in there to hold either an SSD or HDD just seems a little risky. Also, isn't the speed of the optical drive slower than those of drives? Do I need a new cable if I consider doing this?
4. The Scannerz tech support people said I might want to get a new SATA cable anyway. Any idea why they would say that? They don't sell parts so that obviously wasn't the motivation.
When answering, please keep costs in mind. The total I'm will to spend, absolute max, is $150.
Thank you.

Answer 1

I found the following immediately available locally:
HDD: Hitachi 500GB 7,200 RPM SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5" Hard Drive 0S03788 for $53
SSD: Silicon Power S60 120GB Sata III 6Gb/s 2.5" Internal SSD SP120GBSS3S60S25 for $55
SSD: Kingston V300 120GB SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5" SSD for $60
SSD: SanDisk 128GB SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5"SSD SDSSDP-128G-G25 for $65
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 120GB SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5" SSD MZ-75E120B/AM for $70
SSD: OCZ 100 Series 120GB SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5" SSD ARC100-25SAT3-120G for $65
There are others available, lots actually, but that's what I'm narrowing it down to. I see what one said when saying to check the specs. The Hitachi HDD above clearly states it uses AF format with 512e sectors, but the store also has a 5400RPM unit with a much smaller cache, which I'm assuming is the old one, for just a few dollars less. As you can guess there are a lot more HDDs available at the store but Hitachi seems to have a good reputation and that price is hard to beat.
Now, for SSDs, I get the impression Samsung is well thought of. It seems Apple is putting SanDisk SSDs in some of the MacBook Air's so my assumption is it's a good brand too. OCZ I've read some bad things about. Kingston I'm familiar with from memory sticks but I have no idea how good there SSDs are. There seem to be few people commenting on them. I've never heard of Silicon Power.
Do the prices above look good, or are they too high? Any comments on quality?
RIght now I'm pretty convinced I'm going to go with a dual setup with an SSD to hold the OS then use the HDD as a data drive and to also hold the Snow Leopard partition. This would give me all the space I need.
Another idea is to make a Fusion Drive and leave a part ion on the HDD alone for Snow Leopard. Any comments on this idea?
Thank you all again.