Crucial 128 GB m4 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT128M4SSD2
- Groundbreaking SATA SSD performance
- Sustained Sequential Read: Up to 500 MB/s (SATA 6Gb/s) Sustained Sequential Write: Up to 175 MB/s (SATA 6Gb/s)4KB Random Read: Up to 45,000 IOPS4KB Random Write: Up to 35,000 IOPS
- Second-generation SATA 6Gb/s w/ Native Command Queuing (3Gb/s backward compatible)
- Most advanced NAND process technology in the semiconductor industry
- Limited three-year warranty
The 128GB CRUCIAL M4 2.5IN SATA 6GB/S.
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Made my old laptop lightening fast,
Test Laptop – Dell Latitude D630 – 2.0GHz core 2 duo with 4GB ram
I installed this drive and then installed Windows XP pro. When complete I then installed Windows 7 home premium and set laptop up as a dual boot system. I then tested both by booting into Windows XP and Windows 7. I then ran every update and every service pack on both Windows XP SP3 and Windows 7 SP1. I installed antivirus, adobe reader, Microsoft Office 2007, Firefox 5.0, etc. When all was perfect with both operating systems I pulled out he HD and cloned it over to a brand new standard SATA drive. Then came the fun of testing both HD’s and OS’s for boot times, etc.
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Pros: $2 per GB is a great price. Drive will breathe new life into ANY PC. Easy to install, lots of fun. Drive has NEVER locked up for me, not with hibernation, sleep mode anything.
Cons: $2 per GB is a lot higher than a standard SATA drive. Firmware was hard to locate, although easy to install.
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Windows XP Pro
Standard SATA HD – power on to hear windows startup sound 1:30 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 – power on to hear windows startup sound :22 seconds
Standard SATA HD – power on to fully pull up http://www.google.com 1:55 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 – power on to fully pull up http://www.google.com :28 seconds
Standard SATA HD – power on to hard drive activity light to go off completely 1:45 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 – power on to hard drive activity light to go off completely :29 seconds
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Windows 7 Home Premium SP1
Standard SATA HD – power on to hear windows startup sound 2:10 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 – power on to hear windows startup sound :20 seconds
Standard SATA HD – power on to fully pull up http://www.google.com 3:00 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 – power on to fully pull up http://www.google.com :25 seconds
Standard SATA HD – power on to hard drive activity light to go off completely 3:30 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 – power on to hard drive activity light to go off completely :26 seconds
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All of this was with original firmware 001, I did update (after all testing) to 002 but nothing changed HD runs solid and sleeps/hibernates, etc. runs like a dream with 0 issues for me. It has never locked up. I cannot imagine how fast this drive would be in a new PC or laptop with an i7 CPU and more ram. Sadly my laptop is now so fast there is no way that I can justify replacing anytime soon. Buy this drive you will not be sorry.
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|Works great in 2011 Macbook Pro,
I originally wrote a glowing review about this SSD which I purchased about 6 months ago and after updating this review so many times it became cluttered. I still stick to my 5-star review but I’m going to reorganize this review for the sake of everyone else out there.
This drive was installed in my current 13″ Macbook Pro and I have had excellent results. After 6 months: No hang ups; no problems going in and out of sleep; everything is SO much faster. Bootup is less than 30 seconds; Firefox opens nearly instantly; About this Mac loads instantly; Disk Utility permission repair runs in under a minute; multitasking is smoother; just overall snappiness. The first thing I showed to a friend when he scoffed at the price was to open every single app in my dock at once (multiple browsers, the CS-3 suite, final cut, all of the iLife programs, LibreOffice). While on my old HDD I probably would have sat there loading forever, this time I didn’t even get a pinwheel. Even my websites would load quicker. I’ve noticed my system backups are quicker when writing to an external harddrive using a Firewire 800 port, and my DVD ripping is about 15% quicker.
I always see people saying that a huge benefit of an SSD is better battery life. I’ve noticed almost no change in real world usage although I’m sure there is a minimal difference. Don’t expect your battery life to change dramatically though. My computer is significantly quieter (and has less vibrations) which is very nice when I’m watching a movie late at night.
A huge selling point for the M4 is a three year warranty and the fact that it is SATA III (which my macbook pro supports; not sure about previous models). The additional throughput allows for a huge speed increase. It’s predecessor – the C300 – was highly regarded and I’ve had great luck with Crucial so I’m confident that this was a good purchase.
Info about M4’s firmware:
I bought this while running OS 10.6.8 and ran Rev 0001 firmware. I had no problems at all but eventually upgraded to Rev 0002. Soon after Rev 0009 came out which I then upgraded to as well and have been using for about 5 months so that’s what the majority of my review is based on. There was a large speed difference when running benchmark software between Rev 0009 and previous firmware but real world difference could be another thing. To upgrade firmware just download from the Crucial website, burn to CD, and boot from the CD. It’s all very very simple.
Regarding TRIM:
While I was running Snow Leopard 10.6.8, TRIM was listed as disabled. I’ve heard it was because only Apple-branded SSDs will turn on TRIM, but there is software floating around to enable TRIM support. I chose not to run the software because I didn’t know the developer but it could be perfectly fine. I ended up upgrading to Lion 10.7 (now 10.7.3) and TRIM is still listed as disabled. Someone in the comments below mentions to search “enable trim mactrast” and follow the directions to enable TRIM. I followed the directions on the site and now TRIM is supported. TRIM is important for wear leveling and to prevent a decrease in speed overtime and the directions take all of 2 minutes to follow so it’s highly recommended.
Optimizing your SSD: I haven’t seen much that will make a difference but the first thing I did was disable the Sudden Motion Sensor. I also went into Energy Saver and turned off “put hard disks to sleep when possible.” Then I repaired disk permissions and verified the disk in Disk Utility for a final time. I’ve heard of disabling Spotlight, but I use it so I decided against it.
Regarding Windows 7 and Bootcamp: Some people have luck with Winclone to copy their Windows 7 partition from Bootcamp. I didn’t have luck but I’m not overly concerned since I don’t want to give up 20GB of space (minimal size Boot Camp Assistant allows) for an OS I don’t really need and rarely use. This isn’t a problem related to the SSD, but I just thought I’d mention that.
Still speedy, average about 12 hours of use per day. For those looking for some Macbook Pro specs:
Results 443.78
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.7.3 (11D50b)
Physical RAM 8192 MB
Model MacBookPro8,1
Drive Type M4-CT256M4SSD2
Disk Test 443.78
Sequential 272.50
Uncached Write 465.35 285.72 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 444.25 251.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 112.01 32.78 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 740.20 372.02 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 1194.66
Uncached Write 1095.88 116.01 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 816.10 261.26 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2098.55 14.87 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 1362.67 252.85 MB/sec [256K blocks]
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