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    Some Crucial M4 128GB results

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by custom90gt, May 8, 2011.

  1. custom90gt

    custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator

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    Well I received my crucial M4 a couple days ago so I figured I'd do a quick write up with it.

    I wanted the try the M4 because the Vertex 3 is super fast, but OCZ has left a sour taste in my mouth. I am also not very impressed with the Vertex as it fills up (seems to slow down quite a bit). The Intel 510 is a great drive, but it seems like it's 4k performance leaves something to be desired.

    I replaced a 120gb vertex LE (basically a 34nm vertex 2) with the M4 and noticed a difference right away. Like a few m17x r3 users, I had to have the drive in slot 1 for it to function at sata 6gb/s speeds.

    The first thing that was apparent to me was battle field bad company 2 loading times. It lots much faster than the vertex did. I don't know why but that was one game that was the antagonist to my vertex and always took forever to load.

    Windows is very smooth and responsive, and load times are low (just like with the vertex, but I wasn't expecting any difference there).

    Here are some screenshots from today after a couple days of use. The drive has 50gb free after installing a few steam games/apps.
     

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    custom90gt, May 8, 2011
    #1
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  2. N4TUR3

    N4TUR3 Notebook Guru

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    wow thankx alot for the post i was really torn up between the m4 and intel 510

    how long does it take to boot and opening multiple apps compared to the vertex?

    +rep!
     
    N4TUR3, May 8, 2011
    #2
  3. custom90gt

    custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator

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    Hey,
    well i just timed it and by the time the alienware post screen shows up to the time that I'm in firefox with steam loaded is a hair under 20 seconds. Doing something similar with the vertex le was about 28 seconds, so it is faster in that regard.
     
    custom90gt, May 8, 2011
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  4. Virtual87

    Virtual87 Notebook Geek

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    My Crucial M4 just arrived and so far I just put it in as secondary to my original hdd, I will install windows tomorrow and set the bios to boot from secondary then and will remove this one as I am expecting a 500gb hdd for data next to my ssd.
    Do I have to do any firmware updates or something before installing windows or any tweaks after? I read here that I might have to activate a .reg file to disable power management on the ssd.
     
    Virtual87, Jul 22, 2011
    #4
  5. Joe85

    Joe85 Notebook Deity

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    just update your firmware from 0001 to 0002 from the crucial website.

    My m4 kept causing windows to freeze randomly before the update. now its fine.
     
    Joe85, Jul 22, 2011
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  6. Virtual87

    Virtual87 Notebook Geek

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    Did you install the m4 in ahci or raid?
     
    Virtual87, Jul 23, 2011
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  7. yankeefy

    yankeefy Notebook Enthusiast

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    My M4 256GB is installed in AHCI in port 1, run very fast...
     

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    yankeefy, Jul 24, 2011
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  8. Joe85

    Joe85 Notebook Deity

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    This is my benchmark, what do you think? good or bad?
     

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    Joe85, Jul 25, 2011
    #8