Crucial M4 / Micron C400 SSD Series Thread

I've just bought the 128GB version as an upgrade to the Kingston I bought for my HP Probook last year. Not sure there will be a massive difference in performance due to HP being SATA2 but I needed the space and wanted to stick with a manufacturer who have UK support/returns.

Two Qs. . . Are all drives now shipping with the latest 0009 firmware? And is it better to go for a clean install than a clone? I'd rather clone TBH but I'm not sure what the best software is to do it (preferably freeware). I have been using Paragon's Free Backup and Recovery program weekly for backups, that doesn't clone though.

 

I got my M4 yesterday, firmware was still at 0002.

 

mine was purchased from amazon 1 week ago and it came with 0009 firmware. from what i've read, clean install might be best for alignment(?) SSD is new to me though.

 

yes i agree.

here's compression benchmark.

 

Thanks chucko83.

Okay, here's my AS-SSD results on 2 low-end 60GB Agility 3s in RAID0 using IRST driver 11.0.0.1015.



Doesn't look to impressive except maybe for the write latency.


Now the compression bench



Notice while you have a nice fairly straight line this one starts off pretty bad. SF seems very dependable on compressible data.


Atto makes SF look good.




And just for good measure here's Crystal




One thing seems to stand out with SF, it can be made to look very good or very bad depending on the benchmark dataset. At the end of the day what matters for me is real life performance which is probably somewhere in between. BootTimer runs in less than 6 seconds on W7 and the system disk performance is overall very satisfactory. Now, just have to hope I don't have one of those SF bugs show up.

 

I presume going SSD to SSD, alignment isn't an issue?

 

not sure, i'm an SSD noob.

 

If alignment on the source drive is correct, then you should be fine.

 

got my m4, run beautiful with m17x R3 (on module 1) i put my 500Gb momentus on module 0 for storage (music, videos, documents) and window's temporary / crash and dump / ..etc.

the first benchmark was horrible, not what i was expected so i went to crucial site DL and flashed it to 0009 still not satisfied,
then i follow the SSD optimized guide alternate the high power option + install RST + edit registry for better performance + ...etc.

and here is my current benchmark ... AS SSD (incompressible data) and Crystal disc mark (compressible data)



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

i saw some ppl can reach even higher in 4k Write .. like 90-100k++ but they using desktop, is it possible for laptop to get this speed ?
for laptop most of the 4k Write screenshot are around 50-75k

 

^^^looking good. You are correct on the majority of 4k writes.

 

installed the M4 on my older-ish Inspiron 1545 laptop. here's the results:

Crystal Disk

Spoiler

Battery stats using Battery Bar on stock WD Scorpio Blue 250gb 5400rpm

Spoiler

Battery stats using Battery Bar on M4 SSD

Spoiler

I think I'm more impressed with the battery gain then I am with the speed increase lol.

 

lol, the HDD surely isn't responsible for the 13W power difference... is it?

Of course, not drawing as much idle power and finishing tasks quickly probably do contribute to power savings very well

 

That WD drive seems to be rated for 2.5W for Read/Write. Specs

 

jeremyshaw, good catch - something else is going on here.

Either the screen brightness isn't the same, the background processes are obviously higher with the WD HDD and/or Battery Bar is simply not guessing as good with the SSD as with the HDD (not used for the same period of time and the same/identical tasks/workflow between drives).

I too saw huge battery gains with my U30Jc and an Intel 320 Series SSD - but I don't use any software to measure that: I simply time the system until it shuts down. (The software, affects the true battery runtime...).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/7766632-post2079.html


I would prefer to see/hear more of these test with 'I ran both systems in identical workload scenarios with identical installs/drivers and system 'X' lasted 'xx' minutes longer'.

(Or, with cpu/ram/ssd performance: ...identical workloads and ... system 'X' finished 'xx' minutes faster...).

If the OP has both drives still and can clone one to the other (clone the SSD install to the HDD - the SSD install is 'newer/fresher' and then we also aviod alignment issues too), then the battery bar tests can be re-run after unplugging both systems from the AC power after the system was left idling for an hour or so (so that there are no background tasks running on either system), then we can see how much of a difference the M4 really makes on battery run times.

 

Yeah, I'm thinking that battery bar is having a rough time with the ssd. It was jumping all over the place (from 5:20 down to 1:30) last night. I do feel like there's an increase in battery life though. Now that i think about it, I believe battery life is supposed to be used from a full charge all the way to empty, then charged up again before it gets "calibrated" towards your system (or somethin like that).

In the pictures, the settings were the same (wifi on, brightness max) and the background processes should've been just about the same. I manage my startup programs fairly regularly. Windows sticky notes was open on the HD though. Not that it should make that much of a difference.

Old drive is already formatted for use elsewhere, sorry.

The CDM run look ok for this setup though?

 

Yes, the CDM result looks fine.

I haven't found battery bar to be useful in my uses (but, I'm very demanding of any software that needs to be run always) even with a 'calibrated battery/system'.

Like I said: measuring the time from full power to shutdown (with everything else identical (including the same/similar workflow scenario) except for the isolated (single) component we're testing for) is the best real world measure for many things - not just real world power usage differences.

Too bad your old drive is in use elsewhere, I would have been really interested in a direct comparison (as outlined here).

 

experienced a hang up just now.. everything on the screen froze, no mouse function, no keyboard function. The fan would kick on like usual though. I waited 15 mins and still nothing, so I powered down and booted back up. I would have waited a bit longer to see if it started workin again, but I was working on a paper I have due in the morning.

 

Could this hang up be batterybar related (with the combination of your SSD and drivers/software too)?

What was running when this happened? Just Word?

 

If it happens again check event viewer for ideas.....

 

I doubt it was battery bar, I used it on my platter drive forever with no compatibility issues. All the drivers are the exact some ones I was using with my HD. Fresh install of windows and all other programs.

I was using chrome when it happened. I'd installed Object Dock maybe half an hour earlier. After I powered down and back up, there wasn't a chrome shortcut in my object dock any more.

No problems since then though.

 

Chrome... lol...

I don't understand why people insist on running software that is constantly in alpha/beta mode?

Glad the problem is gone now though.

 

I go the 64gb version and immediately flashed the latest firmware, 0009. However, after installing win7 x64, the drive is GPT, dynamic and I want it to be the regular, static, how can I do that?

I will reformat and reinstall windows, but I didn't change the format in the first place. Any ideas?

 

@mr.Fox : I found out why, it's the CPU and RAM that's affected the 4k Write

recently i upgraded my CPU/RAM then try to bench the SSD again.
as expected > the 4k Write speed boost up to 90k lolz

 

Good deal! Glad you got that figured out. A CPU and RAM upgrade are good things, even apart from the SSD performance improvement.

 

What exactly CPU and RAM? Did you increase speed of RAM (HyperX RAM) or just bought more gigs?

 

I reformatted and installed windows, but for some reason my drive is still GPT and dynamic. How come?

 

You should DELETE partitions instead of format.

 

I do DELETE the partition, but when I boot into windows it remains dynamic and GPT.

I even booted into GParted via usb and DELETED the partition, but it remains GPT and dynamic.

I really cannot tell if it's dynamic or basic except i cannot "covert it into dynamic" in Storage Management in windows.

Any ideas?

 

OC both RAM and CPU :

> replace the old hynix 1333 CL9 with hyperx 1600 (same amount of RAM, 8GB)
> replace the 2720QM with 2920XM-ES2

write speed is not that important to me anyway.
For everyday use and mild OC stable ~ 69 to 7x mb/s

 

I think I need a bit of assistance. . .

Installed 128GB M4 today, replacing the 64GB Kingston in my HP 4720s Probook. First up the stats look reasonable.



Coming from the Kingston, it always slightly underperformed (indeed I sent one back because of it), not sure what it was down to but I think it's something with my machine. So I wasn't expecting stellar results (Sata 2 as well). The 4K writes do look a bit low however. I did update the Intel Rapid Storage Driver but there wasn't any discernible difference.

My main concerns come from two other things. First under heavy load the M4 makes a sort of high pitch squealing noise. I was doing an error scan with HD Tune Pro and it was enough for me, with my highly tuned ears, to notice and then put my ear to casing where the drive sits. I haven't heard it in normal use as yet but perhaps the reason for that is the following. . .

Since installing the M4 my fan won't quieten down like it did before. Normally it will ebb and flow but now pretty much on in the mid range all the time. Now I'm wondering if this is due to the lack of a temperature sensor on the SSD, something I'm extremely surprised the unit doesn't have. If I'd known it was going to be an issue there's no way I'd have bought it as I was upgrading mainly for space than performance. I'm going to look and see what options there are to quieten things down a touch. Certainly if anyone has views on any of the above then please let me know.

Edit - Forgot to say it came with 0009 out of the box.

 

About the noise. stamatix or JJB tweaks should help. Looks like a lack of power.

 

Well after a little bit of digging I've discovered it's apparently normal, especially under specific types of load.

SSD m4 128GB loud noise - Crucial Community

M4: Electronic noise under load - Crucial Community

I can't say it's preferable but it ain't the worse thing in the world. It's certainly less than i5 whine under battery usage.

As for the fan noise, I did a quick test with the old Kingston drive installed. TBH there wasn't a great deal in it, in both instances they eventually quietened down, they just took their time. Sometimes I forget I have a slightly more noisy machine than average (the price you pay for a 17"). No fan control seems to be available, I'm pretty sure I checked on this previously and well nothings changed.

While I had the machine semi-apart I took the opporunity to blast some of dust away and clean the fan fins up a tad.

Anyway I'll certainly have a look at the tweaks, see if I can find any benchmark improvement(s).

Oh. . . one last thing while I'm here. If there are any people looking in who want to mod an M4 to fit 7mm. Mine had the warranty sticker right over one of the screws. Perhaps they've got wise to it. . .

 

I found that tweak are good for benches and perhaps little bit for real world but:
- in many scenarios you will either have no TurboBoost or not a big one.
- as I said benches are not fully show real life.

At first try to disable C3/C6 states in BIOS if you have such opportunity and then check if you have that whistle. If you don't then I am right bout the reason.
Also if you loose TB or it will be a little one then you shoul use a tweak where you change performance modes. Set it all to 95 and not more. Therefore you will have stable TB and good benches and less whistle (or even none).

Note that setting some settings to 99 makes TB not stable aka it will not be as high as it can for single or dual cores.

 

Gah! Frozen again.. I'm posting from my phone this time. I want to see if it unfreezes itself.

I had Internet explorer and chrome running.. Windows sticky notes was up and battery bar was doin its thing down on the task bar.

No response from keyboard or touchpad. Fan is running on low. It was on battery when it froze but I was intending drain the battery. I know it was close to being empty so I plugged it in. The screen still shuts off/ turns on when I close/open the lid..

What should I be looking at to diagnose this?

I had all my power options set to never shut off the hard drive.. 0009FW..

Edit: forced shutdown to check event viewer

From event viewer within the past hour:
Critical Level
- Event ID: 41

Error Level
- Event ID: 3, 1101, 6008 (force shutdown)

 

hizzaah,

try this:

See:
How to Debug Kernel Mode Blue Screen Crashes (for beginners) - Ask the Core Team - Site Home - TechNet Blogs


As far as I can tell, the event viewer data you show is simply telling you that you forced shutdown your system - but you knew that.

Good luck trying to track this issue down.

 

could it be the IRST driver? how do I tell which version I have, and where do I find the latest version?

I dont have any dump files to pull up..


edit: happened again.. was watching episodes of the big bag theory.. I opened the laptop up and reseated my RAM just to see if that had any effects..

 

You were watching the big bag theory? Maybe that is why it is turning off?

Seriously; that link hasn't given you any process to try to see what is happening when it is locked/frozen?

 

could be lol.. something to pass the time during stats class though

I downloaded the debugger it's talking about, but I dont have any .dmp files for me to look at with it. I'm not getting blue screens.. Perhaps I'm missing the point?

 

Is there an utility for our M4 users to see how much data has been written on the drive? I am concerned about the longevity.

 

another freeze... was just browsing the macrumors forum.. nothing different in the event viewer. I'm wondering if this is even the ssd. Idk what else it could be though, but it's the only thing that has changed in the laptop hardware wise.

Is there some sort of monitoring program I can/should be running?

 

It quite possibly is not the SSD. You could have an issue with some program running in the background that is either depleting resources or conflicting with another program that is causing the freeze.

You can try Antifreeze Resplendence Software - AntiFreeze Introduction to see if that helps isolate the issue and correct the freezing issue temporarily. You can also try running Task Manager during normal use and watch for excessive CPU usage or memory depletion.

Another thing you can try is running MSCONFIG and disabling all items on the Startup tab. If the freeze problem goes away, run MSCONFIG again and re-enable startup programs one or two at a time and reboot. When the freezing problem returns, you will have identified the offender.

 

It can be an interaction between the drivers (all the hardware drivers) and the SSD.

Maybe you could try installing the as-shipped drivers to see if any help?

Windows Update could have installed a 'compatibility driver' somewhere along the line and is now giving you these glitches.

Good luck.

 

The problem is that it's happening sporadically, so it could be days before I have another issue.

I uninstalled the IRST driver (it was the latest from the intel website) and haven't had an issue since. Not sure if it's fixed or not though. Guess a few more days of useage are in order.

 

it might be the issue... IRST driver known to be unstable in some systems.

 

Noob question - what is Intel's RST? What does it do and why do I need it?

Got my 128GB m4 y/day. Clean install of Win 7. It's super fast! Loving it! Will do some benchmarks as soon as I get a chance. Haven't closed up yet, waiting for my MX-4 to repaste. It's an XPS 15 so it's opened up to change drives.

 

Intel RST:

See:
Support for the Intel Rapid Storage Technology

It stands for Intel Rapid Storage Technology and it is an AHCI driver for your SATA AHCI Controller(s).

It is a much more current driver than almost anything else your system would ship with for your SATA ports and in real world use, it is generally faster than the default MS v1.0 AHCI drivers for your storage sub-system.

 

Thanks! That's the answer I was looking for Google brought up rather poor answers. "...it is an AHCI driver..." - why can't people just say that?

 

My google results made it seem like more of a Raid driver, but either way, I haven't seen problems. I'm curious to see if it affected performance though. I'll run a CDMark to compare.

thanks for the help everyone

 

hi. just bought a crucial m4 for my clevo p150hm. should be arriving shortly.

i'm just wondering if anyone could provide a link outlining the procedures i'll need to follow before replacing my hdd with my first ssd.

if i've been understanding what i've been reading, it's something to the effect of..

1.) instill 0009 firmware from Crucial.com Product Downloads - Firmware Updates
2.) physically install the ssd
3.) clean install of windows (optional)
4.) update to 10.6.0.1022 rst driver.
5.) install ssd tweaker (for optimal performance)

are there any other measures i need to be aware of?

also, to make continuous use of my 500GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache), am i going to need to buy a caddy or does my notebook support placing the hdd where the cd/dvd drive is.
this is what i have now: Combo Dual Layer SuperMulti DVDRW/CDRW Drive w/ Software (When selecting a Hard Drive in the Optical Bay, No Optical Drive is Included)

 

It's very likely that your M4 will come already with the 0009 firmware. Anyway,your procedures seems fine to me. Regarding the HHD 500GB you will need to buy an Optical bay HDD:

Optical Bay HDD : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks