Crucial M4 / Micron C400 SSD Series Thread

If your firmware isn't nr. 2 update that first.

If that doesn't solve it try changing some settings in the BIOS that influence the speed of booting like 'display logo' etc.

 

Clean install got it booting again but..


I spoke too soon... after a clean install with NO drivers just straight into Windows and after restarting a fun times and coming back from town, the same thing has happened again.

Will start to play in the bios and I'm wary of updating the M2 firmware at this point in time as it can invalidate the warranty

 

No updating the firmware does not void warranty.

Downgrading firmware does: Crucial.com Product Downloads - Firmware Updates

Before you update the firmware you can try disabling LPM, that may very well fix the issues. (explained in the first post)

If it was my drive I'd let LPM on and update the firmware first.

 

Ohh thanks for that info!

Update: I think it's user error and the fact that I'm a newb with the new (ish) GUI HP bios. :/

 

"This drive cannot be updated etc" 002: Looks like it's already updated. I've changed lots of settings and it can sometimes can seconds to boot, won't boot with black screen

 

Muh: It seems that I have the following problem with the M4 SSD

Problem with boot on SSD crucial M4 256Go on ASUS ... - Page 3 - Crucial Community

What a pile of rubbish.

 

As far as I know that's the problem that has been solved by enabling the boot options I mentioned earlier ('fancy boot' and 'display boot logo' or so).

I posted the link with the fix earlier in this topic I think.

 

I tried a whole variation of bios option with no success or should I say varied results. The original HD works fantastic and either way, Crucial should really resolve the issue instead of people changing bios options.

But saying that I'm ok with this as I at least know what the issue is. The drive will be returned and I'll pickup a Crucial C300 as I know they work.

 

My speeds seem a bit slow:



Any word?

 

If you'd like the 4K read to be higher disable Intelppm temporarily.

 

What does this driver do exactly? Couldn't find much info on it.

 

Only disable it temporarily for the benchmark. It's the power saving for the CPU.

Disabling LPM can also boost performance, but, like the intelppm, it reduces battery life.

 

Anyone with a 2011 MBP notice any improvements to beach balling in OSX with FW002?

 

Yes Firmware 2 totally solved it for me in OS X.

 

What would you buy?

A new 256Gb M4 2.5" w/warranty?

or

For $50 less a used 256gb C300 1.8" (w/2.5" adapter) w/no warranty (but you could test it before you bought it)?

 

SSDs without warranty, not my cup of tea unless they're real cheap. So M4 definitely.

 

That's what I was thinking. Thanks I just needed someone to push me over. UPDATE, I just bought it. Count me in as an M4 owner.

 

Me, too. Just took delivery of a 128 GB version today and will be installing tomorrow. The one I received was listed as having the 002 firmware, so no need to update before getting in to full-on setup mode. Now all I have to do is wait for my HDD caddy to show up, which should be tomorrow or Friday.

 

Mine delivered today (M4 256 GB) from Newegg with the 001 firmware.

It is already installed and so far no problems in my W520 as the boot drive.

 

Why are these drives so slow compared to other sata 3 drives ?? Especially the sandforce ones like Vertex 3 / Patriot Wildfire ect...

Those get over 500 on read, 300+ write yet the M4 does not...

I want to get one and do the 7mm mod for a X220 I'll be buying, but I wonder, maybe OCZ or patriot will release a 7mm version....

 

Whats better in compare with Crucial C300?

 

Sandforce drives only reach quoted speeds in new state with 0 fill data.

Look at the write speeds of the Vertex 3 after serious usage.


Now look at the Crucial M4 after the same usage.

 

Depending where you buy, the M4 is cheaper and when connected to an SATA 6 Gb/s port, faster.

 

+ M4 has lower power consumption.

Crucial M4 vs. C300 real world benchmarks (~5 pages):
Crucial m4 256GB SSD (C400) Review - Install Times

 

Sequential isn't everything, plus OCZ "pads" their numbers. Run real-world tests. The M4 is the fastest on the market, right with the V3. Except the V3 is a piece of crap and is going to break on you in a couple months if it doesn't come DOA. And OCZ won't care.

 

According the anandtech.com (who IMHO has a strong bias toward sandforce and OCZ) who makes some of the best reviews out there, the Vertex 3 is the fastest. I agree completely that sandforce is the worst for reliability. My 1st SF-1200 drive was DOA. The intel 510 beats the M4 (significantly) in heavy usage scenarios (multitasking with heavy simultaneous read/writes). However the 510 and the M4 are identical in light everyday usage scenarios (which what most of us are doing). This makes the M4 a great every day drive but it can get bogged down if used in an intensive environment. Considering how much cheaper the M4 is, I think it is a clear winner. You can get an M4 for over $100 less than a 510. The M4 256 is $400 on newegg now. The 250gb 510 is $580! The vertex 3 has such poor reliability I wouldn't consider it for an OS drive.

 

Anandtech has a great synopsis on this (I am a fan can you tell?) M4 faster overall, C300 faster random reads and longer lasting 34nm NAND (not really an issue though). Get which ever is cheaper. If they are the same get the M4.

 

In real life cases there is no detectable difference between the M4/510/V3. DETECTABLE by EYE. Yes, there are small differences that only a stopwatch on a benchmark run can see. And there is one or two crazy cases where the Intel 510 wins out. But in 99% of use, you will not see a difference between the 3. Except the Intel or the Crucial will still be working a month later...

Yes I have a lot of hate for OCZ. I've gotten a lot of crap from them in the past, I've never seen a dumber company honestly. They put things on the market with glaring issues, ignore the issues when 25% of their customers have issues, and blame said customers for the issues, saying that said customers don't know what they are doing. Then they tell you to do something idiotic to your system to make their crap work. Nope, no thanks.

 

I like his reviews but unfortunately he doesn't include any true real world test. Instead he uses benchmarks that play back scenarios at maximum speed, which creates an artificial load not representative for daily usage. He explains it here: AnandTech - OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS & Patriot Wildfire SSDs Reviewed

This is the main reason Sandforce drives nearly always win in his test setup.

Not to blow my own horn but I tried to focus on true real world tests in my review. The difference between M4 and V3 is close to nil. http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=6161&review=ocz+vertex+3+120gb

Reviews of Hardwareheaven also include a lot of true real world benchmarks.

 

Phil, your results coincide with all the REAL-WORLD tests that I have seen. There are unfortunately only a few real-world tests, but they all show that the 3 SATA 3 drives perform very similarly, though in most cases the Intel 510 is slightly behind the M4 and V3, which are neck-and-neck. There are a few cases where the 510 is better, but those are not cases 99.9% of users see.

People seem to forget that a 1second difference in a 60-second task is not something you are really going to see unless you are actively measuring it. There aren't many good SSD versus SSD tests for that reason: they are all close. Now SSD vs. HDD is no challenge. Even a gen 1 SSD blows an HDD out of the water, as we all know.

 

Phil, I'm glad you pointed that out about anandtech's review. Even though I had read that before, I admit I had paid more attention to the numbers rather than the methods. I personally wonder if they have a relationship with OCZ, that brand certainly gets a lot of coverage there, and the failure rate gets very little attention. Your review of the M4 was one of many things that pushed me toward it, and it's good to realize my few doubts about it's performance were based on an artifical environment.

Now if my new drive would just get here.... Tired of waiting.

 

The M4 is clearly quicker in the longer file reads and writes. The 4K is very similar. Well a bit quicker in writes but roughly the same in reads.

The speed difference also appears in things like PCMarkVantage that has a lot of video/audio HDD access.

Now that I have a C300 or two extra I suppose it is time to build a desktop.

 

I think they do have a strong personal relationship.

When Storagereview published benchmarks that made the Vertex 2 look bad they were banned by OCZ for a couple of months.

Anand was the first site in the world to receive a review unit of a SF2200 drive. I think you only get those privileges for positive publicity.

 

Awesome thread, Phil!

Just got my M4 256GB - clean install.

Before LPM fix:



After LPM fix:



Is there something wrong with the reads? The drive is practically empty.

 

Welcome Aikimox. Sequential read looks a bit low yes.

I'd recommend running CDM with 3x 100MB to prevent wear.

How do the results look if you temporarily disable Intelppm in the registry?

 

Sux to be a noob, how do I disable it? Should I search the registry and set every Intelppm instance to 0?

Oh and another noobish question, are there any tweaks required for optimal operation?

 

I had ordered a 128 GB drive, but sent it back. I figured, go big or go home so I picked this up:



Will be installing it tomorrow.

 

First run CDM with 3x 100. Then:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Intelppm

Change the Start from 3 to 4
Reboot
And another CDM 3x 100MB.

See if it boosts performance.

 

Before:




After:

 

Holy crap, cost almost as much as a new computer. Lucky you

 

Nah, that's 128GB edited with Photoshop, lol.

Seriously though, awesome purchase. Enjoy!

 

Heh, my photo editing skills aren't that good, though I have someone at work who would be able to do that.

I figure this is going to be my last big purchase before the kid arrives.

 

hey guys i have a few questions i just bought a new m4 and i was wondering how to check if it already has the 0002 update and if not how would i update the drive to the new firmware? thanks

 

Well, I just got my M4 256gb, updated to 002. I got similar results to Aikimox, but I noticed that the LPM fix disables my CPU turbo boost. Does that happen to everyone or just me?

 

Oh, so that's why my 2920XM is getting a mere 7.4 in WEI?!
Now it makes more sense. I will do some more testing tomorrow to confirm this.

 

What version of Intel RST are you guys running? Intel has version 10.6 online. Perhaps those drivers combined with the 002 firmware will eliminate the need for the LPM fix. Also, have you tried using the JJB tweak instead of the LPM fix to boost performance?

 

It says on the drive itself. There will be a line on the tag saying either 0001 or 0002.

Or you can go into the bios, I believe under the drives listing it tells you somewhere in the name, but I could be completely wrong. There's also a way to check in Windows, but I forget how

 

I installed an M4 on my Precision 6600 two weeks ago. Here are some of the things to keep in mind:

The software that you can purchase with the Drive from Crucial works just fine to clone your current drive, including OS. AHCI mode. The Crucial did hang at the Windows login prompt after this, reason being that it still had firmware version 1.

How To Find Your Firmware Revision in Windows:

1) Click on the Start menu
2) Open Control panel> System> Hardware
3) Select device manager
4) Expand disk drives
5) Right click on the drive and select properties
6) Select details tab > select 'hardware lds' from the drop down menu and the firmware version will be displayed.


How To Find Your Firmware Revision in OSX:

1) Click on the Apple menu
2) Select About This Mac, then 'More Info'
3) From the Contents list, select 'Hardware'
4) From the Hardware sub-menu, select Serial-ATA
5) The drive attributes will be displayed on the pane on the right. You will see the name of the drive i.e. Crucial CTXXXXXXX, the drive capacity etc. The firmware version will show in the 'Revision' field.

Applying to both platforms:

If the drive does not report a revision or reports something other than the versions we have released, and you are connecting the drive using a SATA or USB cable, try another cable or connecting the drive directly through the SATA port as faulty cables can sometimes cause errors in reporting.


Since I did not want to go through the trouble of uninstalling the disk, installing it in an older computer with SATA II, and re-installing it after the firmware upgrade (which does not work on SATA III), I decided to use the LPM mod described in the beginning of this thread.

I could do this because I was able to boot into windows in safe mode and applying the mod. Since then my M4 runs great!

 

Firmware upgrade works fine on SATA 3. I flashed mine to 0002 with no problems on my l702x.

 

Thanks for this info - I was not trying it because somewhere in Crucials instructions it said it would not work. Plan on upping mine next weekend.