Intel 320 to Crucial M4

Is the upgrade going to be worth it? My laptop has SATA III capability...and manufacturer puts SATA II SSD's in. Theoretical scores say yes...but what about reality???

The 320 is 300 GB vs M4 256 GB

Any thoughts appreciated...

Bob

 

I went from X25m to Crucial M4 and there is very slight difference, maybe a sec or so in windows startup, but its negligible in my case. Now if you do a lot of file transferring you might see lower times as the sequential writes are almost double.. but to me its not worth, im my case i really needed more space and had another build that could use the x25m. In your case you are going with less space... so idk, its up to you. That said, the M4 has been perfect, no issues whatsoever, same can be said about both of my x25m, really good ssds from crucial n intel.

 

Abula pretty much covered it.

What are your specific usage scenarios with regards to pushing the storage sub-system to it's limit (beyond capacity limits, that is)?

 

+1

You won't notice it unless you do something that needs the higher sequential speeds.

 

Abula, tilleroftheearth and Phil...thank you all. Yeah...it does 270 sequential read and about 205 write. In order to move to the M4, I am gonna lose about 40GB, plus if the difference isn't all that big a deal...think I'll pass until something really "astounding" comes along...

 

I did this upgrade. Was reading so many good things about the M4, I got a 256. Had a 320 160GB.

Has been perfect. I am not one to benchmark, both are fast.

And now I have a "spare" 320. Not so bad

 

well i upgraded from X25-M 80GB to M4 128GB..... definitely much faster for me.....

 

ditto for me...went from a 750GB seagate 7200RPM drive to the M4 128....NOTICABLE difference on bootup and windows response (despite i came from a RAID 0 setup and the fact i am running Mcafee 2011...which is horrendously slow..) despite it all ......super fantastic

 

I'd love to subject the people who say they notice the difference between a Intel 320 and a Crucial M4 in daily usage to a blind test.

I've tested a lot of SSDs in the same notebook, I can't tell the difference between Intel 320, Vertex 3, Crucial M4 or Samsung 470. Except for file copying.

 

Phil,

It depends on your notebook/platform's level. If near the netbook level, then all will feel similar. It also depends on what software is installed. If just a 'basic' install - sure, not too much difference. If setup to do some real work (photo editing, for example) and a few Suites are installed, then the differences jump out more.

If near the 'extreme' level, then the differences are noticeable to me (I don't have any 'extreme' notebooks: I see this on desktop systems).

On the current notebooks I do have and also the ones I get to play with (not 'netbook', not 'extreme'), I do notice that the SATA3 SSD's on a SATA3 platform are noticeably snappier than the SATA2 SSD equipped versions.

Very easily 'noticeable' to me and most people that use them like I do.

For example: seeing the Windows 7 Welcome screen on the SATA2 version's and not seeing the Welcome screen on complete SATA3 systems (Intel 510 250GB SSD's vs. Intel 320 160GB SSD's).

 

Tiller, as always you answer questions from your extreme user perspective. I'm not. I'm answering questions from the average user perspective unless I know the OP isn't one.

I agree that during extreme multi tasking the difference will be noticeable. That's not what I'm talking about though when I say daily usage. Neither am I talking about what you call 'netbook usage'.

I'm talking about day to day usage form the majority of the people here.

Here is the conclusion from my unpublished Intel 320 review:

During single tasks (installing, booting, launching apps, unzipping) differences stay below 10%. In other words, no one will ever notice that without using a stopwatch.

During multi tasking (two storage intensive tasks) there is about 10% difference. I doubt that anyone would notice that w/o a stopwatch.

During heavy multi tasking (three storage intensive tasks simultaneously) Crucial M4 is about 25% faster. Mind you this is only for three simultaneous tasks that tax the storage system heavily. Most heavy multi tasking (for the majority of users) puts more strain on CPU and memory than on the storage subsystem.

So what it comes down is for the OP is how often do you perform more than two storage intensive tasks simultaneously or perform large file copies? If often, the upgrade is a good idea.

 

Phil,

Thanks for your response. We're still on different pages though.

A 10% difference is noticeable to me (it is/was a generational difference not too long ago).

My response was not based only on my usage patterns, but rather the platform that one was using (for the mostly the same 'normal' stuff you state).

The level of the platform makes a difference. That was my main point.

Sorry for the confusion.

 

I'd love to test that on you. In other words you say you'll be able to distinguish between 18 seconds and 20 seconds without counting or using a stopwatch.

Maybe someone has scientific information whether or not human beings have this ability.

As you know I'm certainly not taking your word for it.

 

Phil,

Didn't expect you to. Lol...

But as I have stated many times: I notice things in the 1% range.

The 'gotcha'?

This is on my systems which I live and breathe on night and day.

I'm not stating that I would see that on other 'unknown' systems - because I would have no baseline (nor desire) to know if the component I'm testing is making a difference or not to my productivity.

Yes, humans have this ability. (I'm not about to state my home planet).

 

Lol... and you seriously believe yourself...

Let's have some other people comment on it.

 

so here is an example of real life usage...
-My old X25-M 80GB would install Office 2010 SP1 in 5 min 50 sec
-My friend has a intel 320 160GB which does the same job in 5min 13 sec
-Now the M4 i have now intalls it in 3 min 18 sec

Now that's not even multitasking but M4 beats the **** out of intel in this test.... and i bet u won't need stopwatch to measure it.

All those above times were with 2630QM processor....

and u might be interested in knowing that i have recently upgraded to 2760QM which gets the same job done in only 2 min 38 sec on M4.

 

If you'd want to do this 100% accurate it would have to be run on the same laptop with exactly the same (point in time) image. Most OS/ driver setups change daily.

Here are more install times on a Toshiba Sandy Bridge laptop with Core i5 2410m with identical OS image:

(Office 2010, CS5)
Crucial M4 128GB: 268, 145
Intel X25m 80GB: 260, 163
Intel 320 120GB: 248, 153

I'll be the first to admit that something seems off with the Office install time on the Crucial M4. The second run wasn't any better though. Perhaps the new firmware would have improved the time. It's seems likely.

By the way, I doubt that installing Office and CS5 is daily usage for the majority of people.

 

I have an X25 in my X220 and an M4 in my W520. I don't believe you can feel the difference unless you are always running benchmarks.

Spend your money on something that you will notice.

 

Thanks everyone!!! Input very valuable. Looks like I will stay with the Intel until something really worth upgrading to comes out...