Reliable mSATA?

I'm looking to buy a mSATA (256GB). What's the most reliable brand for that capacity..?
Also, is it better to buy it now or just wait for a bit?

 

Your best bet is probably the Crucial M4 mSATA. The prices direct from Crucial are quite nice, too.

 

Yep, Crucial m4 mSATA is good. Samsung also makes one (PM830) but it appears to be OEM only. I'd say wait around Black Friday to buy. Bound to have coupons and deals then.

 

MyDigitalSSD makes some really good mSATA SSDs

 

What about Mushkin Direct Atlas..? It's a bit more expensive..but better quality?

 

SandForce. I'd rather go with the Crucial m4.

 

Does the same go for the Crucial m4 512GB SSD? Is that a good choice over others?

 

Crucial M4 all the way.

 

I don't think I've seen a 512GB mSATA SSD. I think that one still uses 25nm NAND and I think we're probably going to need to move to 20nm to fit 512GB into such a small package (just a little bit taller than RAM but like 1/3 the length).

 

No, I meant a 512GB SSD & a 256GB mSATA. Both by Crucial.

 

Given the Crucial m4 is one of the least expensive 512GB SSDs I've seen (got mine for $350 @ Amazon), then yeah, that's a good choice. Would prefer a Samsung 830 512GB but I don't think it's worth the $150 price premium. However, it's probably worth seeing what deals Black Friday would bring.

 

That's a good deal! I can't find any such deals now.
Also, if yoh look up both on Amazon..the Crucial has sooo many bad reviews of the drive failing.

How's yours been so far any firmware issues..?

 

I checked the Amazon reviews and looks like the folks who were complaining experienced the 5184 hour BSOD issue which has been fixed a couple of firmwares back (I believe the fixed firmware was released January 2012). Yeah, the $350 deal's been pretty rare but it has dropped to that price on Amazon on at least 3 separate occasions. Besides, aside from stuff with asynchronous NAND, it's hard to find a 512GB SSD for under $400 so even the m4's regular pricing isn't too bad. I suggest setting up a price alert on camelcamelcamel.com or camelegg.com so you're notified quickly when it drops down to an acceptable price.

I only recently installed the Crucial m4 512GB on the laptop (just a week ago) so can't say much about it other than it gave my Asus UL30A-X5 with Core 2 Duo SU7300 1.3 GHz a new lease on life (it's now faster/more responsive than my U36SG-AS71 with Core i7-2620M 2.7GHz with HDD). However, I do have a Crucial m4 128GB on the HTPC and that's been running like a champ for several months now. According to CrystalDiskInfo, it's currently at 98% health with 4800 power-on hours and 7.75TB writes (runs 24/7 and writes an average of 40GB/day since it's used as a live TV buffer). At this rate, it'll take me 25 years to run out of P/E cycles on the 128GB m4.

 

I have a crucial m4 256gb mSATA drive in my Alienware M14x R2 and I love it. Haven't had any problems with it and it reads and writes very fast. Highly recommended!

 

Great! My Crucial M4 256GB mSATA is arriving this week..

 

let us know once you have it installed!

 

Aww yeah. Just got my package of 1 Crucial m4 mSATA 256GB + 3 x 1 TB WD Scorpio Blues!

Installed the mSATA & one of the WDs into the ODD Slot. Booted up, everything seems fine. The Crucial is running on 1MG firmware which seems to be the latest. Do I need any Crucial software?
Also, how much of the drive should I keep unallocated? Right now I have 200GB formatted into NTFS & 30 something GB unallocated..is that fine?

 

did you install the OS on the mSATA?

 

Not yet. I have Windows 7 on my Intel 520. I'm going to do a clean install of Windows 8 on the mSATA.
Any advice?

 

Your 'unallocated' amount seems like a good compromise to me to get the most performance possible.

As for advice on installing the mSATA - I would remove all other drives when I installed Win8. After Win8 is fully setup (device drivers, personalization, etc.) and updated with WU, then I would introduce the data drives you want on that machine.

Will you have 3 drives in there (mSATA, SSD and HDD)?

If so;

The mSATA drive I would set up with my O/S (Win8PRO), the SSD would be my 'WIP' (work in progress) and my Scratch/Temp disk drive and the HDD would of course be my DATA drive for 'finished' work. (The 'DATA' drive would be backed up to at least two external drives too...).

I would also be setting up the HDD as my Windows 8's File History location for any and all files stored in the 'Users' folders and any custom Library's I make ('WIP', for example).

(I could go into more details - but heading out to a job right now).

Hope this helps.

 

Great! That's what I'd read in one of the threads here. To keep some space unallocated. Does this give the same effect/benefit as actually keeping 60% of the allocated space on the SSD free with no data? Or do I have to make sure that the mSATA is always only up to 40% full on it's allocated NTFS partition?

As Intel drives come with reduced space so I'm guessing some of the space goes for provisioning. (Like 120GB on a 128GB drive, or 240GB on a 256GB drive)
Whereas, the Crucial m4 comes with all 256GBs. (less, after formatting).

Yep. Will do that. Do I need any specific Crucial software? Also, being on the latest firmware (1MG) is recommended, right?

In the setup you described..what's the use of a scratch/temp disk? Like, caching & stuff?

Right now, my 120GB Intel 520 is for the OS & WIP. Everything else on the WD Black 750GB.

My plan is to get rid of both of those & get Crucial m4 in the mSATA slot. 1 WD Blue in the primary slot, one in the secondary, & the third in the ODD slot.

I've put in the m4 & one of the WDs in the ODD Bay. After I install the Win8PRO on the m4, I'll make the rest of the changes.

The Crucial mSATA will have Windows, Applications & Games. So essentially the OS + WIP. The WDs will have everything else. Backups, movies, & everything else.

Hopefully, I won't run out of space on the m4!

It does indeed. Thanks!

 

No, 'unallocated' space is not the same as 'free' space that has been allocated (with regards to how efficiently the SSD can perform, keeping a low WA ratio and high (as high as possible) sustained performance over time).


Don't worry what the controller/firmware considers it's 'minimum' spare area... unless you don't care about sustained performance. Also; Windows complains (i.e. has issues...) when it has less than about 25GB free space - this is not a percentage; to me it seems like a 'hard' number.

Being on the latest firmware is always recommended (after it is confirmed it's a 'good/reliable' firmware of course).

The 'Scratch' disk is what Adobe products use as their 'temp' or 'virtual memory' locations. The faster this drive, the faster the performance of the Adobe product in question. This is not caching; it's a way for certain programs to use a storage subsystem as RAM replacement (but many times slower than RAM no matter how fast the storage subsystem is...).

I don't know your specific requirements: but I would sacrifice a TB of space and have two SSD's on board.

Leaving the M4 as the O/S and Programs drive and the Intel 520 as the WIP drive gives each SSD room to breathe and is optimized for the strengths of each (imo). Sure; the Intel 520 may be the 'better' O/S + Programs drive: but the M4 is not suited for hardcore 'WIP' duties for sure.

Maybe you could 'share' the Programs between the M4 and the 520 (if you're not using it for 'Scratch Disk' use).

If you're still intent on using the 3x 1TB WD's on the system: before you do anything with them:

Install Win8x64 on the mSATA (with no other drives else installed).

Update all drivers on the system. Verify they are working 100% to your satisfaction/stability requirements (yeah this can take a few days - but well worth it in the long run).

Now: go to Control Panel, search Storage Spaces and select 'Manage Storage Spaces'.

Configure your three TB HDD's to be used with Storage Spaces and you'll be set for the future (as far as adding more storage to your notebook as/when needed).

Recommended: use at least a redundancy of two drives (even though you'll have less than the 3TB nominal capacity of the 3 HDD's, of course).

See:
How to configure Storage Spaces in Windows 8

Good luck.

 

Gotcha..

The only Adobe program I use is Adobe Reader

Well, my external 3TB Seagate HDD crashed last month & I don't have enough space store my data which is why I decided to go this route. Normally, I'd agree with you about leaving the SSD in the laptop. But if all I'm going to use the mSATA for is some games & the OS, then what's the point of being limited to only a hundred gigs of space in the primary SATA slot, right?

My main uses for the laptop is gaming. I've checked the IOPS performance & the m4 actually beats the 120GB Intel 520. Only the 240GB & the 480GB Intel 520s are better than the Crucial m4 mSATA (the 256GB version). The only area where the Intel is reported to perform better is on sequential write. So that's not much of a loss for me, I'm thinking. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

I don't really have any "WIP" usage as such. I don't use any heavy programs. I have like one or two games installed on STEAM, & that's about it. So, I don't need caching nor do I need a 'scratch' disk.

Yes, that's the only thing that can come into consideration.. 'breathing space' for the mSATA. As long as I have 30GB unallocated & I keep at least 20-30% of the allocated drive free, I think I should be good, right?

Hmm.. so I've already installed Windows 8 on it. I followed hulawafu77's method from here:
USB EFI Install Windows 8

A cold boot takes about 8 seconds! Shutdown is within 3-4 seconds!

I've installed all the WDs. I've kept them separate as of now.. Thinking of running a disk monitoring utility like HDD Sentinel PRO to keep track of the health of the disks as I'm not thinking about putting them in RAID.

I had not known about Storage Spaces. thanks for pointing that out. So this seems to have only two advantages.

One, that I can RAID my disks I would really look into this had I four identical drives. Having an odd number of drives doesn't make sense in a RAID 1 environment, which is my preferred RAID (Keeping disk costs & available slots in mind). RAID 5 is a possibility & a good one at that as I'll have some data security, but I will be losing out on some speed as there is no dedicated controller. (Again, correct me if I'm wrong..but this is my understanding.) The drives are already 5,400 RPM. Making them even slower would not be a good, in terms of performance.

The other advantage of having Storage Spaces is that I can minimize the usage of drive letters. I'm not really bothered by that. Also, I can always just swap out the one in the ODD slot for the actual DVD ODD.

 

Sorry, you're totally off base with Storage Spaces.

Please read the link I have already provided (much better and much 'more' than RAID...).