Will I notice improvement from WD 256GB to Crucial M4 256GB?

Considering purchasing a Crucial M4 256GB to replace my 256GB Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue SSD.

Here's my CDM results for the WD SSD:



This one isn't a speed demon, but definitely a substantial improvement from any HDD. I would pull this one from my DV6z and install it in my new Clevo W110ER notebook. I have a 120GB Intel X25-M to put in the DV6z, but more space would be desirable.

Crucial M4 is < $250 for the 256GB right now and that's still a little bit more than I care to spend in the first place, but still it's less than $1/GB which is my breaking point.

 

I don't know how the 256GB will perform, but i am getting better scores with my 128GB M4 on a MH55 chipset. I'm guessing faster writes for the 256.

 

Thanks for the compare. +1

Hmm, 4K QD32 is pretty improved otherwise marginal increases. Not sure if worth the bump.

 

I don't think so. Or at least, I didn't notice a difference going from my Crucial M225 to Crucial C300 though the M4 might be a slightly bigger jump in terms of specs.

 

Thanks. Yeah, I think I'll just stick with what I got. If the 120GB I end up putting in my other laptop isn't enough space, I'll look to buy something newer, faster, hopefully cheaper!

 

Run a CCD everyday(small size just to see the numbers) on the new drive and you will feel it run faster in a week.

 

Now I'm considering the Samsung 830 256GB... $269 with coupon at Newegg. Do I really need it? Why you tempt me Samsung? What I do to you?

That is well over 2x the performance.

One question, why are 4k writes so much faster than 4k reads? That doesn't make much sense.

From LegitReviews:

 

ht I saw the m4 for 230 at tigerdirect do check it out, the price is great right now.

or provantage saw it for 241, amazon is having a sale on those as well.

I think crucial is going to launch the new series soon, so they are clearing stock

 

Well based on performance figures both benches and real world I don't see the M4 as much of an improvement over the WD drive I have. The Samsung on the other hand is smokin' fast. I think it'd be worth $40 over the M4. However, not sure if I really need to spend $270 extra at the moment. Saving up for new tires on my car and a new TV!

 

save for the tires, you dont need a new tv, send me the 830 256gb as gift for my good advices, as always

seriously one day I will try to understand the fascination around tvs

 

Well my TV is an old tube TV that has discoloration and fade... just trying to put off tires until end of summer. Has enough tread for summer, and figured I'd rather get new before winter.

 

I couldn't resist the price so I went ahead and got me the 256GB 830. Thanks for pointing out the current offer!

For fun I also ran CDM on my old 128GB 470...

Samsung 470 128GB SSD Lenovo E425_Internal_02 by davidc646, on Flickr


Samsung 470 128GB SSD Lenovo E425_Internal_01 by davidc646, on Flickr


What would be a fair price to sell my old Samsung 470 128GB SSD (MZ-5PA128B/AM)?

-9 months old (purchased new from Newegg on 8/14/2011)
-2 yr Service Net Replacement Plan (which is still valid)
-I paid $214.98 then

Thanks,
David

 

You can find new ones for about $125 now, and eBay shows them selling for ~ $90-$100 used. The warranty might add a bit of value, but probably not much.

I'm so VERY tempted to buy this 830 SSD.

 

The Samsung PM830 SSD is probably the best SSD out for the price and performance. You can also get last gen PM810 (aka Samsung 470 series) for under 250 for 256 GB, OEM SSDs.

 

Yeah, but the question is, do I really need to spend $270 for it...

 

Well not being afraid of filling up your SSD I think is good enough reason (coming from someone who started with small SSDs). Maybe for your intents and purposes you don't get that much value jumping to another 256 GB, but we can't spend your money for you now can we? I say for the foreseeable future, I refuse to buy under 160 GB SSD for my personal use, even I think that is too small.

 

I only have a lcd tv because of my sister (we live together, its quite expensive here in sao paolo) but there is no reason for you to buy another ssd

 

There's no reason to, but there's no reason to have a laptop or internet either. But we upgrade for newer, better, faster.

 

I was also looking at the Samsung 830 256gb SSD. I have a ton of computer experience (it professional) but have zero experience with solid state drives. Do I still need to be concerned about filling up the 830? I saw with some drives that there was a huge performance penalty with filling the drives and that in some situations you don't get the speed back even after freeing some space

Sent from my PG41200 using Tapatalk 2

 

Well newer drives, Samsung 830 included, do much better near full capacity now. I'd say keep it less than 80% full and you'll be fine. Apparently 60% is ideal, but I find that unrealistic. I don't use more than 200GB on mine, it's usually below 180GB and no noticeable performance degradation.

 

Samsung's SSD Magician can over-provision something like 10-15GB as reserved space, isn't that enough to keep performance from degrading? Even if you fill up the rest?

 

I believe with Samsung's even though they say 256GB, useable space is still only 238GB for 7% over-provisioning. But isn't a bad idea to add an extra 15GB to that so you never have to worry about it. 223GB useable is still a decent storage space.

 

238GB is actually the size reported by counting in base 2 rather than base 10.

256*1000^3 = 256 000 000 000 Bytes, divide that by 1024^3 since windows counts in base 2 rather than base 10 and you get 238GB without overprovisioning. Contrary to RAM, SSDs advertise their capacity the same way HDDs do.

 

Meh, stupid capacity conversion again.

 

the real question is how big nand chip really is, 32000000000B or 34359738368B!?

 

I've heard that it's the latter, and that the 7% difference between the 2 numbers is the reason why many consumer SSDs have 7% spare area, so when you buy a 32 GB SSD you actually get 32 GB of NAND - the firmware just prevents you from directly accessing all of it.

Of course, I could be wrong.