Micron C400 Benchmarks!!!!

[Burner27]

The FW of the drive in that review is 0001 whilest the FW on the one on Micron's website is BF01.


Hrmmm.

 

[Edrick]

All these collective benchmark scores are going to be much higher for the C400 simply because of the write performance increase. That is not a driving factor to many SSD owners, myself included. I only install the OS once, the apps once, and the game(s) once. Then is it all about read performance.

Not trying to put anyone off to the C400, but for reasons already stated in previous posts, the C300 is very comparable with the added stability, which I find important. The C400 is not a bad drive. It just goes to show how good of a drive the C300 is and has been.

 

[adamantinepiggy]

The FW of the drive in that review is 0001 whilest the FW on the one on Micron's website is BF01.


Hrmmm.

BF01 = Micron in-house firmware numbering scheme. 0001 = production released firmware number scheme. Both are same firmware with different names.

 

[Burner27]

I see. Is it possible to get an Apples to apples test between sizes? C400 vs C300 @ 128GB?

 

[Burner27]

Can you explain why there are performance differences between FW revisions from Micron's website and this review that uses the 0001 FW? (I am probably going to backup what Old Hippie has said all along about Crucial )

http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews/crucial-m4-256gb-sata-3-ssd-review-atto-and-as-ssd-benchmarks/

 

[adamantinepiggy]

Can you explain why there are performance differences between FW revisions from Micron's website and this review that uses the 0001 FW? (I am probably going to backup what Old Hippie has said all along about Crucial )

http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews/crucial-m4-256gb-sata-3-ssd-review-atto-and-as-ssd-benchmarks/

There are always differences in performance depending on hardware used. I have no clue what hardware the Marketing guys were using. Their hardware is not the same as our hardware. I also have not closely examined the benchmark numbers given in your link because unless some discrepancy is bigger than 30% from what I'm used to and catches my attention, I just don't care. I don't represent marketing.

For example, on numerous tests I have run, I get better benchmarks with the SSD's I'm currently testing on the MSI p67 sandy bridge system versus the Asus P8p67 sandy bridge system. All clock rates and drivers are set to the same numbers, yet for whatever reason, the MSI consistantly gives better numbers by a three, four, and even five percentage points. Who the hell knows why since they are so similar in parts.. Benchmarks are nothing more than a representation of the particular setup being used.. Comparing numbers from different sites using different setups is a futile game if you're expecting exactness. If you test multiple types of drives on the same system setup as Anandtech does, then exacting benchmark comparisons make sense against each other. If you compare between websites that are using different machines/hardware/OS setups, they could easily be much different.

I don't know what Old Hippie said about Micron. I'm not here to defend or cheer Micron, so I don't really care. I was here at Anandtech (under a different name) before I worked for Micron, and will probably be here after. I just try to throw in a little knowledge of what I know now and then. You will never see me say something like "buy Micron, everyone else sucks!" because the market will take care of itself; Micron doesn't need me as a cheerleader. I just enjoy playing with the hardware..

 

[taltamir]

C400:


C300

I am not sure if I should still go with the C400 seeing as how my C300 128GB drive does so well on the 4k

Maybe I am wrong?

Lets compare numbers, C400 over C300:
Read:
Seq: 1.15x
512K: 1.1x
4K: 0.72x
QD32 4K: 0.72x

Write:
Seq: 1.83x
512K: 1.85x
4K: 0.75x
QD32 4K: 1.77x


The C300 is doing better on QD1 4k reads and writes and QD32 4k reads. but that is balanced by doing much worse on QD32 4k writes, which are very impressive on the C400. the C300 also loses by a little on seq and 512 reads and by a lot on seq and 512 writes.

 

[Burner27]

Lets compare numbers, C400 over C300:
Read:
Seq: 1.15x
512K: 1.1x
4K: 0.72x
QD32 4K: 0.72x

Write:
Seq: 1.83x
512K: 1.85x
4K: 0.75x
QD32 4K: 1.77x


The C300 is doing better on QD1 4k reads and writes and QD32 4k reads. but that is balanced by doing much worse on QD32 4k writes, which are very impressive on the C400. the C300 also loses by a little on seq and 512 reads and by a lot on seq and 512 writes.

That C400 is the 256GB model vs my 128GB C300 model. Let's see how a 128GB C400 is against a 128GB C300.

 

[flamenko]

Wow... I have NEVER seen that speed out of a C300. Have you got the matching Vantage result for that SSD? 96MB/s for a C300? New f/w? 006?

 

[taltamir]

That C400 is the 256GB model vs my 128GB C300 model. Let's see how a 128GB C400 is against a 128GB C300.

a fair observation. It does changes things and I should have noticed that. Good call on pointing out that size matters

 

[3xVicious]

Seeing as how I was planning to use SATA III, my choices are Intel 510, Crucial C400, and OCZ Vertex 3.

I didn't want to go with Vertex because of OCZ's horrible reliability and shady service.

Intel 510 seemed to be a failure if all the reviews are to be believed, though I'm pretty sure that like many have said, Intel with their billions of dollars and years of experience must have a good reason to focus on Sequential Speeds instead of Random Read and Writes, not only that but seeing as how the Crucial C400 uses the same control with the only difference being cache, that this is more of a firmware issue that can easily be tweaked or outright changed later on.

I was leaning towards to the Crucial C400 because it was right in the middle with both performance and reliability, below and above OCZ respectively. However, I'm not sure I can hold out any longer since Crucial just announced their delaying the C400 to APRIL 26, 2011, due to not having enough products for the demand in order to have a successful launch! What a disappointment, I'm sitting on $3,700 worth of components and my entire build is now stalled because of an SSD. I may just bite the bullet and go with Intel and hope they know what they're doing in the long run.

 

[Morg.]

Well, I'd just like to point how pointless this all is.
SSD's are almost useless for consumers.
Yes, your OS and games load faster, and then ?
Nothing is going to run faster because you have an SSD.
Now if you can spend the same amount on any other component, the speed increase will be huge in comparison.

Where SSD's make sense is in enterprise environments, where old HDD's don't have the right capacity / IOPS ratio / latency for virtualization and databases (anyone who's done a little of virtualization knows how bad it can be to have a dozen VM's using the same physical 7200rpm HDD / and for databases, well you know what difference those random seek speeds make )

Because of that, I don't think SSD's should be benchmarked on anything else than the above two, as they are not worth their price in other cases.

Intel did not choose their performance profile, they were locked between non-SF options and picked the most decent one.

Last but not least, people speak about the limits in reliability of 25nm MLC, well guess what, there's no way you're going to get anywhere within even 10% of their maximum rated rewrites doing "consumer" stuff, even if you use your MLC drive as a buffer for downloads (which would make no sense at all but hey, you can do it) due to wear leveling and all that stuff.

 

[smyrgl]

I was leaning towards to the Crucial C400 because it was right in the middle with both performance and reliability, below and above OCZ respectively. However, I'm not sure I can hold out any longer since Crucial just announced their delaying the C400 to APRIL 26, 2011, due to not having enough products for the demand in order to have a successful launch! What a disappointment, I'm sitting on $3,700 worth of components and my entire build is now stalled because of an SSD. I may just bite the bullet and go with Intel and hope they know what they're doing in the long run.

True the Crucial M4 might have gotten delayed but the IDENTICAL Micron C400 is not delayed and is out now. How do I know? I'm got one running in my 15" Macbook Pro 2011 right now and it's working like a charm.

EDIT: Here's where I ordered it from: Superbiiz. They aren't NewEgg but I've ordered stuff from them a couple of times and I have no complaints.

Keep in mind that this is a bare drive only, it doesn't come with any of the fancy Crucial packaging. But Micron provides better support than Crucial anyway from what I hear.

 

[smyrgl]

Well, I'd just like to point how pointless this all is.
SSD's are almost useless for consumers.
Yes, your OS and games load faster, and then ?
Nothing is going to run faster because you have an SSD.
Now if you can spend the same amount on any other component, the speed increase will be huge in comparison.

Those of us who do heavy multitasking appreciate things like reduced load times, quick boots and the elimination of those pesky "loading animations" where the computer just seems to lock up in I/O for no damn reason.

 

[LamTek]

Would getting a Micron drive preclude us from using the same Firmware/support that the Retail C400's will be receiving? I don't want to get a drive where if issues arise I would have to go through special channels to get support that would otherwise be widely available in the public.

 

[smyrgl]

And here's the Xbench results. Note that this is Xbench on a Mac so you can't directly compare it to a PC benchmark like Crystal.

 

[smyrgl]

Would getting a Micron drive preclude us from using the same Firmware/support that the Retail C400's will be receiving? I don't want to get a drive where if issues arise I would have to go through special channels to get support that would otherwise be widely available in the public.

Negative, you can still use the same firmware. The Crucial drives ship with the Micron firmware, they just get a pretty sticker slapped on them.

 

[smyrgl]

More results using the much more advanced QuickBench.

 

[Burner27]

Wow... I have NEVER seen that speed out of a C300. Have you got the matching Vantage result for that SSD? 96MB/s for a C300? New f/w? 006?

Never used Vantage to benchmark the drive. FW is 0006.

 

[flamenko]

Never used Vantage to benchmark the drive. FW is 0006.

Well.... Gotta say that I have seen a million Crystal scores by now and never seen anything like that before the new SF release. In fact, I even had someone call me and say that there was no way I could get Crystal marks that high on the new Vertex.

Ide be very interested to see Vantage scores or another performance confirmation for that. Ide be especially interested to know if your system is tweaked in any way.

My interest? 4Ks like this are the bread and butter of visible improvement.

 

[Morg.]

Those of us who do heavy multitasking appreciate things like reduced load times, quick boots and the elimination of those pesky "loading animations" where the computer just seems to lock up in I/O for no damn reason.

Well I'd be curious to know what kind of multitasking you do that will be affected so much by this and can still fit in the "gamer" or "consumer" categories.

If you're multitasking, I believe you still prefer having 2x more RAM rather than having an SSD, correct ? (assuming you encode x264 while you work in PS,AI and IDD at the same time)

Quite frankly, if you can explain your use for an SSD as a consumer, I believe it would help the community understand how pointless it is for them in most cases, and how they should spend that money on other components.

 

[smyrgl]

Well I'd be curious to know what kind of multitasking you do that will be affected so much by this and can still fit in the "gamer" or "consumer" categories.

Watching H.264 video while working on a document in Word which requires work from a picture in Photoshop, a diagram in OmniGraffle, and a spec in Axure. Also keeping open several browser windows. This is something I do on a daily basis. And that's not including background tasks like Handbrake or Torrents.

The fact that my reboots and app launch times are cut by factors of 2x-4x doesn't hurt either.

If you're multitasking, I believe you still prefer having 2x more RAM rather than having an SSD, correct ? (assuming you encode x264 while you work in PS,AI and IDD at the same time)

It's not a zero sum game here. I have a quad core Sandy Bridge and 8GB of RAM, it's not like I have to give those up to have an SSD.

Quite frankly, if you can explain your use for an SSD as a consumer, I believe it would help the community understand how pointless it is for them in most cases, and how they should spend that money on other components.

Yeah sure, keep telling yourself that. Anyone who uses one can feel the difference immediately.

 

[Burner27]

Well.... Gotta say that I have seen a million Crystal scores by now and never seen anything like that before the new SF release. In fact, I even had someone call me and say that there was no way I could get Crystal marks that high on the new Vertex.

Ide be very interested to see Vantage scores or another performance confirmation for that. Ide be especially interested to know if your system is tweaked in any way.

My interest? 4Ks like this are the bread and butter of visible improvement.

You have a link to the latest version of Vantage?

Thx

Also, this is the setup the C300 I am using is in:

Asus P8P67 Pro
Intel I7-2600K
16GB Corsair Vengeance
Samsung SH-S223F DVD burner
EVGA GTX260 Core 216 (yeah I should upgrade but I don't play games)
Crucial C300 128GB (OS/APP drive)
Intel 120GB SSD (VM drive)
2 x Seagate 2TB LP drives
1 x 2TB Western Digital Green HDD

 

[ksec]

Well, I'd just like to point how pointless this all is.
SSD's are almost useless for consumers.
Yes, your OS and games load faster, and then ?
Nothing is going to run faster because you have an SSD.
Now if you can spend the same amount on any other component, the speed increase will be huge in comparison.

Where SSD's make sense is in enterprise environments, where old HDD's don't have the right capacity / IOPS ratio / latency for virtualization and databases (anyone who's done a little of virtualization knows how bad it can be to have a dozen VM's using the same physical 7200rpm HDD / and for databases, well you know what difference those random seek speeds make )

Because of that, I don't think SSD's should be benchmarked on anything else than the above two, as they are not worth their price in other cases.

Intel did not choose their performance profile, they were locked between non-SF options and picked the most decent one.

Last but not least, people speak about the limits in reliability of 25nm MLC, well guess what, there's no way you're going to get anywhere within even 10% of their maximum rated rewrites doing "consumer" stuff, even if you use your MLC drive as a buffer for downloads (which would make no sense at all but hey, you can do it) due to wear leveling and all that stuff.

You must be living on a different planet.

I could get a 4+ years old laptop ( Single Core Pentium M ) working MUCH smoother and faster then a modern Computer with Dual, Heck even Quad Core CPU and normal HDD.

HDD was the bottleneck of our computing performance for a decade!

And i am sorry

Nothing is going to run faster because you have an SSD.

Literally EVERYTHING will run faster because of your SSD.

I am not even sure if it was you who replied my comment in an earlier Anandtech Article. Sighting SSD is useless apart from IT uses like VM. Which is COMPLETELY False.

 

[ksec]

Seeing as how I was planning to use SATA III, my choices are Intel 510, Crucial C400, and OCZ Vertex 3.

I didn't want to go with Vertex because of OCZ's horrible reliability and shady service.

Intel 510 seemed to be a failure if all the reviews are to be believed, though I'm pretty sure that like many have said, Intel with their billions of dollars and years of experience must have a good reason to focus on Sequential Speeds instead of Random Read and Writes, not only that but seeing as how the Crucial C400 uses the same control with the only difference being cache, that this is more of a firmware issue that can easily be tweaked or outright changed later on.

I was leaning towards to the Crucial C400 because it was right in the middle with both performance and reliability, below and above OCZ respectively. However, I'm not sure I can hold out any longer since Crucial just announced their delaying the C400 to APRIL 26, 2011, due to not having enough products for the demand in order to have a successful launch! What a disappointment, I'm sitting on $3,700 worth of components and my entire build is now stalled because of an SSD. I may just bite the bullet and go with Intel and hope they know what they're doing in the long run.

May be everyone was expecting a new Intel Controller, may be we have too high of a expectation. Intel is getting all the bad press with 510 when it is clearly the 2nd BEST Consumer SSD you could get beside Vertex 3 or aka Sandforce 2000 series.

And it is not far off either, in Real World traces, Intel is only 10 - 20% behind is worst case and sometimes when data are not compressible it actually comes out ahead.

Not saying i am very happy with 510, but i just dont understand why everyone hate it.