My M4 has been acting up recently and I question it's reliability. I have had it nearly two years
That sounds suspiciously like the 5200 hours bug.With the M4 I had to do the power cycle thing a couple of times and a secure erase once. It seems ok at the moment though.
That sounds suspiciously like the 5200 hours bug.
I think he's referring to this http://forums.crucial.com/t5/Solid-...-not-recognize-crucail-m4-SSD-64GB/td-p/63835 (Second Post)
I've had my 512 M4 lockup once as well. I used less steps but essentially it was the same. Leave the power plugged in for a few mins, then plug in the SATA cable.
Firmware was 040H during lock up, I downgraded to 000F until 070H came out. The drives works fine, but it makes me skeptical of its reliability.
I'm not sure the m4's reputation for reliability is backed up by facts. It seems to me that it's had quite a few firmware bugs and other issues compared to other brands of drives. After all, the drive originally shipped with broken firmware. But somewhere along the line (perhaps on the back of Crucial's generally good rep and the track record of the C300), people started talking about how reliable the m4 is, and it stuck.
On the other hand, Sandforce, and particularly everyone's favourite whipping boy OCZ, also had some early firmware bugs and continue to have a nasty reputation, despite the fact that OCZ at least has come out with some reliable drives since the Vertex 3.
I'm not sure the m4's reputation for reliability is backed up by facts. It seems to me that it's had quite a few firmware bugs and other issues compared to other brands of drives. After all, the drive originally shipped with broken firmware. But somewhere along the line (perhaps on the back of Crucial's generally good rep and the track record of the C300), people started talking about how reliable the m4 is, and it stuck.
On the other hand, Sandforce, and particularly everyone's favourite whipping boy OCZ, also had some early firmware bugs and continue to have a nasty reputation, despite the fact that OCZ at least has come out with some reliable drives since the Vertex 3.
As it so happens, I've currently got an m4 that needs to be exchanged because there's something loose inside the case (?!), and a Vertex 2 that just kicked the bucket during a firmware update. The RMA process with OCZ was painless, but Crucial's Canadian RMA service is non-existent (pay extra to ship the drive to US, then pay duty/tax on the replacement), so I'm in limbo on that RMA waiting for the retailer to facilitate the exchange.