Which Crucial M4?

[Cyrus9008]

Currently looking at SSDs on newegg and have heard great things about the M4 series from Crucial, they seem to be the really good drives from what i've read. If you have anyother considerations I'd be happy to hear any suggestions. Was a bit curious about these 2 selections of the M4 series.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148533

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148448

They are both the same price, one has better IOPS but isn't reviewed at all while the other with lower IOPS has a ton of reviews. I know I'm probably nit picking right now but I want the best performance for my money. Thanks guys.

 

[nanaki333]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147134

 

[RU482]

interesting. On those 2 M4 drives, I never noticed one is 7mm thick, and the other is 9mm thick.

I think alot of laptops are switching over to the 7mm form factor.
The 7mm will work anywhere a 9mm would, just not vice versa.

 

[Edrick]

I'm trying to decide between the M4 and the Corsair Performance Pro.

 

[Charlie98]

One is out of stock, one isn't...

 

[bryanW1995]

I'm trying to decide between the M4 and the Corsair Performance Pro.

M4

 

[Obsoleet]

M4

This

 

[Edrick]

M4

Interesting. The Corsair seems to be performing better in reviews and such.

 

[greenhawk]

Interesting. The Corsair seems to be performing better in reviews and such.

yes, but it also has a higher return rate IIRC. I also think the M4 is better at incompressable data writing (low level feature) as most of the performance for sandforce based devies comes from on the fly compression of data, and while good, is not a all round constant performance indicator.

 

[Edrick]

yes, but it also has a higher return rate IIRC. I also think the M4 is better at incompressable data writing (low level feature) as most of the performance for sandforce based devies comes from on the fly compression of data, and while good, is not a all round constant performance indicator.

The Corsair Performance Pro uses the same controller as the M4 (Marvell). It just has better NAND and more cache (and a different firmware). Plus it only has been out for a few months, so I cant fnid any return rate figures.

 

[Cyrus9008]

Thanks fellers

 

[Cyrus9008]

The Corsair Performance Pro uses the same controller as the M4 (Marvell). It just has better NAND and more cache (and a different firmware). Plus it only has been out for a few months, so I cant fnid any return rate figures.

So would the Corsair actually be a better buy?

 

[bryanW1995]

The best answer you'll get on that is "maybe". The issue is that all recent ssd's have had significant issues within the first few months of release (other than intel 510), so it's reasonable to assume that the corsair will as well. Will they affect you? I don't know. I'd probably say as a WAG that you'll have about twice the chance of an issue in the first year with the performance pro that you would with an m4, and that it's highly unlikely that in a blind test you could tell the 2 ssd's apart. Based upon that info, I'd happily grab the slight slower m4, which is now down to $179 at newegg btw, which is $40 cheaper than the performance pro.

 

[Obsoleet]

So would the Corsair actually be a better buy?

Hardware wise I guess you could say so. I wouldn't spend my money on it over the M4 though.

With someone elses money at stake, sure. No problem. My hard earned cash that I just worked 12PM-12AM to get? Crucial M4 without a second thought.

My preference is the Samsung 830 over both of those, but between the 2, the M4 is an obvious choice for me.

 

[Edrick]

So would the Corsair actually be a better buy?

From what I read, it has 512MB DDR3 cache, as opposed to the M4's 128MB DDR cache. Also, it uses the newer toggle NAND which is faster than the NAND that the M4 uses.

I am actually going to be buying the Corsair today after spending a few weeks thinking about it.

 

[bryanW1995]

Just remember, ssd's are kind of like their own world. Everything is considered beta for 6 mos after launch. Crucial did the heavy lifting for corsair with the marvell controllers/firmware, no question about it, but don't underestimate the potential for other issues to crop up on such a new ssd as the CPP. However, you already have an ssd so you know the risk/rewards better than most, and you might actually be able to notice the slightly better performance of the corsair.

 

[Cyrus9008]

*sigh* this is getting annoying(not you guys) beta after 6 months after release? Is there any SSD's out there reletively new that have proven themselves to be extremely fast and extremely reliable? All of my computer parts are new other than my HDDs. This is the only thing my computer is lacking is a good SSD drive. New 2500K new 8gb 1600 RAM, new 560 Ti... But I know my harddrives are holding my system back severely. Is it hard to configure a setup with SSD and HDDs? or is it just the same as installing any other hdd?

 

[bryanW1995]

ssd/hdd combo is extremely easy, you just want a big enough ssd that you aren't constantly juggling programs that automagically install on your C drive onto other drives. 128gb is an excellent size for that, and you'll also be able to throw a couple of commonly used programs onto it as well. If you really wanna get crazy, you can set up the ssd to accelerate your hdd with an 18.6gb cache partition and still have plenty of room for your OS and a couple of programs. Let me know if you go that route, there's a great thread over in the motherboard forums that helped give me the confidence to set it up on my system, only drawback for me has been my 80gb g2 is just a bit too small after taking away the cache partition.

Don't let us scare you off with our doom and gloom comments about different ssd manufacturers. The thing about ssd's is that they are all several orders of magnitude faster at many tasks than even a velociraptor, so your overall user experience is fantastic with any ssd. This leads many of us to look at reliability/quality reputation as being more important than the sequential read/writes that most ssd manufacturers try to tout as their most important feature.

If you want a super fast, super reliable ssd then the intel 510 series is the best of both worlds, but it's typically over $2/gb and I've never caught one on sale. samsung 830 and crucial m4 are a couple of other extremely reliable sata 6gb/s ssd's that are pretty quick, though obviously newer drives are starting to come out that are a bit faster.

 

[Obsoleet]

The Intel 510 is definitely the best of every world. It's also so expensive it's even not an option I would take, and I paid $600 for an Intel 160GB G2 back in the day. I'm not scared to throw the money down.

That said I'm a believer that Intel drives are the best and worth it. But today with prices and the much more capable competition out there from when I bought.. I'd have to go with Samsung 830 drives. I'm not going to say they are superior to the 510, but even for someone who is willing to spill cash, and has the cash, I'd go Samsung.

To be completely honest, I would probably buy a 512GB Intel 510 if they had one available (they top out at 250GB and I'm looking at 512GB drives exclusively), even priced at $1,000+. I've had that good of luck with my G2s.

 

[jwilliams4200]

The Corsair Performance Pro is virtually identical to the Plextor M2P (careful, NOT M2S, NOT M3S). If you look at the reviews, the performance is identical. The only difference I can see is that the Plextor M2P has had a firmware update, and the CPP has not. I'm not sure what is going on with the firmware.

The M2P beats the m4 by a lot in one area -- sequential write speed. If that is important to your application, then look at the M2P (or CPP). If not, then the m4 should feel about the same speed as the M2P.

Anyway, you can get a 128GB M2P for about $190 now.

http://www.google.com/products/cata...a=X&ei=scMoT5CiKsaA2QWknNneAg&ved=0CE8QgggwAA