News Crucial boosts M4 SSD speed

Yes, I actually have one of those in my main PC for my USB3 external drive

And use 3x of the £17 ones in my 12 drive unRAID server.

 

Will try this now I spose, AS SSD is the bench to use is it?

 

i would buy but..

The thought of installing windows and trying to keep my files. Then having scary partitions is enough to stop me from buying a ssd.

 

Hmm, for my 256gb M4 I would have to say inconclusive.

I did 2 runs of AS SSD on 0002 firmware, upgraded the firmware then another another 2 on 0009, the drive is the system disk running Windows 7 on the Intel controller on an Asus P8Z68-V pro.

0002:



0009:



Overall scores are up but score on 64k write and access time write are actually down, the improved results are not 20% either. Will see how it handles over the next few days, its still blisteringly quick and the firmware update was a breeze, I do think it is ridiculous how my post time is actually way longer than my OS boot time since getting an SSD but I will take any performance where I can find it!

*EDIT* sorry the sequential is 20% better, just not counting it right, it was quick, it is now quicker but it is hard to tell!

 

To cut down on post time, unless you need it, you can disable the Marvell and JMicron oprom settings in bios so they aren't displayed - saves a few seconds.

 

Please understand that I'm not mocking you; but if you've such a fear of something so rudimentary as an OS re-install, then you probably don't fall into the 'enthusiast' category of computer users that the current generation of SSDs are aimed at.

Also, if you buy a half-decent drive, the partitioning thing is a non-issue as hidden space is kept and maintained by the drive controller(s) so you can just use the drive as you would a HDD and fill to 100% available capacity.

TSB

 

Ask a silly queston...
Dont suppose this will work with the Cruical C300 128MB SSDs?

 

Unfortunately not mate

 

Thanks Andrew...
I did a firmware update from thier list of available C300 releases. Better than nothing.

 

Do all SSD's require a bootable CD to upgrade firmware?
I will consider an SSD once the +500MB read/write SSD's are sub £1/GB

 

I think I have used bootable cds to firmware upgrade not only my M4 ssd but Seagate HDD's too, might be a tough thing to do in Windows since the hardware controller always picks up a new piece of hardware once the firmware changes, but be difficult to do this if if upgrade was on your system disk.

I paid £250 for my 256gb M4, I think the prices are going up...

 

Looking at the instructions, do I have to use a CD, or can I use a DVD? Or does the USB method work just as well? I don't have any CDs lying around atm

 

Using a dvd is fine, i know as thats what i used.

I use a standard port on my gigabyte ud9 in ide mode to update it, as i know this works without causing issue, so i use this method for future flashes on my crucial ssds, but have to flash my corsair one in ahci mode.

 

I just used r3loaded's method from further up this thread and it worked fine* from a USB stick


*(although I did have to set my drive to ATA rather than AHCI to flash it, and the sysliux command had to be run from a cmd prompt with admin rights)

 

I used a memory stick and got it flashed easy

 

I didn't do a before but I'm pleased with the after.

 

Every 0009 firmware upgrade appears to be trumping mine, the boost on 64GB and 128GB drives is stellar!

 

Bungletron, have you updated to the 0606 bios and then installed the newest intel rapid storage drivers?

 

Upgraded to Crucial 128GB M4 SSD from a Cruxial 64GB SSD. Updated firmware to version 009 without any problems. Decided to use 64MB SSD as an extra drive so installed on my other sata 6Gb connection and reformatted it and it appears to work ok But ! now when i go into "my computer" i have an extra drive listed tagged as "System reserve" sized at 99.9GB with 76.2GB used. Click on the drive and no files show even with "show hidden and system files" selected. When i remove the 64GB SSD then the mystery drive disappears. I have a akasa usb3 hard drive caddy attached to my rig and when i put the 64Gb ssd into it and power it up the same thing happens ie the mystery drive re appears. Does anyone have any ideas on this. I'd like to hear them plse...

 

Is this W7 and are you sure it's Gb and not Mb?

I think that happens if you install windows with both drives connected, installation should just have the main drive connected and then secondaries added after. I can't tell whether you had it installed or not at the time.

I think that's it, if it's the problem I'm thinking of.

If it is someone else had the same issue here that I've only had a brief scan of but I think it's a workaround if you don't want to reinstall.