Crucial M4 & VMs

[t0m3k51]

I'm thinking of getting the Crucial M4 512GB, my question is whether this SSD will run several VM's smoothly, either using VirtualBox or VMWare apps.

I briefly had the OCZ Agility 3, which ran my VMs really nicely. I returned it because it was too expensive at the time.

I was considering the Vertex 4 512GB, but I see that others are not to fond of OCZ even though the Vertex 4 is the faster than the M4.

 

[F1shF4t]

Well the M4 is faster than the Agility 3, so there shouldn't be an issue there. Also trimming the M4 will return speeds to almost new.

About the Vertex 4, given a choice I'd even pick a Sandforce SSD over it. New SSDs generally have issues, OCZ has a bad rep with releasing unfinished and flaky SSDs more so than others.

 

[Piano Man]

Absolutely. There are a lot of variables, but proper setup and config of a VM can make the difference between it being a slow dog, to pretty close to host speed. One of the things you can do, if you don't mind not having the flexibility of file based VM, is to assign the VM to its own partition you create. Just make sure and make a big extended partition you can divide up before you make 4 primary partitions and hose yourself

 

[t0m3k51]

Yes, I will setup the VM files on their own partition.

What do you mean by "trimming the M4" ?

 

[F1shF4t]

What do you mean by "trimming the M4" ?

As in this: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5508/...cherryville-brings-reliability-to-sandforce/7. With the M4 the performance returns back to almost as new, Sandforce can be back into a corner. Vertex 4 behaves like the M4.

Also when you don't have Trim M4 will recover quicker. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/marvell-ssd_7.html#sect0

 

[t0m3k51]

I setup the M4, and I have to say I am very disappointed. Feels more like a regular hard drive. My Seagate, 500GB, 7200RPM, seems more responsive and snappy at times. Sending it back to Amazon, will try the Samsung 830.

 

[KillerBee]

I setup the M4, and I have to say I am very disappointed. Feels more like a regular hard drive. My Seagate, 500GB, 7200RPM, seems more responsive and snappy at times. Sending it back to Amazon, will try the Samsung 830.

Are you using it with a SataII or SataIII port?

Mainly ask cause I also just got a 250G M4 for $180
plugged into a SATAII port (Asrock Extreme I7-920 M/B)

so far kinda wish I had put the money into (2) 2TB HD disks instead

 

[t0m3k51]

SATA III on a ThinkPad W520.

 

[KillerBee]

are you sure it's not a SATA 3.0Gb/s SATAII port on that laptop?

 

[t0m3k51]

How do I check that?

 

[KillerBee]

lol well I googled it...http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/pdf/system_data/w520_tech_specs.pdf

 

[t0m3k51]

I guess it's SATA II.

 

[KillerBee]

I would still think the difference in speed would be a lot more noticeable on your laptop
unless it came with a 7200 RPM HD originally as opposed to a 5400RPM?

whoops - see you mentioned Seagate, 500GB, 7200RPM already
I guess the SATAII port is the limiting factor like on my desktop

 

[t0m3k51]

It came with one with 5400RPM, but I replaced it with my 7200RPM one from an older ThinkPad which I then sold locally with the 5400RPM.

Now I'm thinking of trying out the Samsung 830. I do like the specs of the OCZ Vertex 4, but it's their SSDs are just bad.

 

[t0m3k51]

The M4 is utilizing SATA III, I ran SIW and it shows SATA-600 (I assume it means SATA 6Gbs).

HWINFO, confirms it, SATA 6Gbs.

 

[Shmee]

Just picked a 256 one up myself, using it on Sata 2 though. here is a bench

 

[KillerBee]

Here's mine ..relatively same hooked up to SATA II
not saying it's slow..it just doesn't feel as lightning fast as I expected

 

[StarTech]

I guess it's SATA II.

The specs describe it as a SATA II but reports on the Lenovo forums say it is really a SATA III.

I have a two months old W520 with 256GB SAMSUNG 830 and the Magician performance benchmark gives over 500 MB/s in seq read and 400MB/s seq write. IOPS are 60K random read and about 22K random write.

 

[StarTech]

I setup the M4, and I have to say I am very disappointed. Feels more like a regular hard drive. My Seagate, 500GB, 7200RPM, seems more responsive and snappy at times. Sending it back to Amazon, will try the Samsung 830.

Just checking.. Is that partition properly aligned ?

 

[Makaveli]

Here's mine ..relatively same hooked up to SATA II
not saying it's slow..it just doesn't feel as lightning fast as I expected

You have to hit the drive with alot of I/O request to see the benefit of an SSD. If you are still going about things one app at a time like on an HD windows will cache everything to main memory and will minimize the effect of the SSD.

Your not alone alot of people pop in an SSD and wonder why they aren't blow away and its because of how they use their computers!

 

[t0m3k51]

Here is my benchmark.

 

[KillerBee]

You have to hit the drive with alot of I/O request to see the benefit of an SSD. If you are still going about things one app at a time like on an HD windows will cache everything to main memory and will minimize the effect of the SSD.

Your not alone alot of people pop in an SSD and wonder why they aren't blow away and its because of how they use their computers!

Good point - for testing I cloned 2 Virtualbox4 linux machines from the SSD to an HD. Trying 2 start both at same time took a full minute on the HD and only 15 seconds on the SSD

 

[J.Dre]

I would definitely go with the Samsung 830 Series SSD for $230 (256 GB), or the Intel 520 Series SSD for $300 (240 GB) for the best performance. I myself use Samsung 830's in XPS laptops - excellent performance with fresh installs of the OS - recommended every day. I'll soon be purchasing Alienware for the first time ever, we'll see how that goes with the SSD's.

 

[rsutoratosu]

i was just debating to either replace my 146 10k with 300gb sas for around the same price as a 256gb ssd. Originally when 256gb was over 300, it was too expensive, within the past 2 weeks, its cheaper and faster to go with ssd. Ill be using this on a msa70.