Just RMA'd Crucial M4 SSD Drive

[Wyndru]

Over the last few months I have lost a little confidence in SSD's. I've had 2 m4's with the 5200 hour bug, (because the firmware wasn't updated even though I asked the users to bring them to me to have them updated) and I also had a samsung 830 die, and 2 corsair's.

What concerns me is that SSD's die without any warning, and you can't get data off of them. At least with the mechanical drives sometimes you could get back into them in a pre-installation os and grab some data off before they fully stop working. When an SSD dies, that's it. No warning sounds coming from the drive, no flakey OS performance to give you a heads up, it just stops working completely out of the blue and you can't access it.

I'm happy with the performance, but I don't trust it for critical storage. I won't be installing them on laptops anymore unless the user has some form of backup in place. I don't like telling people all of their pictures documents or videos are gone. I very rarely had to do that with mechanical drives (maybe 4 or 5 times in 10 years), and already I've seen it 3 times in 1 year with SSD's.

 

[kbp]

You don't loose them because of the bug. You re-flash them and all is well. Do they not backup data? If they where asked to bring them back (for upgrade) and they did not in a resonable amount of time seems they don't care. Although im sure they still will blame you. I've done 4 laptops and 3 desktops in the last 1 1/2 years and have not had an issue yet. I currently have 4 SSD's and 1 spinner in my desktop now.

 

[Wyndru]

You don't loose them because of the bug. You re-flash them and all is well. Do they not backup data? If they where asked to bring them back (for upgrade) and they did not in a resonable amount of time seems they don't care. Although im sure they still will blame you. I've done 4 laptops and 3 desktops in the last 1 1/2 years and have not had an issue yet. I currently have 4 SSD's and 1 spinner in my desktop now.

The 2 m4's were fine after the firmware update, but the Samsung and 2 corsair I lost data on. By the time I got them they didn't even recognize the drive.

 

[jacktesterson]

I will never own a PC without a SSD again, New or old.

 

[Rhezuss]

This is for any M4. I know that the 0309 was specifically released for that bug. If your drive comes with the 010G then I wouldn't bother flashing back to 0309 since it'll have the fix in it already. If it comes with 0309 leave it there as the 010G has gotten mixed reviews. I know that I am contradicting my own advice with those statements but I have 4 x 256GB M4s in RAID0 and I have not upgraded their current FW (0309) to the 010G because I saw the reviews on the 010G.

If you have FW 0009 ----> upgrade to 0309
If you have FW 0309 ----> stay there
If you have FW 010G ----> stay there if you don't have any issues. If you do install 0309 if you feel adventurous

Just lokked at my SSD and it came with 010G...with your bolded part i'm now scared to install my OS on this...(first time SSD user BTW )

 

[Burner27]

Just lokked at my SSD and it came with 010G...with your bolded part i'm now scared to install my OS on this...(first time SSD user BTW )

I didn't mean to scare you. If it makes you feel any better, I flashed my 64GB M4 that had 0309FW on it to the 010G FW to see there are any issues and I haven't seen one since. The drive is in a heavily used/abused kids machine and I flashed it almost 2 months ago.

 

[Rhezuss]

I didn't mean to scare you. If it makes you feel any better, I flashed my 64GB M4 that had 0309FW on it to the 010G FW to see there are any issues and I haven't seen one since. The drive is in a heavily used/abused kids machine and I flashed it almost 2 months ago.

Great thanks
One thing I can't wait to see is the speed of the SSD. Hope it's a fast and nice as it seems to be.

 

[Mfusick]

I will never own a PC without a SSD again, New or old.

Agree

+1

 

[Rhezuss]

Agree

+1

Count me in the club too. Just finished installing most of my things and damn...boot time is ridiculously fast, installing programs is too...everything feels snappy!!!

 

[r2o2]

This is for any M4. I know that the 0309 was specifically released for that bug. If your drive comes with the 010G then I wouldn't bother flashing back to 0309 since it'll have the fix in it already. If it comes with 0309 leave it there as the 010G has gotten mixed reviews. I know that I am contradicting my own advice with those statements but I have 4 x 256GB M4s in RAID0 and I have not upgraded their current FW (0309) to the 010G because I saw the reviews on the 010G.

If you have FW 0009 ----> upgrade to 0309
If you have FW 0309 ----> stay there
If you have FW 010G ----> stay there if you don't have any issues. If you do install 0309 if you feel adventurous

I have just received a replacement M4 drive. Its a new drive with a new serial no, and the firmware rev is 000F. On seeing the threads below though, I am just wondering if I'd be better off installing FW 0309 on the drive. But on Crucial's firmware download page it seems to offer only the latest FW 010G ? Where can you get previous FW version downloads ?

http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Firmware-000F/td-p/93626

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1357662

Any advice welcome

 

[r2o2]

@Burner27 - I cannot reply to PM as I do not have enough posts yet!
Damn!



EDIT: Actually - sending this message just bumped it up to 12 posts - the number needed!

 

[r2o2]

Over the last few months I have lost a little confidence in SSD's. I've had 2 m4's with the 5200 hour bug, (because the firmware wasn't updated even though I asked the users to bring them to me to have them updated) and I also had a samsung 830 die, and 2 corsair's.

What concerns me is that SSD's die without any warning, and you can't get data off of them. At least with the mechanical drives sometimes you could get back into them in a pre-installation os and grab some data off before they fully stop working. When an SSD dies, that's it. No warning sounds coming from the drive, no flakey OS performance to give you a heads up, it just stops working completely out of the blue and you can't access it.

I'm happy with the performance, but I don't trust it for critical storage. I won't be installing them on laptops anymore unless the user has some form of backup in place. I don't like telling people all of their pictures documents or videos are gone. I very rarely had to do that with mechanical drives (maybe 4 or 5 times in 10 years), and already I've seen it 3 times in 1 year with SSD's.

I agree with you that SSD may not be the best choice for a critical system, it depends on your setup, eg if you have a good recovery mechanism such as a RAID 1 Mirror setup, which can failover to the other drive without even rebooting, then might be acceptable to risk using an SSD. However even then you would have the hassle of rebuilding your mirror on another good drive. Looking at the number of problems people have reported on various forums with the M4, with the various firmware updates (especially with Macs it seems), it really sounds as if Crucial have not quite perfected this technology yet. For an enthusiast / hobbyist its fine to investigate these problems, but for other users a primary drive failure is a fairly big inconvenience - especially as you don't actually know that is what has specifically occurred when you experience the symptoms.

I experienced the 5200 hour bug and when you hard reboot, the drive comes back for 1 hour. This allowed me to clone my primary drive to a spare 400GB HDD, and I suffered no data loss at all.

 

[hhhd1]

I have just received a replacement M4 drive. Its a new drive with a new serial no, and the firmware rev is 000F. On seeing the threads below though, I am just wondering if I'd be better off installing FW 0309 on the drive. But on Crucial's firmware download page it seems to offer only the latest FW 010G ? Where can you get previous FW version downloads ?

http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Firmware-000F/td-p/93626

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1357662

Any advice welcome

Leave it at 000F


I think Burner27 have forgot to mention it in his list

If you have FW 0009 ----> upgrade to 0309 or 000F
If you have FW 0309 ----> stay there
If you have FW 000F ----> stay there
If you have FW 010G ----> stay there if you don't have any issues. If you do install 0309 or 000F if you feel adventurous

0309 and 000F are the two good firmwares versions so far.

 

[r2o2]

Leave it at 000F


I think Burner27 have forgot to mention it in his list

If you have FW 0009 ----> upgrade to 0309 or 000F
If you have FW 0309 ----> stay there
If you have FW 000F ----> stay there
If you have FW 010G ----> stay there if you don't have any issues. If you do install 0309 or 000F if you feel adventurous

0309 and 000F are the two good firmwares versions so far.

Thank you hhhd1, I'll just keep it at 000F - I am surprised at the amount of hoo-ha over these SSD drives. The days of HDD's were more staid, but a lot easier. Crikey, these FW version numbers don't even seem to follow any discernable numeric order!

 

[Burner27]

I indeed forgot to mention FW 000F. I didn't think it was a worthwhile upgrade from 0309, but hhhd1's addendum to my post is sound advice.



I posted earlier today the FW 040H was released........more craziness!

 

[r2o2]

There is one area where SSD is knockout though - and that is building large software packages from sources, which can take surprisingly long time - even ON an SSD - and you don't need it installed as primary to do that, so it needn't put your system out of action if it fails.