M4 question

[dryfly]

Considering replacing my system/programs drive with a M4. I would like to get by with a 64GB. Will the 128GB version of this drive offer any significant speed/performance difference?

My current HDD with XP and basic programs only fills up 15 GB. When going to Win 7 Pro 64 bit, will a 64GB SSD give me enough space? All data is kept on another HDD.

 

[Coup27]

The 128GB is faster than the 64GB, see data sheet below:

http://www.crucial.com/pdf/Tech_spec...-11_online.pdf

Windows 7 64bit swallows a good 20GB of space one fully updated. This is after hibernation and system restore have been disabled.

 

[nanaki333]

aye. 256GB gives you the highest performance out of all (not including 512 since who the hell buys those!?). You can get the 256GB for $350 now, so it's worth looking in to.

There's also a Plextor for about $330 that's a very similar drive. Only difference I remember reading is it has more aggressive garbage collection.


EDIT: Got that a little wrong... $350 for Plextor and $375 for the M4. Still great prices

 

[sequoia464]

If it is a Marvell controller you are after check out the new Corsair - the claimed speeds are better than the M4. I haven't seen any tests yet to confirm the speeds though.

Link to Anand's anouncement .. http://www.anandtech.com/show/5082/corsair-gives-marvell-another-try-with-performance-pro-ssd

I have two of the 128GB M4's and I like them, but if I was in the market today I would for sure consider the Corsair.

 

[phillyman36]

I had the original Performance 3 256 gig ssd. I just rma'd it and they sent me a Corsair 240gt. The problem i had with the Performance 3 is after a couple of months the drive kept freezing. I had to secure erase the disk twice. Like the article linked above there hasn't been a firmware update since they released it. I would hold off on the newer version to see if they wind up with the same problem and if they will update the firmware when needed. My Gt is running good with no problems. If i had to do it over again i would have picked the m4

 

[dryfly]

The 128GB is faster than the 64GB, see data sheet below:

http://www.crucial.com/pdf/Tech_spec...-11_online.pdf

Windows 7 64bit swallows a good 20GB of space one fully updated. This is after hibernation and system restore have been disabled.

Help me understand this. According to the spec sheets the read times seem to be the same. Granted the write times on the 128 GB look better but I'm dealing light usage, no big files. I basically use MS Office, browser, etc. I'm just looking for faster program load times and less noise than HDD. Would I see that much difference in performance?

If Win 7 takes 20 GB and Office maybe 10GB that still leaves me more than enough for my other small apps (at least I think). Maybe I should just install Win 7 and the other stuff on my current hdd and know for sure.

 

[Coup27]

If you are a light user (like me) then you will not notice the difference in performance between the two. The 128GB would be a bit faster installing Windows, doing all the updates, and installing your programs but once that one off surge is over the benefit will not really be noticeable in real useage. The M4 beats my X25-M G2 in speed but if I format it only takes 1-2 hours, if that, to install Windows, update and get the bulky programs on.

I've just added up my disk and Windows 7 64bit, Office 2010, and all my drivers comes in at 20GB. Office isn't anywhere near that size. You can get a professional suite off torrent for around 700mb.

It does sound like you would be OK with 64GB (60GB useable capacity) aslong as you don't think you'll want to expand into it in the future.

 

[dryfly]

If you are a light user (like me) then you will not notice the difference in performance between the two. The 128GB would be a bit faster installing Windows, doing all the updates, and installing your programs but once that one off surge is over the benefit will not really be noticeable in real useage. The M4 beats my X25-M G2 in speed but if I format it only takes 1-2 hours, if that, to install Windows, update and get the bulky programs on.

I've just added up my disk and Windows 7 64bit, Office 2010, and all my drivers comes in at 20GB. Office isn't anywhere near that size. You can get a professional suite off torrent for around 700mb.

It does sound like you would be OK with 64GB (60GB useable capacity) aslong as you don't think you'll want to expand into it in the future.

That's exactly the info I was looking for. Yes I am a light user and 40GB of space left would be more than enough. I can't imagine the rest of my apps would take over 10GB and I'll keep all data on the hdd. Again, I'm not looking for blazing speed from a SSD, just an improvement over my spindle drives and a chance to explore SSD's.

 

[MustangSVT]

I can check for you later on space usage.

Win7 64
64gb M4
880gb WD green drive.

If you don't install games , I think that should be fine. But for me I think I should have gotten 128gb instead.
For me because of these huge games. sc2 over 15gb, skyrim not too bad at 6gb and crysis for eye candy.
Applications are much smaller as I just need adobe design suite (cs3) and sketchup, sketch book and rhino.

You should be fine with 64gb M4. Just be sure to update the firmware first.

 

[dryfly]

I can check for you later on space usage.

Win7 64
64gb M4
880gb WD green drive.

If you don't install games , I think that should be fine. But for me I think I should have gotten 128gb instead.
For me because of these huge games. sc2 over 15gb, skyrim not too bad at 6gb and crysis for eye candy.
Applications are much smaller as I just need adobe design suite (cs3) and sketchup, sketch book and rhino.

You should be fine with 64gb M4. Just be sure to update the firmware first.

thanks, I'd appreciate that. No games will be installed. Again, I'm currently at only 15GB with XP.

If I ever did need more space in the future I could add another 64GB M4 and total cost would be the same price as a 128GB. By then they will be half the price.

 

[jstern01]

The 64gb should be fine. I have one 64GB m4 as a boot drive and some basic office apps. I used another m4 as SRT cache drive for my HDD, which has all my temp directories, games and other large apps/data.

 

[code65536]

I have a 64GB M4. The speed is pretty good as-is. 7.9 in WEI, W7 bootup is so fast that the startup animation does not even have a chance to complete, and Windows Updates runs really, really quickly. Really, the important upgrade is that you move to a SSD. Compared to that, the difference between the bigger M4 and the 64GB will feel like background noise...

 

[sequoia464]

Again, I'm currently at only 15GB with XP.

Be prepared for windows 7 - I am at 20.8GB for windows, plus there is another file called winsxs that resides in windows - mine is currently at 10.1 gigs and growing. This file size is in addition to, not part of, your windows file size - If I understand correctly.

 

[Burner27]

The biggest culprits of file space hogs are the pagefile and the hiberfile.sys. If you have enough ram, I would recommend setting the pagefile min and pagefile max to the same size to prevent it from growing and I would disable hibernation (use 'sleep' instead) and this will get rid of the hiberfile (which is as large as the amount of ram in your machine). You can reclaim quite a bit of space with those two tweaks.

 

[Soulkeeper]

I like the quote from an article I read recently
said something along the lines of: the difference between the speed of the fastest mech hd and the slowest SSD is 85% and the difference with the fastest SSD is 88%

I guess it's like being a member of a country club, doesn't matter if the other guy has a yacht bigger than yours ... you're still a member of a country club

 

[ed29a]

I like the quote from an article I read recently
said something along the lines of: the difference between the speed of the fastest mech hd and the slowest SSD is 85% and the difference with the fastest SSD is 88%

I guess it's like being a member of a country club, doesn't matter if the other guy has a yacht bigger than yours ... you're still a member of a country club

I have about 5 SSDs in my machines, some are slow (Intel 320 40 gig), some are fast (m4) but I can't tell the difference between them. Going from a hard drive to SSD is huge and immediately noticeable, going from a 40 gig Intel to an m4, didn't notice it during my regular usage.

 

[Burner27]

I want to make the jump to an all SSD machine. I have one mechanical HDD left in my machine..........

 

[nanaki333]

I have about 5 SSDs in my machines, some are slow (Intel 320 40 gig), some are fast (m4) but I can't tell the difference between them. Going from a hard drive to SSD is huge and immediately noticeable, going from a 40 gig Intel to an m4, didn't notice it during my regular usage.

agreed. i've got 4 in my machine but even when i used a vertex 1 drive, it was like night and day with even a raid0 in it's snappiness.