- Joined
- Apr 30, 2008
- Location
- Birmingham, UK
This is my first review, and unfortunately have no camera 
SSDs are rapidly becoming common in many people’s computers, with their claim to drastically enhance the performance of any laptop or desktop.
Until now, I have been using a variety of mechanical hard drives in various configurations. In my main desktop were two 150GB WD Raptors in RAID 0. My server has two 2TB and two 1.5TB drives installed and in my laptop is a single 500GB 5400rpm drive. Even between these I notice a big performance difference, the RAID 0 array felt much more responsive, especially compared to the slow laptop drive.
I may have been a bit late to jump into the SSD world, but late is better than never! After reading about problems with various other SSDs of this generation I decided to pick up the M4. I wanted to store quite a few games onto it, so I felt that 256GB was best and didn’t lose TRIM versus two smaller capacity SSDs in RAID.
Systems:
Desktop:
Core i7 965 EE @ 3.2GHz (Stock)
GIGABYTE EX58 Extreme
3x2GB G.Skill 1600MHz DDR3 (Stock)
Crucial M4 256GB SSD
150GB WD Raptor
HD5970
Server:
Core i3 530 @ 4.4GHz
ASUS P7H55-M
3x2GB OCZ 1600MHz DDR3 (Stock)
2 x 1.5TB WD Green Drives
2 x 2TB Seagate Barricudas
(The Desktop is currently running at stock to prevent my room becoming a furnace during these summer months!)
The standard Windows 7 install from a USB took around 15-20 minutes, but didn’t feel to be much quicker than installing onto my ageing Raptors. The Board was set to AHCI mode for this.
Once installed, I tweaked Windows using some guides I found from the internet in the hope that the SSD would last longer and remain quicker. This included turning off the hibernation file, stroking the drive and ensuring TRIM was working. The first time that I booted up I was amazed. The time it took to boot was now a third of that with the Raptors in RAID 0. The difference was made slightly greater by no longer having to wait through the RAID BIOS. The difference cannot really be described with words. Any Microsoft Office application now opens virtually instantly, rather than taking a couple of seconds. Steam launches in just 6 seconds! Before it took around 20-25 seconds, and takes 42 seconds to launch on my laptop!
CrystalDiskMark:
Looking at the CrystalDiskMark results from a few of the drives, the SSD just obliterates anything mechanical. The SSD is in the top left, Raptor in the top right (single drive), Seagate bottom left and WD Green bottom right. The drive has now been running with Windows 7 for just under a month now, so speeds are a bit below a clean install (although not by much, thanks to TRIM).
The drive is rated at 415MB/s for sequential reads and 260MB/s sequential writes. Unfortunately the SSD saturates the SATA II controller present on the GIGABYTE board when reading. Writing is about where it should be. The 4K read here is a bit lower than other SSDs, and I have seen the same result on other reviews so appears normal. This drive is fast, and there is nothing else I have that remotely comes close. Even after 1 month of use the drive is still performing close to new here from looking at other results on the web.
Next up is the PCMark Vantage HDD score:
Now the drive has been in use for the last month, so this results in a lower score than most found on the web where the drive is in a fresh state. Still, this is a relatively decent score considering the CPU is also at stock.
I may update this in future with more benchmarks and scores after the drive has been erased.
Overall this drive has impressed me a lot. Everything feels much faster and is probably the second biggest upgrade I have ever done to a PC (The first was going from a P4 2.8GHz HT 478 to a Q9450!). If you haven’t yet bought an SSD, now is the time. It will transform any PC you put one of these into.
Even limited by my SATA II interface the SSD still manages impressive scores. Looking at review sites online the M4 also excels in the PCMark Vantage suite, only losing to OCZ’s insane Revodrive. Mine didn't perform as well due to the age of the install and the restricting interface.
My only regret is that I didn’t upgrade sooner…
SSDs are rapidly becoming common in many people’s computers, with their claim to drastically enhance the performance of any laptop or desktop.
Until now, I have been using a variety of mechanical hard drives in various configurations. In my main desktop were two 150GB WD Raptors in RAID 0. My server has two 2TB and two 1.5TB drives installed and in my laptop is a single 500GB 5400rpm drive. Even between these I notice a big performance difference, the RAID 0 array felt much more responsive, especially compared to the slow laptop drive.
I may have been a bit late to jump into the SSD world, but late is better than never! After reading about problems with various other SSDs of this generation I decided to pick up the M4. I wanted to store quite a few games onto it, so I felt that 256GB was best and didn’t lose TRIM versus two smaller capacity SSDs in RAID.
Systems:
Desktop:
Core i7 965 EE @ 3.2GHz (Stock)
GIGABYTE EX58 Extreme
3x2GB G.Skill 1600MHz DDR3 (Stock)
Crucial M4 256GB SSD
150GB WD Raptor
HD5970
Server:
Core i3 530 @ 4.4GHz
ASUS P7H55-M
3x2GB OCZ 1600MHz DDR3 (Stock)
2 x 1.5TB WD Green Drives
2 x 2TB Seagate Barricudas
(The Desktop is currently running at stock to prevent my room becoming a furnace during these summer months!)
The standard Windows 7 install from a USB took around 15-20 minutes, but didn’t feel to be much quicker than installing onto my ageing Raptors. The Board was set to AHCI mode for this.
Once installed, I tweaked Windows using some guides I found from the internet in the hope that the SSD would last longer and remain quicker. This included turning off the hibernation file, stroking the drive and ensuring TRIM was working. The first time that I booted up I was amazed. The time it took to boot was now a third of that with the Raptors in RAID 0. The difference was made slightly greater by no longer having to wait through the RAID BIOS. The difference cannot really be described with words. Any Microsoft Office application now opens virtually instantly, rather than taking a couple of seconds. Steam launches in just 6 seconds! Before it took around 20-25 seconds, and takes 42 seconds to launch on my laptop!
CrystalDiskMark:
Looking at the CrystalDiskMark results from a few of the drives, the SSD just obliterates anything mechanical. The SSD is in the top left, Raptor in the top right (single drive), Seagate bottom left and WD Green bottom right. The drive has now been running with Windows 7 for just under a month now, so speeds are a bit below a clean install (although not by much, thanks to TRIM).
The drive is rated at 415MB/s for sequential reads and 260MB/s sequential writes. Unfortunately the SSD saturates the SATA II controller present on the GIGABYTE board when reading. Writing is about where it should be. The 4K read here is a bit lower than other SSDs, and I have seen the same result on other reviews so appears normal. This drive is fast, and there is nothing else I have that remotely comes close. Even after 1 month of use the drive is still performing close to new here from looking at other results on the web.
Next up is the PCMark Vantage HDD score:
Now the drive has been in use for the last month, so this results in a lower score than most found on the web where the drive is in a fresh state. Still, this is a relatively decent score considering the CPU is also at stock.
I may update this in future with more benchmarks and scores after the drive has been erased.
Overall this drive has impressed me a lot. Everything feels much faster and is probably the second biggest upgrade I have ever done to a PC (The first was going from a P4 2.8GHz HT 478 to a Q9450!). If you haven’t yet bought an SSD, now is the time. It will transform any PC you put one of these into.
Even limited by my SATA II interface the SSD still manages impressive scores. Looking at review sites online the M4 also excels in the PCMark Vantage suite, only losing to OCZ’s insane Revodrive. Mine didn't perform as well due to the age of the install and the restricting interface.
My only regret is that I didn’t upgrade sooner…
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