Crucial M4 128GB SSD review - Features & specifications

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 12/20/2011 02:00 PM [ ] 0 comment(s)

Features & specifications

So the Crucial M4 sample has finally arrived in our underground test facility, it's the 128GB version of the drive, which means it's also slightly slower in writes compared to the 256GB model due to memory channels available. Small side note, you can also spot the very same drive as Micron C400 in the stores.

Initial tests straight away impressed us, this product can keep up with any SandForce SSF-2281 SSD product in terms of read performance and Intel's latest and greatest as well. Have a peek at the official spec sheet of the M4 series.

Crucial M4 SSD 2.5"	CT064M4SSD2	CT0128M4SSD2	CT0256M4SSD2	CT0512M4SSD2
Capacity (Unformatted)	64 GB	128 GB	256 GB	512 GB
NAND	Micron MLC	Micron MLC	Micron MLC	Micron MLC
Controller	Integrated 8-channel single chip	Integrated 8-channel single chip	Integrated 8-channel single chip	Integrated 8-channel single chip
RAID Support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Firmware	Field Upgradeable	Field Upgradeable	Field Upgradeable	Field Upgradeable
SATA Transfer Rate	6Gb/s (3Gb/s compatible)	6Gb/s (3Gb/s compatible)	6Gb/s (3Gb/s compatible)	6Gb/s (3Gb/s compatible)
Sequential Read (up to)	415 MB/sec	415 MB/sec	415 MB/sec	415 MB/sec
Sequential Write (up to)	95 MB/sec	175 MB/sec	260 MB/sec	260 MB/sec
Random 4k READ	40,000 IOPS	40,000 IOPS	40,000 IOPS	40,000 IOPS
Random 4k WRITE	20,000 IOPS	35,000 IOPS	50,000 IOPS	50,000 IOPS
PCMark Vantage	55K HDD test score	55K HDD test score	65K HDD test score	65K HDD test score
Dimensions (L x W x H)	100.5 x 69.5 x 9.50 mm	100.5 x 69.5 x 9.50 mm	100.5 x 69.5 x 9.50 mm	100.5 x 69.5 x 9.50 mm
Weight	75g	75g	75g	75g
MTBF	1.2 Million Hours	1.2 Million Hours	1.2 Million Hours	1.2 Million Hours
Data Reliability	Built-in EDC/ECC	Built-in EDC/ECC	Built-in EDC/ECC	Built-in EDC/ECC
Drive Endurance	36TB=20GB per day for 5 years	72TB=40GB per day for 5 years	72TB=40GB per day for 5 years	72TB=40GB per day for 5 years

As said there are four models available, 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and an impressive 512GB version, all 6Gbps SATA interface based SSDs. This SATA3 version as such will deliver speeds of up to an advertised 415MB/s of bandwidth in read performance and a 175 MB/sec in write performance (sequential).

BUT ... the specs are all still based on the old firmware release. You'll notice that the performance really is a good 20% above what they advertise, and that surely is a nice additional bonus. With the tested 128GB model (obviously comes with the newest firmware) you'll see that we can even reach 500 MB/sec on sequential reads and roughly 200 MB/sec on writes.

That gives the M4 really nice performance when dealing with compressed data compared to other drives, we'll check that out of course. Sequential read and write performance should be impressive.

The M4 SSDs will include Aynchronous MLC Flash Micron memory chips (yes they make these themselves) as well as a 256MB DRAM cache. The controller used comes from Marvell which thus works with a large memory cache, whereas SandForce uses a segment of the NAND flash the cache. That's the essential difference really, the benefit of a DRAM cache is that you'll have more GB's available for real usage.

The SSDs come with full support for the TRIM command to keep the SSD nice and fast.

Crucial M4 64GB costs 90 EUR
Crucial M4 128GB costs 165 EUR
Crucial M4 256GB costs 320 EUR
Crucial M4 512GB costs 620 EUR

So these are the prices at this moment, quite competitive. Crucial will get you a 3 year carry-in warranty on the product.

Crucial M4 SSD

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