Crucial m4 mSATA 256GB Review: Miniature SSD Power

[Julio Franco]

Read the full article at:
[newwindow=https://www.techspot.com/review/571-crucial-m4-msata-ssd/]https://www.techspot.com/review/571-crucial-m4-msata-ssd/[/newwindow]

Please leave your feedback here.

 

[cliffordcooley]

The dimensions are incorrect. "The m4 mSATA series measures 6.9 x 2.1 x 0.7 inches (50.8 x 29.85 x 3.75mm)" 6.9 inches is long for a 2.5 inch drive, much less a 1.8 inch.

Editor's note: We stand corrected. The drive is a mere 3 x 5 centimeters. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Lies. It's not possible to fit a fast 256GB drive on something that small

 

[Guest]

Are mSATA drives worth investing in? I have a slot on my laptop that can take one of these, the user manual talked about an Intel turbo memory card that would normally fit in there. Would a mSATA drive work in that slot too? I don't have space for a 2nd hdd I would get a caddy and replace my optical drive but I use that often.

But fitting 256gb onto a device that small is witchcraft

 

[Arris]

Thanks Techspot, just ordered one as I'd been considering one for my new laptop.

 

[Burty117]

I'm really tempted to get this for my work laptop now ^-^

 

[Guest]

I use the Crucial m4 128GB mSATA as the Windows 7 OS C: drive.
It works great.

 

[Guest]

Have the 64GB version of this in my MicroServer as a boot drive on a PCI card. Very happy with it so far.

 

[amstech]

"Not only are SSDs faster than HDDs, but they also consume less power and generate less heat. Additionally, because they have no moving parts, they're quieter, more reliable and more compact than their spinning counterparts."

Except for the relliability part.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Except for the relliability part.

Maybe the word resilient should be used instead.

 

[Guest]

I have a new Gigabyte Mobo in my desktop PC with an mSata slot.
Question is..... Should I get an mSata card or just a regular 2.5inch SSD?

 

[Guest]

"because they have no moving parts, they're quieter, more reliable and more compact than their spinning counterparts."

More reliable? I have 4 hard drives running 24/7 with a combined life of 15 years that never had any issues, good luck with an SSD achieving the same reliability. It gets even more embarrassing when the SSD is failing, because in most cases you'll lose ALL data, but in most cases you can recover most of your data from your hard drive.

 

[TJGeezer]

"because they have no moving parts, they're quieter, more reliable and more compact than their spinning counterparts."

More reliable? I have 4 hard drives running 24/7 with a combined life of 15 years that never had any issues, good luck with an SSD achieving the same reliability. It gets even more embarrassing when the SSD is failing, because in most cases you'll lose ALL data, but in most cases you can recover most of your data from your hard drive.

Running a small, slower HDD as a mirror would guard against that problem, wouldn't it?

 

[TJGeezer]

Nuts. All I meant to suggest was a small HDD run as a mirror to the SDD if data loss seems a real risk.

 

[Guest]

AS SSD benchmark graphs seem wrong?

Access time (Higher is Better) should read (Lower is Better)

 

[Guest]

What MBO do you use there? It's clearly not Asus one stated under system specs as sb cooler has gigabyte written on it and design is nothing like asus one.

I'm asking because I was looking for a MBO that can push sata3 speed through msata port.

 

[cliffordcooley]

What MBO do you use there?

I could be wrong, but my guess would be they used the mSATA adapter not the pictured motherboard that supports mSATA.

 

[slh28]

"Not only are SSDs faster than HDDs, but they also consume less power and generate less heat. Additionally, because they have no moving parts, they're quieter, more reliable and more compact than their spinning counterparts."

Except for the relliability part.

Only if you bought an OCZ SSD or one from 2007... recent Crucial, Intel and Samsung drives have all ben very reliable.

HDDs break all the time, especially in laptops, but they're not new tech so there's not much of a fuss about them. I would like to see some hard numbers before drawing any conclusions though.

 

[Assole]

Count yourself extremely lucky. I'm over joyed when I have a HDD last 5 years. Most last about 2 before the start having a significant number of errors. 3 years they have enough that manufacture's software will report it is needs replacing. Just two weeks ago I retired a 1.5 TB drive I purchased 3 years ago. It was already causes a corruption of 1 out of every 200 files over 1GB in size. However, I nursed it along as a backup drive by checking checksums and overwritting the corrupt files. Only when the error light came on my drive controller and wouldn't go away did I retire the drive. The 3 other drives I purchased at about the same time are suffering similar problems, but haven't triggered an error light.

Usually I don't wait for a drive to die completely. But occasionally I will try using a drive that did not fail completely for caching large files or such. My experience has been if the drive is more than about 5 years old, it is unlikely it will even spin-up.

In the end though, this failure rate is not too bad. The cost per GB drops by about 50% every two years. So by the time a hard drive fails I'm usually able to replace it with a drive twice the size for slightly less than the original cost. However, the new 3 TB drives have a really poor reliability rating, so I'm trying to nurse along my 1.5 TB drives until something better is available.

More reliable? I have 4 hard drives running 24/7 with a combined life of 15 years that never had any issues, good luck with an SSD achieving the same reliability. It gets even more embarrassing when the SSD is failing, because in most cases you'll lose ALL data, but in most cases you can recover most of your data from your hard drive.

 

[Guest]

Look at where the Hard Drive manufacturers have their production facilities now. They know NOTHING about quality control and it shows in a major way.

I used to have hard drives that could last 7-8 years running 24/7 and never have to worry about them. Now I worry if I can get 2 years out a server drive.

Problem is the external drives I have used for emergency backup when tape drives failed have an even worse track record. WD, Seagate, Toshiba, you name them.

Just goes to show, farm out your production to the lowest priced workers, your customers pay for it. Drives from Japan and Taiwan were the best. Chinese-made drives were a step down, but still acceptable. Now you have them being made in Bangladesh? Really WD, Seagate? Talk about reaching the bottom of the labor pool. Then you wonder why you have such high warranty claims? You *****S!! Bring the production back to workers who actually KNOW what they are doing, you will get a better product.

You will have to charge more, but then again few customers are willing to pay for planned obsolescence of a product they are expecting to be reliable. If I could get a drive that would last a guaranteed 5 years, I would be willing to pay DOUBLE current prices.