Crucial M4 256GB SSD Hard drive

[Scott]

I haven't upgraded my computers in a couple of years now and have been watching SSD for quite awhile for it to come down in price. I was sceptical for a long time about the performance increase these would have. There are a few things I hate about computers now days: Boot time, time after boot before I can start using programs, and latency when clicking something. I've never really achieved "real world" faster performance in those areas from a CPU or RAM upgrade.

This week I finally bit the bullet and purchased two Crucial M4 256GB SSD drives and put one in the laptop. The other one will go into my desktop soon. All I have to say is that so far, this upgrade blows away any other upgrade I've EVER done to a computer. My laptop would take about 1:15 to load to a state where I could start opening applications quickly. Now it takes 25 seconds to get to the desktop. From there I can instantly start loading programs without waiting. Chrome and Photoshop load like they have been running all day. I've made a quick video showing how fast it is (SEE BELOW).

I cannot believe how much of a difference SSD made, and this is on a 5 year old laptop with a C2D 2.2GHz CPU and 4GB of ram running Windows 7 x64. I can't wait to put this on the main computer now as my laptop specs aren't even that great.

[redneckretart]

Very nice. Ive been wanting to try out a SSD for a while myself. Maybe I'll look into getting one sooner then later.

[Guest001]

Nice, very nice indeed, like redneckretart I was going to wait for a while longer.

For me the reason is not for pricing and such but maturity of the Tech and to make sure it's here to stay and not going to be redundant in a relatively short period of time.

I've always been confident they would be faster but data security and permanency have always been an issue for me, also I guess with those sorts of speeds fragmentation is no longer an issue.

So I think it's time


Good Post

[Scott]

SSD has been around for quite a few years now. I've just been waiting for it to mature and for the price/gb came down. The price is still a little high, but the performance per dollar seems to be a lot higher then anything else I've put into my computers. I don't dread reboots as much right now.

[Guest001]

+1

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Scott

SSD has been around for quite a few years now. I've just been waiting for it to mature and for the price/gb came down. The price is still a little high, but the performance per dollar seems to be a lot higher then anything else I've put into my computers. I don't dread reboots as much right now.

NAND prices are set to rise next year, maybe time to buy more right now, or is it clever marketing.... arg, damn cant win with pc components.

either way welcome to the last decade

[Guest001]

Removed by user - incorrect quote:

[Steve]

[atholon]

I am with you man. I got a OCZ SSD drive for my laptop and I was shocked to see it performing like never before. Almost like having a new laptop.

I need to swap the drive out for a bigger one and put my 128 GB in my desktop.

[Guest001]

Saw a video somewhere where a person connected 400 or so SSD's to make a super Computer

[Scott]

I dont think my laptop ever felt this fast. It'll be good for another long while I think.

Originally Posted by Steve

either way welcome to the last decade

It took a decade (ok 3-4 years) for an upgrade to actually impress me... All that money I wasted on faster CPU's, RAM, WD Raptor drives don't come close to this $195.

I upgraded the desktop last weekend and it's about 20 seconds flat to the desktop. I didn't really read before installing these things either so they are both running in IDE mode. Apparently AHCI is faster yet. Maybe i'll wait to change it until these start feeling slow..

[redneckretart]

Ordered myself a 120GB SSD the other day for my 6 year old laptop along with new ram. The old hard drive has been failing for years - I tested it the other day and its write speed had been chugging along at 5mb's - so terrible.

But I got the SSD today. Really brought the laptop back to life.

Now down the road gotta look into getting one for my desktop pc.

[Guest001]

@redneckretart

Hi mate

What sort of bus did your old laptop have? IDE SCSI? Both? Could an old one like mine, (Ye OLde - HP Compaq) with IDE be adapted in?

[redneckretart]

My laptop had SATA 1.5.

I don't know about SCSI or IDE SSD's - I'd have to look in to that.

[Guest001]

Thanks.

PS
I'm just in the process of updating a map for NHQ and your Site

[SilentTrigger]

I know what you mean, my old laptop at work was replaced a few months back and going from about 5 min to under 1 min in startup time (the netowrk login still limits it quite a bit but it's not the laptops fault) and the programs are dead fast.

I've already got used to it and started my old computer a few days ago and I was about to throw it out the window because it was so damn slow