The Crucial M4 solid state drive was one of the most popular and most successful solid state drives of 2011. Much of that success can be attributed to Crucial’s reputation for reliable, quality-made products and because they are one of the largest memory producers out there. When the M4 first came out it only had a rated read speed of 415MB/s, which is pretty far off from what we’ve seen from other solid state drives in 2011. Towards the end of 2011 Crucial released a firmware upgrade that boosted the rated speeds to 500MB/s read and 260MB/s write. A nice improvement! So today we have the M4 in our labs and we will be taking it through the paces.
Special thanks to Crucial for providing us with the M4 256GB Solid State Drive to review.
Features & Specifications
– Sustained Sequential Read: Up to 500 MB/s(SATA 6Gb/s)
– Sustained Sequential Write: Up to 260 MB/s(SATA 6Gb/s)
– 4KB Random Read: Up to 45,000 IOPS
– 4KB Random Write: Up to 50,000 IOPS
– Most advanced NAND process technology in the semiconductor industry
– Limited three-year warranty
– Reduced power consumption
– Less heat generation
– Quiet
– Increased portability, lightweight
– No moving parts
– Rugged and reliable operation in even the most demanding operating environments
Physical product specifications
| Form Factor | 2.5″ |
| Memory Components | MLC |
| Interface | SATA III |
| Width | 69.85mm |
| Depth | 100.5mm |
| Height | 9.5mm |
| Weight | 75g |
| MTBF | 1,200,000 hours |
Features
| Integrated 8-channel single chip Controller |
| Self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology (SMART) command set |
| RAID Support |
| Average Access Time < 0.1 ms |
| Data Reliability: Built-in EDC/ECC |
Packaging
The M4 drive comes in a pretty plain box. It does let us know that it is the M4 solid state drive and it is the 256GB version. On the back it gives you a little bit more information on the drive.
To give you a good idea of how the M4 comes and for a brief overview check out our unboxing and overview video.
