Some time ago I discovered in the current SATURN prospectus the 120GB SanDisk Extreme, with a theoretical transfer rate of 6 GB / s for 99 EUR. So I became aware that the magic 100 EUR price tag was well liked for some time.
But it went even better and even cheaper. For only 89 EUR, I discovered the 128 GB Crucial M4 SSD 128GB. With almost 300 Amazon reviews and 4.5 of 5 stars, I preferred this drive of SanDisk SSD, especially since it has 8 GB more memory.
The issue was a very good comparison test in the Forum of Mindfactory. There are three SSD drives were tested with 128 GB: Crucial M4, Samsung 830 and Corsair Force GT. The best performance in every area provided the Crucial M4. So I ordered a few weeks ago, the Crucial m4 SSD 128GB at Amazon for 89 EUR.
1. Advantages and disadvantages of an SSD
Although some already mentioned, I would like to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of SSD a little closer here:
Benefits:
Significantly faster access to the data, than with a hard drive. This is particularly noticeable when writing. The important IOPS (Input / Output Operations Per Second) is up to 1000 times higher. To launch applications faster, even if they have to reload many data at startup.
Lower probability of default, there are no moving parts. For hard drives falls and overheating often lead to failures.
Lower power consumption
Softly
Disadvantages:
Still relatively high price compared to 2.5 "hard drives. An SSD is more expensive by about a factor of 4-5.
Data Recovery in case of failure much more complicated
Some cause a shorter lifespan than a disadvantage, since the flash cells "wear out" by writing over time. This reduces the total capacity. In fact, there are no long-term studies that prove this. On the contrary: Because SSDs have no moving parts and have a lower thermal susceptibility, they should keep even longer than a hard drive. The reading of the cells is theoretically possible even for an unlimited period.
2. Which is the right size?
Well, it turned me how everybody else, the question of whether there must not be a bit more? It's not just about the capacity, but also to the higher write performance of drives with 256GB and more.
256GB costs 200 EUR and the Crucial M4 SSD 512GB there are already about 380 EUR.
The capacity of 128 GB is sufficient but from my view.
The SSD as a data drive is still too expensive and constant reading and writing reduces their lifespan. An external hard drive, it does also.
For a Windows 7 installation 20 GB are required. In a multimedia or office PC the remaining 100 GB should be sufficient.
The write speed starts at 128GB SSDs at about 175 MB / s to 260 MB / s with SSDs with a capacity of 256 GB and more. But hard drives only a maximum of 150 MB / s, Gigabit LAN only 110 MB / s USB 2.0 or even only 40 MB / s can be transmitted to data, the question arises, what benefits has the higher writing speed in practice. So the source is here rather represent a bottleneck.
The I / O performance is quite a bit more important. You determine how many I / O operations can occur simultaneously. This becomes noticeable for example at system startup or in multitasking mode. Again, the larger drives have better values. But considering that a hard drive with 100 IOPS and a slow SSD already comes with 20,000 IOPS, the noticeable increase in performance with a larger SSD is significantly lower than the transition one hard drive to SSD
Since I mostly use my notebook for multimedia and office applications and had been established no more than 100 GB on the system partition, which includes 128 GB variant for me the best value for money. Compared to a disk I / O write performance is considerably higher and, above all, constant because when the hard disk I / O performance degrades to the inner tracks toward. Fragmentation is also not an issue with SSD drives.
Larger SSDs you should then consider if you want to install many, memory-intensive games or more complex programs for video editing. Here, both the larger capacity, as well as the advantage through the more I / O write performance is a decision criterion.
3. Scope
The Crucial m4 SSD 128GB is delivered in a small package and contains the drive is still a compact user.
4. Technical data:
The technical data are not available for all capacities equal!
Capacity: 128GB
Interface: SATA 6Gb / s
Sequential read: up to 500 MB / s (in all capacities equal!)
Sequential Write: up to 175MB / s (95MB / s at 64 GB and 260 MB / s in capacities from 256 GB)
Random 4K Read: 45K IOPS (in all capacities equal!)
Random 4K Write: 35K IOPS (20K IOPS at 64GB and 50K IOPS in capacities from 256 GB)
5. Installation
Installation is relatively straightforward in a notebook. The Dell E6500 4 screws to solve eg the housing bottom and pulls out the hard drive.
6. cloning or installation?
With this question, I occupied myself in detail. Generally, often reinstalling recommended because Windows 7 detects when you install the SSD drive and all the important parameters to optimize the effect. This must otherwise be made after cloning by hand and see if it really works is not always safe.
In addition, you have so the opportunity to free his installation of unnecessary programs and garbage. It often happens that one now and then a program installed for testing, forget it and so go unnoticed remains on the system.
7. Installation and Configuration
7.1 BIOS Configuration
The installation will take place as usual via an appropriate installation media. In my case, these are the Windows 7 DVD. One only has to remember to enable the AHCI mode in the BIOS. Most here is configured IDE. While reinstalling Windows 7 detects the faster interface standard AHCI and adjusts the configuration accordingly.
7.2 Firmware Update
After the first application I had the firmware of the Crucial M4 SSD 128G upgrade, there's the 0309 version was installed.
That turned out to be just enjoyable. On the manufacturer's website you get 2 choices:
Firmware Update to 000F by Bootfile or
Firmware Update to 000F using Windows 7 Updater Tool
Since I had already installed Windows 7, I chose to update via the Updater tool. For this you load the file m4_SSD_Firmware_Update_Utility_000F.zip down, unzipped it and calls the EXE file contained therein:
Windows 7 restarts and the firmware update is running.
One uses prefer Linux, Mac or other, alternative operating systems you download the file Crucialm4_000F.zip down. This zip file is an ISO file that lets you burn a CD. After restarting this CD, is also a firmware update, regardless of operating system, performed.
With the free tool CrystalDiskInfo can check if the firmware update was successful afterwards.
7.3 Windows optimization
Yet there are some values that are not adjusted automatically. That's why you should previously inform the network as the computer must be configured to operate a SSD. Here are a few key points:
- Switch off the search service
- Disable hibernation
- Off prefetching
- Turn off Superfetch service
Configure swap file -
Off defragmentation -
- Enable TRIM
8. performance compared to the old system:
With the freeware tool AS SSD Benchmark, can the performance of the SSD determine. Comparing this benchmark with the user uploads to Amazon for Crucial M4 SSD 128GB, it is slightly worse in some areas. Since the SSD is configured for optimal performance, it must have a different cause: Dell Latitude E6500 only has a SATA interface with 3 Gb / s. However, this can only be transferred a maximum of approximately 300 MB / s. This is also the reason for the very low data transfer rate while reading. This should be considered when mounting in an older notebook before paniced.
Compared with the hard drive, the SSD is so very far forward.
So far, the start-up took about 30 seconds and the registration for several minutes. With the SSD will reduce the time for starting up to 15 seconds, which at first seems little. The application itself, however, does not take five seconds longer and so you can almost immediately start the browser or Office application without delay. Generally the start of applications has become extremely fast.
For video editing I use Nero 10. The start date alone lasted about 1 minute. When editing videos Nero depended on often and my cuts were lost, if I did not save every few minutes. A first test showed a significant gain in performance: To start Nero 10 needs only 4 seconds, and the video editing was previously possible, and above all much smoother without crashing.
9. Conclusion
The investment of 89 EUR was definitely worth it for my system. A few months ago I had already upgraded the RAM from 2 GB to 4 GB to improve performance, which did not yield any significant improvement. Since I configure since about 20 years my PC itself, I have many experiences with Aufrüstversuchen already made by installing faster hard drives, more memory or newer graphics cards. The increase in output was most noticeable. By comparison, however, the installation of an SSD, however, is a quantum leap! Such extreme performance increase in combination with the minimization of power consumption I've never achieved. Who is annoyed over long boot and login times, should definitely consider the upgrade with an SSD into consideration. Here the Crucial M4 SSD 128GB provides the date in my view best value for money.
