Prostar You brought up a very good point.
1) have 3 M4's. 2 x 128 gig drives bought quite some time go (shortly after they came Out), Bought a 256 Gig M4. No problems.
.. HOWEVER, you have a point on recent increase in "Died" M4's at newegg - Checked the high volume all vs 6 months and there is a big jump. This drive appears to the most popular based on Nr of responses.
... Very hard to compare "reliability" issue as many of the drives manuf back when M4 first came out are "gone" - in that they have been replaced ( ie Agility/Vertex III with IV Samsung 830 with 840 ) or the Part Number was changed which tends to restarts Nr of Responses ( basically ) camouflage problems. Really wish they would have a "M4", Or what ever, generic tracking record. PS I really wonder how many of the "died" after x time were USER caused.
2) Firmware, maybe I missed that as last problem was their 5000 Hr "bug". Over the last couple of years have not seen much difference in "Firmware" problems between M4 and Intel - Both have had "bugs" and both seem to resolve realitly quickly.
3) You did Not mention, but I found a disturbing trend when reading the 1/2 egg comments for M4, and that is with their Customer service.
.. Mixed feelings.
A) If just trying to reduce RMA's with out justification -BOOO, almost as bad as OCZ (May have improved as they changed upper management)
B) RMA's add cost to product and IF USER caused problem then company should disallow RMA, not just on SSDs. All merchandise that is returned should have to be justified before RMA (or Return) at Brick and Mortar store.