Crucial M4 Technical Review Published

[JohnnyLucky]

This morning AnandTech published a review of the brand new Crucial M4 ssd:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4253/the-crucial-m4-micron-c400-ssd-review

Hardware Heaven:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1143/pg1/crucial-m4-256gb-ssd-c400-review-introduction.html

Benchmark Reviews:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14665&Itemid=99999999

SSD Review:

http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews/crucial-m4-256gb-sata-3-ssd-review-%E2%80%93-unexpected-performance-in-a-small-package/

Tech Report:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20646

 

[cletus]

This may be the SSD I choose for my new build

Interesting quote from one of the articles:
"With respect to pricing, we haven’t found the M4 listed just yet but we have found the C400 advertised and might predict that they will be one in the same. This would mean the 64GB would be offered at $129.99, 128GB at $244.99, 256GB at $454.99 and 512GB at $919.99. "

Currently the 120gb Vertex 3 is looking like 299/300 and the 120 gbIntel 510 is 315 from Newegg so for this to be priced at 244.99 (like what, $1.9/gb?) would be flat out awesome.

 

[sminlal]

Interesting to see the numbers being bandied about. MLC NAND used to be rated at 10,000 Program/Erase cycles, now with the smaller cell sizes we're seeing only 3,000 to 5,000. And where Intel quoted 5-year figures of 100GB/day for the G1 drives and 20GB/day for the G2 drives, Anand is talking 7GB/day for these new drives.

My system writes about 5GB/day to the SSD. With my G2 drive that's a 20-year life expectancy - nothing to be concerned about. These new drives are probably around the very limit of what I'd be willing to accept, particularly given that data retention may be as short as 1 year as the drive nears the end of it's erase cycles.

Unless there's some technological breakthrough waiting in the wings it feels like we're getting close to the limit in terms of scaling flash memory chips to smaller cell sizes. And since that's what's been driving cost reductions people who expect SSD prices to keep coming down year after year may be in for a bit of a rude awakening within the next few generations.