Crucial m4 vs mushkin chronos

The Crucial does not have the Sandforce controller that has caused biggest issues with SSD's up til now, new firmware is out though to fix that issue. Samsung 830 drives have been getting great reviews and is what I would be looking for.

Highest priority is Reliability coupled with user initial problems. This needs to be broken down into 2 groupings.
To me reliability mean if No problems installing (also look at DOA Numbers), how long will it last before problems start showing up. Have 10 SSDs - 5 of them are Sata III, represents 7 differen Brands, oldest is Intel G1 and a Sata II phoenix Pro. - I have not had a single problem.
Next is user problems , ie installation. For example ordered two agillity IIIs, one for Desktop and one for Laptop. Desktop installation went fine, Laptop was a no-go replaced with the M4 which install fine.
Next - Size and cost/gig. Size seems to have more effect on performance than Benchmarks. (Johny had several links dealing with this).

Benchmarks and "advertized speeds" I only use benchmarks that use PCMark Vantage which comes the closest to real life followed by AS SSD which uses Compressed data for it's benchmark. Benchmarks using data that is highly compressable does not indicate real life performance.

In real life test, three things 1) time from "loading operating system" to end of Circle (open first program. For sata III runs about 12 -> 15 secs. Not a big enough difference between say SF22xx and Marvel based unless you rebout 20 x a day. 2) How long it takes progam to load - One blink of the eye vs two blinks (one Blink twice as fast as two blinks - SO what. ie even with my sata II SSD If I click on recent link spreadsheet (Not a real Large one) the program loads and the spreadsheet is there before I can get my mouse to edit a cell. 3) And here is where you may see a diff (and Here it is more a size issue) editting a word doc while converting a 5 Gig DVD (dot VOBs) to 2 Gig (mpeg4720) for putting on yopur Ipad and also burning a DVD. But to do this Size is important as you would want every thing on the SSD, If files are on the HDD, then speed is a function of HDD NOT the SSD.

Do to reliability/initial possible problems, My recommendations are the Samsung 830 and the Crucial M4. PS you also get 8 gigs more with M4/830 compared to SF22xx, may not be a biggy unless you are puching 85%->90% fill - then it is a biggy.