Crucial Releases New (20% Faster) m4 SSD Firmware

Crucial has issued a firmware update for its m4 series of SSDs and promises a range of performance improvements beyond your normal firmware fixes. The company is claiming up to a 20 percent performance increase in sequential read speeds. It is like "having your cake and eating it too" - You get those little firmware bugs fixed and you get a nice performance increase for free.

SSDs rely heavily on their firmware for their performance, along with controller-related features such as Garbage Collection, Wear-leveling, to name a couple. Other improvements in the firmware upgrade includes; increased throughput performance, lower write latency, improved chipset compatibility, improvement for cold boot failures, and faster boot up time. The firmware comes through an ISO image that is installed through a CD or DVD. (This is one area I would've like to see Crucial take a page from OCZ and provide its firmware updates from a "Crucial Toolbox".)

Crucial's Official Release Notes:

“Release Date: 08/25/2011

Change Log:

Changes made in version 0002 (m4 can be updated to revision 0009 directly from either revision 0001 or 0002)
Improved throughput performance.
Increase in PCMark Vantage benchmark score, resulting in improved user experience in most operating systems.
Improved write latency for better performance under heavy write workloads.
Faster boot up times.
Improved compatibility with latest chipsets.
Compensation for SATA speed negotiation issues between some SATA-II chipsets and the SATA-III device.
Improvement for intermittent failures in cold boot up related to some specific host systems.”

Firmware Download: Crucial

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mute20 6 years ago

If this was released by apple they would have charged 40$
chick0n 6 years ago

mute20If this was released by apple they would have charged 40$

Why not? Anything outa Apple's labs/factory comes with free magic dust.
sseyler 6 years ago

If these claims are even 50% true, then great! It would put even more pressure on OCZ Vertex 3 drives.

Other Comments

sseyler 6 years ago

If these claims are even 50% true, then great! It would put even more pressure on OCZ Vertex 3 drives.
mute20 6 years ago

If this was released by apple they would have charged 40$
eklipz330 6 years ago

sseylerIf these claims are even 50% true, then great! It would put even more pressure on OCZ Vertex 3 drives.

i don't wanna sound rude, but OCZ reliability has plummeted, that's why they've become cheaper. look at the newegg reviews, there are many complaints of their SSD's failing after 7 or so months. that doesn;t so too great. crucial on the other hand seems to be rolling out with great products... i might pick up the 64gb m4 for OS =]
heroictofu 6 years ago

Yeah, based on all the Sandforce errors I've been hearing about, Crucial's M4 looks mighty fine right about now. And with a potential 20% increase in performance, that puts it pretty darn close, if not surpassing some of the Sandforce controllers out there.
chick0n 6 years ago

mute20If this was released by apple they would have charged 40$

Why not? Anything outa Apple's labs/factory comes with free magic dust.
AbdullahG 6 years ago

Well that's good news. Might pick up a Crucial SDD for a new build of mine (just need to save up a little more).
roscolo 6 years ago

Looks like the best just got a little better. Glad I picked one of these up when Newegg had 'em on sale. I've only just now installed the 128GB m4, so I look forward to giving the new firmware a go!
wintermint 6 years ago

This is what SSD manufacturers should be focusing on: providing us with FREE firmware updates that will IMPROVE our PERFORMANCE instead of OFFERING us more EXPENSIVE products that holds the same storage amount :]
ikyung 6 years ago

Been using Crucial c300 for about a year now. Haven't failed, and the firmwares fixed any bugs or problems.
fyend 6 years ago

Why is free in quotes in the title since it is actually free and all, makes one think there is some catch or hidden charge.
kd0frg 6 years ago

I just updated my c4 from 0002 to 0009 , worked good, i used a USB flash drive for the bootup, moved the c4 firmware update iso to a flash drive using unetbootin *open unetbootin, dont select a distro or version, just go straight to selecting the ISO, and your usb device and drive, and hit copy/next/install or what ever it was and it copys the bootloader onto your USB drive. It worked good for me* Make sure you disable RAID or AHCI mode in the bios when you do this, your M4 has to be in IDE mode and compatible mode, not *enhanced* if you can help it. it says try not to use your SATA 6 gbps port either, use a SATA2 port 0-1 preferably, but i used my sata 6 port and it worked okay for me.. but thats just me.
roscolo 6 years ago

Just updated mine. Don't see any huge difference, but I didn't brick it, so it's all good.
Wish I Was Wealthy 6 years ago

I'm not a Crucial user & I don't think I ever will be after studying up their so called good performance write ups & anyway most people that I talk to would rather use OCZ instead.
robertito 6 years ago

mute20If this was released by apple they would have charged 40$

or intel
whysobluepandabear 6 years ago

mute20If this was released by apple they would have charged 40$

Probably. The dollar sign always goes before the number. The cents symbol goes at the end.....
bgrthnu 6 years ago

If I were to go pick up one of these drives today, would the firmware already be updated with 0009 or will I need to do this myself when I get it?
bitacora 6 years ago

After firmware update 0002->0009, CrystalDiskMark seq read 241.3 MB/s (0002)-> seq read 131.8 MB/s (0009). -45% less read speed.
yapchagi 6 years ago

can anyone confirm this increased reading speed running @SATA 6G on native intel SATA 6G controller?
Maybe on Marvell controller too, just to compare.
Anyone?
beenthere 6 years ago

All of the SSD suppliers have had reliability, firmware, power or compatibility issues including Crucial, Intel, OCZ, Corsair, etc. This is simply unacceptable IMO. Increased speed is fine if it doesn't create issues. IMO until SSDs become reliable and trouble-free, people should stop buying them so there is a financial incentive to correct the operational issues.

From Tom's Aug. SSD review:

"There's no debating whether SSDs offer blistering performance. That that doesn't really matter if you can't trust the device holding that important information. When you read about Corsair's Force 3 recall, OCZ's firmware updates to prevent BSODs, Crucial's link power management issues, and Intel's SSD 320 that loses capacity after a power failure, all within a two-month period, you have to acknowledge that we're dealing with a technology that's simply a lot newer (and consequently less mature) than mechanical storage."
aberkae 6 years ago

All the m4 were on sale yesterday 15% off @ newegg
i had the c300 256gig for more than a year now and i love this this thing

crucial ftw!

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