Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Crucial M4 2011 MBP?

S

Surfing@Blacks

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 17, 2007
185
0
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Great drive. Needs firmware 2 to run 100% perfect on MBP 2011.

Both are Crucial M4 128GB. The newegg one also contains a data transfer kit.
 
I'm running the 256GB M4 Crucial SSD in a 2011 MBP, it was easy to install and I just watched a youtube video to find out how. Took all of five minutes. I had a minute long beach ball every hour with firmware 1 but after installing firmware 2 I have had zero issues.

Speed is impressive, well worth the upgrade in my opinion. Any questions feel free to shout.
 
I'm using one, works fine. The transfer kit consists of a USB to SATA connector and a CD containing Super Duper (unregistered), so up to you if you think it's worth paying a little extra to obtain this.
 
Benito said:
Is the Crucial M4 now shipping with firmware 2? Also, do you guys have TRIM enabled or not?
Click to expand...

I bought mine about 3 weeks ago and it still had firmware 1 on it. I did have TRIM enabled, I don't now I upgraded to Lion. Just mulling over whether to enable TRIM or not, as I'm seeing a few beachballs now.
 
I don't think any ship with firmware 2 as I only got mine a few weeks ago, it's easy to update though. Just download the firmware, use disk utility to burn a bootable disk then shut down. Boot from disk answer a few questions and it's running the update. Read up on it first from google though so you are familiar with the process.

EDIT: Trim caused more double than it was worth, so I have not used it with Lion.
 
fat jez said:
I bought mine about 3 weeks ago and it still had firmware 1 on it. I did have TRIM enabled, I don't now I upgraded to Lion. Just mulling over whether to enable TRIM or not, as I'm seeing a few beachballs now.
Click to expand...

Beachballs with or without TRIM? and did you get this behaviour in SL?
 
Is the M4 any good? It seems to offer cracking value but even though it's sata 3 it does'nt offer 480 Mbps read and write?
Also I thought lion was supposed to enable trim on non apple ssd's anyway?

I'm asking as I'm interested in the 256gb model for my 2010 mac but hope to get the 2012 model once out. So long as a standard SSD fits in the 2012 model?

And as the M4 uses the same controller as Intels does it offer the same reliability?
 
^
It's the dark horse of SATA 3 SSDs. It had a few compatibility issues upon launch (all of them did) but they've been addressed by a firmware update. It's not the fastest SATA3 drive but is within touching distance of the fastest drives. And more importantly, you won't be able to tell a difference 99% of the time.

It uses same controller as Intel but that doesn't give an indication of reliability since the way both companies validate their controllers is different. The TRIM hack also seems to work well with it compared to Sandforce drives for example.

IMO it is the best bang for buck SATA3 drive out there. Decent speed, decent controller, plays nice with TRIM workarounds & easy firmware update path.

PS- Lion's SSD TRIM support is still exclusive to Apple's drives.
 
Kariya said:
^
It's the dark horse of SATA 3 SSDs. It had a few compatibility issues upon launch (all of them did) but they've been addressed by a firmware update. It's not the fastest SATA3 drive but is within touching distance of the fastest drives. And more importantly, you won't be able to tell a difference 99% of the time.

It uses same controller as Intel but that doesn't give an indication of reliability since the way both companies validate their controllers is different. The TRIM hack also seems to work well with it compared to Sandforce drives for example.

IMO it is the best bang for buck SATA3 drive out there. Decent speed, decent controller, plays nice with TRIM workarounds & easy firmware update path.

PS- Lion's SSD TRIM support is still exclusive to Apple's drives.
Click to expand...

Cheers mate, I upgraded to lion so does trim work ok with the m4 and lion? the drive is actually cheaper then the apple drive on a new mac is with my discount! Very good value indeed.
 
apolloa said:
Cheers mate, I upgraded to lion so does trim work ok with the m4 and lion? the drive is actually cheaper then the apple drive on a new mac is with my discount! Very good value indeed.
Click to expand...

I can't vouch for that since i'm still petting Snow Leopard. But the dev for the TRIM hack says he plans to release an update (which deals with Lion) to his app soon. I would just wait for the update and then go from there.

kappaknight said:
I'm trying to upgrade the firmware on my MBP but I'm running into issues - what am I missing here?

I downloaded the firmware from http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx and I've burned the .iso on the CD, but it's not recognizing it as a bootable CD. Do I need to name the disc a certain name? What am I doing wrong?
Click to expand...

This is a known issue that Crucial are working on. The update seems to work fine for others though which is odd. I would try an SMC/PRAM reset and then try to flash the drive again.
 
I ordered two of them from newegg today overnight. I should have them tomorrow. One for my game machine and one for my MBP 2011. :)
 
kappaknight said:
I downloaded the firmware from http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx and I've burned the .iso on the CD, but it's not recognizing it as a bootable CD. Do I need to name the disc a certain name? What am I doing wrong?
Click to expand...

You're not burning the iso as a file onto disc, are you? You need open Disk Utility and then go to the Images menu and select burn. It will ask you for the image to use, so select the iso from wherever you unpacked it and then shove a disc in the drive. Job done (pretty much).
 
fat jez said:
You're not burning the iso as a file onto disc, are you? You need open Disk Utility and then go to the Images menu and select burn. It will ask you for the image to use, so select the iso from wherever you unpacked it and then shove a disc in the drive. Job done (pretty much).
Click to expand...

Wow. n00b mistake. I've tried burning the .iso file - which I know is wrong. I also tried burning the mounted CD, which didn't work. I'll try this way and see. :eek:

Edit: It's the same as burning the mounted disk. OSX is still not seeing the CD as a bootable drive.
 
Last edited:
What many people don't know is that Sandforce drives (like Vertex 3 and OWC) only reach quoted speeds in new state with 0 fill data. Crucial M4 reaches quoted speeds with all data, in new or used state.

Here's what happens to the speeds of a Vertex 3 after serious usage.
59134.jpg


Now look at the Crucial M4 after the same usage.
58946.jpg
 
kappaknight said:
Edit: It's the same as burning the mounted disk. OSX is still not seeing the CD as a bootable drive.
Click to expand...

Just download the file. Don't mount it and burn as follows. Then hold down C when rebooting.
 

Attachments

  • Screen shot 2011-07-22 at ∞ Jul 22 ∞ 11.41.jpg
    Screen shot 2011-07-22 at ∞ Jul 22 ∞ 11.41.jpg
    204.6 KB · Views: 112
Crucial M4...
 

Attachments

  • Screen Shot 2011-07-25 at 8.43.31 PM.jpg
    Screen Shot 2011-07-25 at 8.43.31 PM.jpg
    172.4 KB · Views: 121
Kariya said:
Just download the file. Don't mount it and burn as follows. Then hold down C when rebooting.
Click to expand...

Are you naming the CD anything in particular or leaving it Untitled? I've burned a few disks that way too and the MBP won't boot it from the CD drive that way either.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back