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SSD OCZ Vertex 4 vs Crucial M4 vs Samsung 830

R

rafatkd

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 26, 2012
11
0
Sao Paulo - Brazil
Hi guys,

I'm new here but I've participated of other forums/discussions Macs.

On one forum I've read a lot of comments telling the OCZ SSDs are the best, though here I have seemed none comments about it. The Vertex 4 seems to be the faster SSD and also have 5-year warranty, what sounds good for me.

Also I see the Crucial M4 as a great "price x benefit" choice, specially because of many thread I've read here telling how reliable it is.

Question: Is Vertex 4 a good option for a MBP 13" Late 2011? or Crucial M4 is better for macbooks? and how about Samsung 830, worth what costs?

PS.: I'm going to travel to US next month and I'd like to buy the SSD as soon as I get there :D

tks
 
Samsung 830 is my recommendation anymore. Vertex 4 is a brand new SSD by OCZ and it still has some issues with slow downs (even on the newest firmware). It is certainly not going into any of my computers yet. The M4 is a great performer, but loses to Samsung in Ramdom Reads and writes. However, the M4 can be had very reasonably.
 
I read an interesting article when I was researching the same question. It put up a performance graph of various hard drives and SSDs. The gap between one HD and another or on SSD and another was dwarfed by the gap between HD and SSD.

I settled on the Crucial M4 512G based on price. It is cheaper with the transfer kit than w/o it. (Saw $344 yesterday on B&H Photo). I just got it (from newegg for 355) and my new macbook pro has not arrived. So I can't comment on it.

At $344 w/ 3 yr warranty vs $599 w/ 5 year warranty. The question is whether the marginal difference in performance (when compared to a hard drive) and that of the warranty is worth $250.

Regarding warranty:

When my daughter's Samsung laptop needed a screen replacement, it was a hassle working w/ Samsung and their third-party repair center. I wanted them to ship me the screen so I could do the work. They wouldn't. The SSD is different in that it is a replacement, but based upon my experience I would make a phone call to tech support to see how they handle warranty problems.

I've had lots of Crucial and Micron over the years and never had any problems. But as you are out of country, I'd suggest calling them to see how they'd handle a warranty claim.
 
paulrbeers said:
Samsung 830 is my recommendation anymore. Vertex 4 is a brand new SSD by OCZ and it still has some issues with slow downs (even on the newest firmware). It is certainly not going into any of my computers yet. The M4 is a great performer, but loses to Samsung in Ramdom Reads and writes. However, the M4 can be had very reasonably.
Click to expand...

That was my concern about Vertex 4, I really won't like to wait for firmwares before get it working properly.


dmsmith said:
At $344 w/ 3 yr warranty vs $599 w/ 5 year warranty. The question is whether the marginal difference in performance (when compared to a hard drive) and that of the warranty is worth $250.
Click to expand...
Agreed! Samsung seems to be the best choice regarding performance, however, I have money to buy 512GB Crucial M4 or 256GB Samsung. So I'd rather the Crucial M4 because of the storage capacity.

Thanks guys
 
OCZ Vertex 4 SATA III SSD

I will be installing the OCZ Vertex 4 SATA III SSD in my early 2011 MBP 17" over the weekend with a "clean" install of the latest version of OSX Lion. I'll report back after I have it up an running.
 
ocz vertex 4 256GB in my 2012 cMPB with 1.4.1.3FW ... runs great with no issues.

DiskSpeedTest.png
 
Plextor M3 is also worth a consideration. The 256GB is now $199 in NewEgg. It's faster than Crucial m4, has ISO firmware updater (you need Windows to upgrade Samsung's firmware) and comes with 5-year warranty.
 
m4tic said:
ocz vertex 4 256GB in my 2012 cMPB with 1.4.1.3FW ... runs great with no issues.

Image
Click to expand...

I've got a Vertex 4 in an early 2011 MBP and love it. Best drive out there right now. I hear they're about to release another FW update that'll up the performance even more!
 
Hellhammer said:
Plextor M3 is also worth a consideration. The 256GB is now $199 in NewEgg. It's faster than Crucial m4, has ISO firmware updater (you need Windows to upgrade Samsung's firmware) and comes with 5-year warranty.
Click to expand...
I`m looking on NewEgg and the price is different. Plextor M3 is reliable as Crucial M4

Tks
 
I must admit that bias played into my choice. I trust Crucial and OCZ more than Samsung when it comes to memory/SSD. I went with a Crucial m4 256GB.

I am beyond pleased with the performance. Snappy as expected.
 
Last edited:
rafatkd said:
Amazing performance. Have you upgraded the firmware?
Click to expand...

It's running 1.4.1.3FW. It shipped with 1.4FW, but had wake up issues; this was the only issue I encountered, before flashing the latest.

I have the 1.5FW beta, but I need to find a blank cd. (archaic devices)
 
Crucial M4 512GB here, coming from an OCZ Vertex 4. Fast as all get out. SSD+HDD config.

You won't notice the difference unless you're moving huge files around all the time.

Warranty on the other hand, depends on who you want to deal with if a drive fails. I usually just buy a new one on Amazon, and return the "broken" one since I've never had luck trying to get warranty service on drives.
 
OCZ Vertez 4 SATA III SSD - Install Update

Hi Guy’s

Well....the install was a flop....Gotcha!!

Seriously the install of the OCZ Vertex 4 512 GB was almost perfect except for a minor glitch that I resolved myself. FYI, when booting into the Linux Tools Firmware Updater the mouse pad on my Early 2011 MBP 17” became non-responsive so consequently I could not navigate my screen. I resolved the issue by using a USB wireless mouse. No worries!!

Using the Updater I flashed the drive twice - as I was told by OCZ Tech Support - and now I’m rock’n the latest...v1.4.3!! Boot times average 17 seconds versus 41 seconds with my old 750 GB 5400 rpm spinner. Wake from Sleep is almost instantaneous and shut downs average about 7 seconds. In short...this thing is SCREAM’N Fast!! I can’t give you any information regarding read/write times as I don’t have the necessary benchmark tests (nor the skills). So this is about as real world as it gets.

What I can say is that according to all the reviews I read before purchasing the Vertex 4...OCZ is - and has been - working in hyper-drive to continually improve the NEW IndiLinx controller. Albeit the Vertex 4 - 128GB and 256GB SSD’s while good upon release...were not class setting drives. However, with the release of firmware v1.4 and now v1.4.3 experts agree that the Vertex 4 series for performance are the SSD’s to beat including those with SandForce controllers.

As far as reliability goes...we’ll have to wait and see as only time will tell. It appears that OCZ is going-all-in by offering a 5 year warranty for its Vertex 4 Series as opposed to 3 years by all other manufacturers. Granted no warranty can compensate for data loss due to a failed drive...but that’s why we always back-up our data to an external drive(s) at least once...right?

I’ll be back in a month with another update. As for right now....I’m rock’n in the free world with my OCZ Vertex 4 512 GB SSD and lovin it!

Together Everyone Achieves More
 
Yep, the touchpad is inactive in the OCZTools/Linux update environment. But, alt+tab works perfectly fine.
 
Ajtrek said:
Hi Guy’s

Well....the install was a flop....Gotcha!!

Seriously the install of the OCZ Vertex 4 512 GB was almost perfect except for a minor glitch that I resolved myself. FYI, when booting into the Linux Tools Firmware Updater the mouse pad on my Early 2011 MBP 17” became non-responsive so consequently I could not navigate my screen. I resolved the issue by using a USB wireless mouse. No worries!!

Using the Updater I flashed the drive twice - as I was told by OCZ Tech Support - and now I’m rock’n the latest...v1.4.3!! Boot times average 17 seconds versus 41 seconds with my old 750 GB 5400 rpm spinner. Wake from Sleep is almost instantaneous and shut downs average about 7 seconds. In short...this thing is SCREAM’N Fast!! I can’t give you any information regarding read/write times as I don’t have the necessary benchmark tests (nor the skills). So this is about as real world as it gets.

What I can say is that according to all the reviews I read before purchasing the Vertex 4...OCZ is - and has been - working in hyper-drive to continually improve the NEW IndiLinx controller. Albeit the Vertex 4 - 128GB and 256GB SSD’s while good upon release...were not class setting drives. However, with the release of firmware v1.4 and now v1.4.3 experts agree that the Vertex 4 series for performance are the SSD’s to beat including those with SandForce controllers.

As far as reliability goes...we’ll have to wait and see as only time will tell. It appears that OCZ is going-all-in by offering a 5 year warranty for its Vertex 4 Series as opposed to 3 years by all other manufacturers. Granted no warranty can compensate for data loss due to a failed drive...but that’s why we always back-up our data to an external drive(s) at least once...right?

I’ll be back in a month with another update. As for right now....I’m rock’n in the free world with my OCZ Vertex 4 512 GB SSD and lovin it!

Together Everyone Achieves More
Click to expand...

Thanks for the help!

I bought a Vertex 4 and I'm looking forward to get it installed.
 
Crucial M4

As I mentioned above, I ordered a Crucial m4 512G based on price. It installed fairly easily. The SuperDuper that it came with was too old for Lion and I needed to download the update.

I don't know if it was necessary or not, but I went into the App Store and activated iLife. I also put on several programs of interest to me (e.g. iDVD, iWeb, Parallels). It then dawned on me that it'd probably be faster to install to an SDD rather than a HDD.

After cloning the main drive to the m4, I put the m4 into the MBP 15" mid-2012 2.3Ghz along with 16G OWC RAM. The SuperDuper would not clone the recovery partition, but only the main partition. On boot I went into recovery mode and used Lion Internet Recovery.

From what I can tell, I didn't need to do any cloning. It appears that Lion Internet Recovery can do a fresh install. When all was said and done, I ended up with the recovery partition and all the cloned programs.

The boot time is 13 seconds to the log in screen. Sleep and wake are instantaneous. Shutdown time depends on whether I remember to uncheck the box to restore open programs. And so does login.
 
m4tic said:
ocz vertex 4 256GB in my 2012 cMPB with 1.4.1.3FW ... runs great with no issues.

Image
Click to expand...

I just installed my Vertex 4 the other day. Got it on sale for $200 on new egg. All i can say is wow! First SSD so I'm blown away regardless :) Anyways, I'm getting the same speeds and it's awesome. Can't wait to load up FCPX, Motion 5 & AE and do some encoding and see how if fairs. In a few weeks I'm upgrading to 16gb ram and then I'll repeat and see how it fairs with that :) Such a happy camper w/ 2012 base mpb 13". I'm glad I saved the money to upgrade to ssd and ram rather than slight speed bump.
 
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