Get the C300 or c400. Old Hippie and myself both have had Sandforce based SSDs and the Intels and Crucials we have are much snappier.
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Wait for Crucial C400 or buy a C300?
- Thread starter Burner27
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Get the C300 or c400. Old Hippie and myself both have had Sandforce based SSDs and the Intels and Crucials we have are much snappier.
Yes, it does. Crucial is more like a retailer than a manufacturer. They just get the majority of the products they sell from Micron.
I'm curious, what do you think it means that Crucial is "Micron's retail arm"?
If I did not already know about Micron and Crucial's relationship, I would assume that meant that Crucial is a retailer (like newegg), except that they sell exclusively Micron products.
so is this new micron c400 basically the same as the plextor PX-64M2S PX-M2
im looking to either get a single 128gb or raid 2 64gb drives here soon
side bar, with these newer drives, is it worth losing trim support when using raid, to double up the speed?
im looking to either get a single 128gb or raid 2 64gb drives here soon
side bar, with these newer drives, is it worth losing trim support when using raid, to double up the speed?
No, the Micron C400 / Crucial M4 has firmware written by Micron. With the C300, Micron optimized the performance for 4KB random read and write. It is a good bet that they will do the same with the C400.
Crucial does not manufacture or modify anything. There is no Crucial factory or assembly facility. They are simply the brand name micron most often gives its retail products.
I've had a few orders with them before. Never had a problem with them. Their prices seem to be better than Neweggs so I've been looking at buying from them more. They used to be ewiz.com for those who didn't know.
Old Hippie
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Let me clear the air before some of you guys have a stroke.
It's very obvious that the Micron/Crucial drives will have all the same physical components and Micron/Crucial have a manfacture/sales relationship. Anyone who's read anything knows these facts.
I know these things and they have never been in question!
What I am/was questioning is the fact that the controller's firmware could be changed between the Micron branded and Crucial branded drives because maybe the Micron drives are considered an interprise product and the Crucial drives a "home" product.. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Let me clear the air before some of you guys have a stroke.
It's very obvious that the Micron/Crucial drives will have all the same physical components and Micron/Crucial have a manfacture/sales relationship. Anyone who's read anything knows these facts.
I know these things and they have never been in question!
What I am/was questioning is the fact that the controller's firmware could be changed between the Micron branded and Crucial branded drives because maybe the Micron drives are considered an interprise product and the Crucial drives a "home" product.. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sure they absolutely could. But it would be the same as if Intel marketed there 510 series to the general consumer market & then tweaked the firmware on it & called it a e510 & marketed it to the enterprise market. My response wasn't trying to say that the firmware will be the same, It was meant to clear up the fact that your wording (even in this post) seem to suggest that micron & crucial are 2 different companies. They are in fact a single entity.
It could. Also, the air molecules in my room could suddenly all randomly bounce in the same direction, out the door, leaving my room a vacuum, and I could asphyxiate. It COULD happen! Oh no!
Seriously, Micron announced an enterprise version of the C300 last year, called the P300, and that is not sold through Crucial. It is unlikely that Micron would sell an enterprise product through Crucial. But the Micron C400 is not an enterprise product -- it is the consumer version. And all indications so far are that the Crucial M4 will have identical firmware to the Micron C400.
Old Hippie
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I realize this but they do sell drives that aren't Crucial branded drives.
The picture showed a Micron branded drive probably an enterprise SSD.
Just got an email stating that the 128GB C400 I ordered is 'out of stock' and SuperBIIZ will be receiving a new shipment in 5 days.......
My order is placed 'on hold' till I tell them whether I wish to proceed with waiting or not.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
My order is placed 'on hold' till I tell them whether I wish to proceed with waiting or not.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Let me clear the air before some of you guys have a stroke.
It's very obvious that the Micron/Crucial drives will have all the same physical components and Micron/Crucial have a manfacture/sales relationship. Anyone who's read anything knows these facts.
I know these things and they have never been in question!
What I am/was questioning is the fact that the controller's firmware could be changed between the Micron branded and Crucial branded drives because maybe the Micron drives are considered an interprise product and the Crucial drives a "home" product.. Nothing more, nothing less.
Hey guys, allow me to put this argument to rest with a post from the anand forums by someone who works for Micron http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=31412980 Post #21
I'd give odds that you receive a very similar message in exactly 5 days.
[LYL]Homer
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^ Well, I hope not. I just ordered a 128gb C400 as well from them. I almost bit on an Intel 510 but the extra few gb's, current happy experience with a C300 (I also have Intel G2's but they seem less snappy), and it being about $50 cheaper swayed me. Any delay beyond a few days is going to put the crunch on a couple of upcoming builds.
[LYL]Homer
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Well, I just got a call from Superbiiz and the lady wasn't able to say with any certainty that they would have them in 5 days. It felt like their canned response so I canceled. Just ordered a 510 from Newegg since I'd rather not be delayed beyond a few days.
blindtheft
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I wouldn't be surprised if the C400 is released this week and M4 next month. Wasn't it already assumed that the C400 would come out first since M4 is OEM and has to go through more hoops?
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Finally, an AS-SSD benchmark of the C400:
http://www.micronblogs.com/2011/03/c400-ssd-benchmark-results—yeah-it’s-fast/
It is interesting that the AS-SSD QD=1 4KB random read for the Intel 510, the Vertex 3, and now the C400, are all about 20 MB/s. The C300 could get around 30 MB/s, so the C400 is slower here. Since the 25nm flash uses 8KB page sizes, it would be interesting to see the 25nm SSDs benched with an 8KB random read. But the Intel 510 cannot be excused on this basis, since it uses 34nm flash.
The C400 does reasonably well on the 4K-64 random reads and writes, certainly better than the Intel 510 and the Corsair P3. Of course, 4K-64 will probably be irrelevant to the majority of desktop users.
Overall, the C400 looks like the leader of the Marvell controller SSDs for 4K-64 performance, but that is really a niche stat to be the leader in. The Intel 510 is slightly faster than the C400 in sequential performance, which is more relevant to most desktop power users.
http://www.micronblogs.com/2011/03/c400-ssd-benchmark-results—yeah-it’s-fast/
It is interesting that the AS-SSD QD=1 4KB random read for the Intel 510, the Vertex 3, and now the C400, are all about 20 MB/s. The C300 could get around 30 MB/s, so the C400 is slower here. Since the 25nm flash uses 8KB page sizes, it would be interesting to see the 25nm SSDs benched with an 8KB random read. But the Intel 510 cannot be excused on this basis, since it uses 34nm flash.
The C400 does reasonably well on the 4K-64 random reads and writes, certainly better than the Intel 510 and the Corsair P3. Of course, 4K-64 will probably be irrelevant to the majority of desktop users.
Overall, the C400 looks like the leader of the Marvell controller SSDs for 4K-64 performance, but that is really a niche stat to be the leader in. The Intel 510 is slightly faster than the C400 in sequential performance, which is more relevant to most desktop power users.
[LYL]Homer
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Here's the takaway:
As much as I'd have liked to go with the Micron/Crucial .... I'll be building my new system tomorrow night with the Intel.
Micron Innovations Blog said:
As much as I'd have liked to go with the Micron/Crucial .... I'll be building my new system tomorrow night with the Intel.
Finally, an AS-SSD benchmark of the C400:
http://www.micronblogs.com/2011/03/c400-ssd-benchmark-results—yeah-it’s-fast/
It is interesting that the AS-SSD QD=1 4KB random read for the Intel 510, the Vertex 3, and now the C400, are all about 20 MB/s. The C300 could get around 30 MB/s, so the C400 is slower here. Since the 25nm flash uses 8KB page sizes, it would be interesting to see the 25nm SSDs benched with an 8KB random read. But the Intel 510 cannot be excused on this basis, since it uses 34nm flash.
The C400 does reasonably well on the 4K-64 random reads and writes, certainly better than the Intel 510 and the Corsair P3. Of course, 4K-64 will probably be irrelevant to the majority of desktop users.
Overall, the C400 looks like the leader of the Marvell controller SSDs for 4K-64 performance, but that is really a niche stat to be the leader in. The Intel 510 is slightly faster than the C400 in sequential performance, which is more relevant to most desktop power users.
Amazing how close they got to the Sandforce (V3) as far as the strengths of the drive - almost as if that was their goal in tuning the firmware.
Well, thanks for posting this - I don't see anything here to stop me from buying 2 120GB Vertex 3's on Thursday/Friday. No benches from any of these new SATA3 SSDs have done much of anything over the V3. I have had great luck with OCZ SSDs despite all of the nonsense they have pulled lately. Many Vertex SSDs without a single problem to speak of (I'm using 2 original 120's that I bought 2 years ago as I type this.) Have had well over 20 more I've put in other systems for myself, friends and family - not a single hiccup.
The array will be underpovisioned and I never write 40-50GB at any given time to trigger the SF throttling.
I know OCZ is the devil on this board, but I'm goin for it. Until I have a bad experience of my own, I'll continue to use their products. Simple as that. If I get burned on the V3's, I'll re-evaluate at that point. Not to mention I'm just darn sick of waiting on this crap.
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Old Hippie
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Finally, an AS-SSD benchmark of the C400:
.
Here's my C300 on an LSI card....
And on an ICH10.........
I dunno what to think.
AthlonXP
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[LYL]Homer;1037008455 said:
I have a 250gb Intel 510 and its very fast.
I dunno what to think.
I think that for most users, the C400 will feel about the same speed as the C300.
Compared to the C300, the C400 has somewhat faster sequential read and write, which may be noticeable to people reading or writing a lot of large files (eg., game level loading, video editing). But the QD=1 4KB random read is slower on the C400. That may be noticeable when loading a lot of small files, such as during boot up or running certain programs that load a lot of plugins and config files. But I think the differences, if any, will be small and most users would not notice.
Compared to other SSDs with the same Marvell controller as the C400, the C400 is slightly slower on sequential access as compared to the Intel 510. But the C400 is the same or faster on 4KB access, and it is much faster on 4KB QD=64 random access. Clearly Micron's firmware engineers can squeeze a lot higher 4K-64 performance out of the Marvell controller than did those who did the firmware in the Corsair P3 or Intel 510. That is particularly impressive since those others are using 3Xnm flash, whereas the C400 is using 25nm flash, and 25nm flash uses an 8KB page size (3Xnm flash uses 4KB page size). Unfortunately, most desktop power users will find 4K-64 performance irrelevant to their usage.
As for why the C400 is slower than the C300 in some 4KB random access tests, it could be one of two reasons, or a combination. The C300 uses 34nm flash with 4KB page sizes, while the C400 uses 25nm flash with 8KB page sizes. If you are reading or writing a block size less than the page size, you may take a performance hit. It would be interesting to compare 8KB random read speeds among the new SSDs. The second possibility is that Micron's firmware engineers had to pay a price to increase the sequential performance, and that price was slower random performance. But to a lesser extent than Intel 510 or Corsair P3, which have dramatically slower 4K-64 performance than the C400.
Compared to the pre-release Vertex 3 with the Sandforce 2281 controller, the C400 has slightly faster incompressible sequential writes than a Vertex 3 that has been heavily used (250 MB/s vs 220 MB/s). Other than that, the Vertex 3 looks to be tied or somewhat faster than the C400 in all benchmark categories. Although we haven't seen a good comparison with 8KB random I/O. The C400 might be faster there, but it is hard to say. But overall, the C400 is not far behind the Vertex 3 in any performance category, and the C400 may turn out to be less expensive than the others. I'd never buy an OCZ drive, so I would pick the C400 over the Vertex 3. But when the Sandforce 2XXX SSDs from other manufacturers start coming out (G.Skill, Corsair, Patriot), I think it will be a close decision between them and the C400. The Intel 510 would also be in the running for those who need the highest incompressible data sequential write speeds, but I think the Intel 510 will be more expensive than the others.
It will also be interesting to compare the C400 with the Intel 320 series. I think they will be close in price, so it will be interesting to see how the performance compares. I think the C400 will have higher sequentials than the Intel 320, but it will probably be close on 4KB random.
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I'd love to see 8K random R/W become as standard metric as well - on AS SSD, for instance. It might reveal some bigger, or closer perfomance gaps between these drives. And yeah depending on how the 4K performance of the 320's turns out, a couple in RAID would get the higher squentials with some potentially ridiculously fast random 4K performance... Not SATA3, but for a lot of users, 1,000+ seq. read is just not really needed...
I enjoy reading your responses! I need a new SSD so your insight is appreciated.
My top picks are currently the C400 and Intel 510. I'm interested in the SandForce 2xxx controller as well, but like you said, I'm staying away from OCZ. I'm not sure we'll see Corsair/G-Skill/Patriot's SandForce offerings for a couple months still...
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Don't think it matters too much honestly - I doubt you could A/B test and notice the difference. That said I'd lean towards the newer drive as if a new firmware comes out with significant performance increases it's probably going to be for the new drives. The flip side being the C300 is a proven quality drive, c400 doesn't have as much real world testing yet (though I doubt micron is going to put out an unsupported dog of a drive).
I think i'd actually get an Intel 510 right now, but I'm a bit biased towards intel.