[TSullivan]

Crucial announced their next generation SSDs at Storage Visions in January of this year. The enthusiast class Crucial m4 SSD offers capacities up to 512GB, a speedy SATA 6Gb/s interface, home-grown 25nm Micron NAND and an exclusive Marvell 9174-BLD2 processor. The combination nets 415MB/s read speeds and 260MB/s writes with support for up to 72TBW.

Read Full Review

[matobinder]

I've always loved Crucial, even back in the 90s, I think it was 97 when I order all Crucial memory for a computer lab upgade. Those were the days, I was putting in FIC PA-2007 MBs and 200mhz IDT CPUs~

Anyways, with regards to the shim...
"The multi-use case can be setup in both 9.5mm and 7mm heights by removing plastic shim between the top and bottom cover. "

Is there any reason to use it in a 9.5mm use? I guess I am not very familier with latop cases, so maybe that is an obvious reason. But it would seem the smaller, more compact would be better, especially when it seems drives like to use the case as a heat sink.

[Brian]

Yes, 9.5mm is standard, that's the reason for the shim. Removing it may also void your warranty - and you have to hunt for the shorter screws or cut your original ones down.

[matobinder]

I see. Cut the screws down. Finally, a use for my Dremel tool I got for Christmas 3 years ago..

It be interesting in heat dissipation, if the shim makes a difference

[Brian]

No, the heat output is negligible.

[dhanson865]

Thanks for the review. It's the first I've read that emphasizes the poor XP support.

There are a ton of netbooks/older laptops that would benefit from an SSD but also benefit using XP vs Win7 due to RAM constraints. Of course the X-25M is probably a better match for those uses due to the Intel SSD Toolkit.

I had hoped the M4/C400 would be a valid purchase for those old PCs as a way to future proof at least one small part of my supply chain. Luckily the newer drives seem to be good at pushing prices down in general for SSDs so I'll just have to pick another part for my SSD on XP to Win7/Linux transition upgrades (I haven't bought any Win7 yet so I'm on the fence on that one).

Unfortunately for bargain hunters the 40GB drives have performance penalties and the 80GB Intel drives have a huge price premium vs the 60/64GB drives from all the other players. The value play for a XP hold out seems to be the 64GB Samsung 470 or to bite the bullet and pick a drive with no utilities for XP like the C300 or a Sandforce drive.

The price per GB pushes the value shopper to either go 64GB for $120 or 120GB for $220 (Intel 320 Series being the 120GB value choice). I have to imagine the 80GB X-25M/320 Series aren't selling well given the odd pricing. I know I haven't looked at them seriously since the 120GB X25-M came out.

[matobinder]

Your not alone. I haven't downgraded to Windows 7 yet at home either. Just keeping it simple with XP SP3. However, I might change soon.

[dhanson865]

 matobinder, on 14 May 2011 - 07:14 PM, said:

Your not alone. I haven't downgraded to Windows 7 yet at home either. Just keeping it simple with XP SP3. However, I might change soon.

We aren't alone. WinXP/Vista use is something like 67% of the PC market with Win 7 around 27% (Mac OS, Linux, Older Windows versions make up the rest)

[Brian]

Our two Windows PCs both run Vista, I don't see any need to upgrade to Win7.

But generally, I think the XP support in the SSD space is going to be just about gone by the end of the year. I guess we'll see...but Kingston is they only one I can think of in the last year that's specifically mentioned they want to support XP.

[TSullivan]

 Brian, on 15 May 2011 - 11:05 AM, said:

Our two Windows PCs both run Vista, I don't see any need to upgrade to Win7.

But generally, I think the XP support in the SSD space is going to be just about gone by the end of the year. I guess we'll see...but Kingston is they only one I can think of in the last year that's specifically mentioned they want to support XP.

Yea wanted to clarify that Brian is talking about his home systems, not our test rigs