Crucial v4 (256GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on November 22, 2012 1:01 PM ESTIntroduction
The biggest reason why SSDs have not become truly mainstream (yet) is price. While prices have come down significantly over the last year, you are are still paying roughly $0.75 per GB, whereas hard drives can usually bought for less than $0.10 per GB. For an enthusiast, it shouldn’t be a problem to pay up to ten times more per GB if it yields significantly better performance, but the consumer market is much harder to convince. Most aren’t ready spend hundreds of dollars on a single component, especially if there is a cheaper alternative that is sufficient. In this case, hard drives also offer more capacity, which can make it very hard for consumers to understand the benefits of an SSD.
Besides price, there is another problem. Most SSDs sold today are SATA 6Gbps but the vast majority of computers are only compatible with older and slower SATA 1.5Gbps and 3Gbps standards. That means consumers who don’t have a SATA 6Gbps compatible computer will not be able to take advantage of the extra IO bandwidth that the SATA 6Gbps SSDs offer, and it may feel pointless to pay for something you can’t use. Of course, there are previous generation SSDs that are SATA 3Gbps but they aren’t necessarily cheaper due to the use of more expensive NAND (2Xnm vs 3Xnm).
However, almost any SSD is faster than a traditional hard drive, be that 2.5” 5400RPM, 3.5” 7200RPM or even a 10,000RPM VelcoiRaptor. Crucial sees that there is a market for low-end SSDs, which are not as fast as today’s fastest drives but offer a more affordable $/GB ratio. The v4 SSD is specifically targeted at consumers with SATA 3Gbps and due to the usage of a cheaper controller, Crucial was able to price the drive below its 6Gbps counterparts...but is it priced low enough to really sell?
Crucial v4 Specifications | ||||
Capacity | 32GB | 64GB | 128GB | 256GB |
NAND | Micron 25nm synchronous MLC NAND | |||
Controller | Phison PS3105 | |||
Sequential Read | 200MB/s | 230MB/s | 230MB/s | 230MB/s |
Sequential Write | 60MB/s | 100MB/s | 175MB/s | 190MB/s |
4K Random Read | 10K IOPS | 10K IOPS | 10K IOPS | 10K IOPS |
4K Random Write | 1.2K IOPS | 2.4K IOPS | 4K IOPS | 4K IOPS |
Performance wise the v4 is significantly behind SATA 6Gbps SSDs. Sequential speeds are actually fairly normal for SATA 3Gbps SSDs but random speeds are awful to get straight to the point. Even the Intel SSD 320 has three to four times higher random read/write speeds and it's a year and a half old drive, so the random performance is really not good by today's standards. We'll soon see how the random speeds impact real world performance, but the specs aren't overwhelming.
NewEgg Price Comparison (11/22/2012) | ||||
Capacity | 32GB | 60/64GB | 120/128GB | 240/256GB |
Crucial v4 | $50 | $65 | $85 | $160 |
Crucial m4 | N/A | $73 | $110 | $200 |
Samsung 830 | N/A | $70 | $104 | $200 |
Intel SSD 330 | N/A | $70 | $104 | $140 |
Plextor M5S | N/A | $50 | $110 | $200 |
OCZ Vertex 4 | N/A | $80 | $75 | $160 |
OCZ Agility 4 | N/A | $75 | $95 | $165 |
Mushkin Enhanced Chronos | N/A | $65 | $100 | $165 |
As for the pricing, the v4 is cheaper compared to it's big brother m4 but there are other, faster SSDs that offer similar pricing. For example the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos is only $5-15 more expensive depending on the capacity and there are others such as Kingston SSDNow V+200 and OCZ Agility 3 that are priced equivalently. Samsung's 830 drives are also regularly on sale, and we've seen the 128GB drive go for as little as $85 with the 256GB now routinely on sale for $170 or so (or $190 for the kit). Even if you're stuck with a 3Gbps SATA connection, it's a safe bet that $5 to $10 more will get you much better performance. How much better? We'll get to that on page three....
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andrejg - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link
For my HP635 notebook with AMD E450 chipset/platform. It turned out, that it is incompatible with notebook. Tried all kinds of tricks, from FW updates/upgrades... SSD just sometimes , not allways, didn't work properly at boot, showing boot sector problems and errors. The same SSD works very good in a desktop. Anyway, it is priced too high to be worth considering, since you can get Intel 330 or Samsung 830 for couple of euros more, but with much much higher speeds and with latest SATA speed.Oh, and before giving up I really spent many days in front of google, forums, support pages from HP and Crucial etc. What is funny is, that this very HP635 is stated as supportedfor a v4 128 on a Crucial web site...
jack.fxx - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link
The SSD you bought is probably faulty and you should ask for replacement. Even if it's not faulty, it still doesn't work as specified.batguiide - Sunday, December 9, 2012 - link
Sharea website with you ,
( socanpower. ca)
Believe you will love it.
laptop battery,CPU fan,AC power adapters.DC power adapters and laptop keyboard.
I bought two. Cheap, good quality, you can
go and ship with there.
legalsuit - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
So I bought a Crucial v4 128gb to use in my PC laptop. It was slower than the hdd, so I moved it to a desktop... still too slow... then finally as a last ditch effort, I threw into an old 2006 Mac Book Pro (A1150). Wow, it worked perfectly.Just goes to show. Old tech and old tech make a happy marriage. And don't get this if you have anything newer, just won't work right.