Crucial m4 512GB 2.5-Inch (9.5mm) SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive CT512M4SSD2

by Crucial

• Performance - Improve boot up and application load times
• Compatibility - SATA 6Gb/s, backward compatible to SATA 3Gb/s
• Reliability - Withstand extreme shock and vibration
• Quality - Crucial, a Micron company, is a trusted name in DRAM and SSD products
• Quieter. Cooler. More Durable.
• Three Year Limited Warranty

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 4 x 2.8 x 0.4 inches ; 0.5 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B004W2JL3Y
• Item model number: CT512M4SSD2
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,770 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #11 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Data Storage > Internal Solid State Drives
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 22, 2011

Product Description

Size: 512 GB

From the Manufacturer

The Crucial m4 SSD

Award-winning quality. Award-winning performance.The award-winning Crucial m4 SSD delivers powerful performance gains for SATA 6Gb/s systems. Designed to empower your system, the Crucial m4 SSD offers faster application load times, faster boot times, and increased durability compared to a traditional hard drive. The results speak for themselves: blazing-fast sequential read speeds of up to 500 MB/s for any file type.

Cutting-edge technology. Quality component testing. Built with advanced controller technology, Micron proprietary firmware and high-speed synchronous MLC NAND, the Crucial m4 SSD is engineered to deliver consistent, blazing-fast SSD performance. From the extensive research and development that led to its ultimate design, to the hours of testing and validation spent on each NAND component, to rigorous compatibility testing in the Crucial Performance Labs to ensure component functionality, the Crucial m4 SSD is built to last.

Consistently fast speeds. No exceptions and no fine print. There's a reason the Crucial m4 SSD has garnered numerous international awards since its launch, it does what its supposed to do. No matter what kind of files you're working with on a Crucial SSD, you'll experience high speeds with no drop in performance.

Unlike other SSDs on the market, Crucial SSDs treat all files the same, regardless of whether they're compressed or uncompressed. This is important because the files most people use everyday videos, mp3s, advanced graphics files and zip files - are compressed files and thus unable to be compressed any further. While many SSDs on the market achieve faster speeds by using file compression, many of the most common file types cant be compressed, resulting in SSDs that often deliver drastically slower speeds than originally advertised. With the advanced technology of a Crucial SSD, however, you'll never have this problem!

Crucial quality you can depend on. Crucial is a trusted name when it comes to SSDs, and that's no coincidence. As a brand of Micron, one of the worlds leading manufacturers of SSDs, we work with our engineers to design, refine, and support our drives. With over 15 years of experience in the memory industry, NAND component testing, and the ongoing development of advanced technology, we continue to innovate without sacrificing what has made us great: high-quality upgrades and outstanding customer service.

Crucial SSDs. Performance you can trust.

Product Description

512GB Crucial M4 2.5IN SATA 6GB/S

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

668 of 695 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Made my old laptop lightening fast August 5, 2011

By David D. Arnold

Size Name:128GB

Test Laptop - Dell Latitude D630 - 2.0GHz core 2 duo with 4GB ram
I installed this drive and then installed Windows XP pro. When complete I then installed Windows 7 home premium and set laptop up as a dual boot system. I then tested both by booting into Windows XP and Windows 7. I then ran every update and every service pack on both Windows XP SP3 and Windows 7 SP1. I installed antivirus, adobe reader, Microsoft Office 2007, Firefox 5.0, etc. When all was perfect with both operating systems I pulled out he HD and cloned it over to a brand new standard SATA drive. Then came the fun of testing both HD's and OS's for boot times, etc.
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Pros: $2 per GB is a great price. Drive will breathe new life into ANY PC. Easy to install, lots of fun. Drive has NEVER locked up for me, not with hibernation, sleep mode anything.
Cons: $2 per GB is a lot higher than a standard SATA drive. Firmware was hard to locate, although easy to install.

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Windows XP Pro
Standard SATA HD - power on to hear windows startup sound 1:30 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 - power on to hear windows startup sound :22 seconds
Standard SATA HD - power on to fully pull up www.google.com 1:55 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 - power on to fully pull up www.google.com :28 seconds
Standard SATA HD - power on to hard drive activity light to go off completely 1:45 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 - power on to hard drive activity light to go off completely :29 seconds
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Windows 7 Home Premium SP1
Standard SATA HD - power on to hear windows startup sound 2:10 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 - power on to hear windows startup sound :20 seconds
Standard SATA HD - power on to fully pull up www.google.com 3:00 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 - power on to fully pull up www.google.com :25 seconds
Standard SATA HD - power on to hard drive activity light to go off completely 3:30 seconds
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 - power on to hard drive activity light to go off completely :26 seconds
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All of this was with original firmware 001, I did update (after all testing) to 002 but nothing changed HD runs solid and sleeps/hibernates, etc. runs like a dream with 0 issues for me. It has never locked up. I cannot imagine how fast this drive would be in a new PC or laptop with an i7 CPU and more ram. Sadly my laptop is now so fast there is no way that I can justify replacing anytime soon. Buy this drive you will not be sorry.

519 of 549 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Works great in 2011 Macbook Pro (and mid-2012 MBP) August 30, 2011

By J. Z.

Size Name:256GB

I originally wrote a glowing review about this SSD which I purchased about 6 months ago and after updating this review so many times it became cluttered. I still stick to my 5-star review but I'm going to reorganize this review for the sake of everyone else out there.

Before I get started, this review is for the 256GB model. The Sequential Write speeds (as advertised by Crucial) vary between the models:
64GB model: 95 MB/sec; 128GB model: 175 MB/sec; 256GB model: 260 MB/sec; 512GB model: 260 MB/sec.

This drive was installed in my current 13" Macbook Pro and I have had excellent results. After 6 months: No hang ups; no problems going in and out of sleep; everything is SO much faster. Bootup is less than 30 seconds; Firefox opens nearly instantly; About this Mac loads instantly; Disk Utility permission repair runs in under a minute; multitasking is smoother; just overall snappiness. The first thing I showed to a friend when he scoffed at the price was to open every single app in my dock at once (multiple browsers, the CS-3 suite, final cut, all of the iLife programs, LibreOffice). While on my old HDD I probably would have sat there loading forever, this time I didn't even get a pinwheel. Even my websites would load quicker. I've noticed my system backups are quicker when writing to an external harddrive using a Firewire 800 port, and my DVD ripping is about 15% quicker.

I always see people saying that a huge benefit of an SSD is better battery life. I've noticed almost no change in real world usage although I'm sure there is a minimal difference. Don't expect your battery life to change dramatically though. My computer is significantly quieter (and has less vibrations) which is very nice when I'm watching a movie late at night.

A huge selling point for the M4 is a three year warranty and the fact that it is SATA III (which my macbook pro supports; not sure about previous models). The additional throughput allows for a huge speed increase. It's predecessor - the C300 - was highly regarded and I've had great luck with Crucial so I'm confident that this was a good purchase.

Info about M4's firmware:
I bought this while running OS 10.6.8 and ran Rev 0001 firmware. I had no problems at all but eventually upgraded to Rev 0002. Soon after Rev 0009 came out which I then upgraded to as well and have been using for about 5 months so that's what the majority of my review is based on. There was a large speed difference when running benchmark software between Rev 0009 and previous firmware but real world difference could be another thing. To upgrade firmware just download from the Crucial website, burn to CD, and boot from the CD. It's all very very simple.

Regarding TRIM:
While I was running Snow Leopard 10.6.8, TRIM was listed as disabled. I've heard it was because only Apple-branded SSDs will turn on TRIM, but there is software floating around to enable TRIM support. I chose not to run the software because I didn't know the developer but it could be perfectly fine. I ended up upgrading to Lion 10.7 (now 10.7.3) and TRIM is still listed as disabled. Someone in the comments below mentions to search "enable trim mactrast" and follow the directions to enable TRIM. I followed the directions on the site and now TRIM is supported. TRIM is important for wear leveling and to prevent a decrease in speed overtime and the directions take all of 2 minutes to follow so it's highly recommended.

Optimizing your SSD: I haven't seen much that will make a difference but the first thing I did was disable the Sudden Motion Sensor. I also went into Energy Saver and turned off "put hard disks to sleep when possible." Then I repaired disk permissions and verified the disk in Disk Utility for a final time. I've heard of disabling Spotlight, but I use it so I decided against it.

Regarding Windows 7 and Bootcamp: Some people have luck with Winclone to copy their Windows 7 partition from Bootcamp. I didn't have luck but I'm not overly concerned since I don't want to give up 20GB of space (minimal size Boot Camp Assistant allows) for an OS I don't really need and rarely use. This isn't a problem related to the SSD, but I just thought I'd mention that.

Still speedy, average about 12 hours of use per day. For those looking for some Macbook Pro specs:
Results 443.78
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.7.3 (11D50b)
Physical RAM 8192 MB
Model MacBookPro8,1
Drive Type M4-CT256M4SSD2
Disk Test 443.78
Sequential 272.50
Uncached Write 465.35 285.72 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 444.25 251.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 112.01 32.78 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 740.20 372.02 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 1194.66
Uncached Write 1095.88 116.01 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 816.10 261.26 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2098.55 14.87 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 1362.67 252.85 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Follow Up, Aug 30th:
Over the past weekend I've had consistent spinning beach balls and system freezes. I also upgraded to 10.8.1 last week which I assume has something to do with it. After a few days of panic at the thought of replacing my hard drive I decided to try updating the firmware from Rev 0009 to 0309. Currently running 0309 for the past 12 hours without any hang ups like before. I'm not sure what the problem was but 0309 appears to be the firmware to run for macbooks running OS X.

202 of 218 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent product June 7, 2011

By H. Singh

Size Name:128GB|Amazon Verified Purchase

I purchased this product for my Asus U36JC-B1 which is the super slim notebook offering from Asus. The speed on this laptop is already very good, but I know with the 500gb SATA at the heart of it, slow down would be inevitable. So after purchasing the Crucial C300 for my HP DV7-2040us I decided to pick up this newer model for my Asus. I cloned my original 500GB SATA drive to this using Acronis True Image 2009 and a external USB 2.5" case. Acronis adjusted the partitions so everything fitted perfectly, including the recovery partition which are critical on these drives considering there is no optical drive.

I also made sure all setting were adjusted in Windows 7 64bit to account for the new drive, including disabling defrag and indexing, enabling TRIM, and if need be disabling LPM in the registry. Make sure you download the latest Intel Rapid Storage Driver, this can have a dramatic impact on speeds and how the drive is handled by Windows.

Intel Rapid Storage Driver: [...]

I am not disappointed with this hard drive, here's why:

Boot times are much quicker,
Application response is very quick,
No unreliability issues (thus far),
Battery life appears to have improved,
Switching from steel to plastic makes it slightly lighter,
Easy to install, remove your old SATA drive and plug this one in, easy!,

Installing one of these is like having a new laptop (in my opinion) the speed increase is dramatic, over and above a CPU upgrade.

I'm not trying to be a poster boy for Crucial but I am so impressed with these drives, I purchased another 2! 1x 128gb and 1x 64gb M4. I have a total of 4 Crucial drives running in different computers.

I highly recommend this product.