Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Pros: So far I have installed this drive into one HTPC, one WHS2011 Server, 4 desktops and 2 lapstops. None have gone bad yet, with the HTPC being in service for over 1 year. I have had two problems.
There was an initial bug in the firmware that caused the SSD to shut down after about 6 minutes of uptime after the clock had hit something like 5,000hrs of use. This problem was solved with a firmware update. Tech support was helpful with this process. The 2nd problem was recent. If the SSD doesn't get a consistent power supply, like in a laptop where the power management tells the SSD to sleep all the time then, the SSD may try to turn its self completely off and now wake. Tech support suggested that I power cycle the SSD on and off several times. It took quite a few tries, more that tech support said was necessary, but Wah Lah!. It came back. Moral of the story, if you have a laptop, then make sure power management never has this go to sleep.

Cons: They are not free?

Pros: Lightening fast, no moving parts, runs cool, small.

Cons: Downloading and deleting large blocks of data (movies, etc) can mess with the garbage collector (SSD should not be defragged). I use a WD Velociraptor 1T 10,000 RPM drive for that.

Other Thoughts: I built my machine 14 months ago. The SSD has worked fine up until three days ago. It would start up fine, run for one hour, slow down and get a blue screen. Many seem to have this problem after 5000 or so hours of usage. Went to their web site and downloaded their latest firmware. PROBLEM SOLVED!!!! Thank you Crucial...

Pros: Fast... for a while.

Cons: Like so many other reviewers have experienced, mine won't boot after only 14 months. I'm working Crucial tech support for a replacement, but I'm not sure I want to use it if they haven't figured out a way to make this SSD last longer than 14 months.

Other Thoughts: This was the boot drive for my main work computer, and now I have to spend time and money just to get my machine up and running again. The scary part: I own two more of these, and I'm seriously thinking of yanking them out and replacing them before they crash too. Life is too short to put up with this junk.

Pros: Very fast for three weeks.

Cons: Died in the third week of use. Started with a BSOD, then wouldn't boot. Re-imaged the drive and it ran for a few hours before the PC refused to even recognize the drive.

Other Thoughts: At least I had kept a recent image backup of the drive from a couple of weeks ago when I transitioned from the old system. I've ordered a Samsung that I hope has better reliability than this.

Pros: best upgrade to my pc i've done yet! my old motherboard had SATA II ports (3 Gb/s) and it was still fast. i'm now using the full speed of this drive on my new mobo with SATA III ports (6 Gb/s) and its a noticeable difference.

Cons: the firmware cannot be updated if you have an ASUS motherboard with UEFI bios. not sure what's up there, but the firmware update wouldnt even recognize my SSD was connected. Crucial does warn of this issue on their website before you download the update, so i was prepared for it to possibly not work. oh well.

Other Thoughts: all in all, i'm happy with this drive. its a great price for a lot of storage for an SSD.

however, i wish i had shopped around for an SSD with a longer MTBF and faster write speeds. if the read and write speeds were both over 500 MB/s, that would be nice. still a good buy

Pros: Very fast alone; extremely fast in RAID 0 (now that TRIM is supported)

Cons: None at all

Other Thoughts: I had one M4 that was a year old, then got a new one, and they both work flawlessly in RAID 0. Now that the TRIM command can be passed through the controller, I'm getting off the chart speeds, over 1400 points in AS-SSD.

Pros: Good disk while it lasted

Cons: Died on me after 10 months.

Other Thoughts: Died on me about 2 weeks ago. I'm glad I work on an external disk, if I depended on this one I would have lost all my work in the past 8-10 months!

Pros: i only use M4 SSD's, and this one is right on par. Super fast. I've had more than a year of service without issues on my last M4.

Cons: i'm going to be a bit nit picky here, but my case requires the SSD be mounted via the bottom screw positions. when mounted this way, theres barely enough room for the sata+power cable to be attached, i needed to bend the bracket a bit to allow the plugs to fit in. could use a bit more plastic on the bottom. this is the first installation that had this issue. i'd rather attribute it to the case, rather than the SSD

Other Thoughts: i'll continue to use M4 SSD's in all my installs. i've had such success, theres no reason i should try any others :)

Pros: I have owned 1 of these for over 6 months and have never even seen it hiccup. It still performs as fast as it did the day I got it.

I recently added a 2nd one when they went on sale and use it in RAID-0 on an x79 board with updated bios to allow TRIM support. The performance is incredible. Any and every program loads in the blink of an eye.

Cons: NONE

Other Thoughts: These cards are so solid that i have no worries about them in RAID-0.

Pros: Has operated quite well since I bought it.

Cons: Might be like the C300 and stop working with no warning, causing you to lose all un-backed-up data.
Then crucial tech support will tell you to basically power cycle the drive hoping for magic and when magic doesn't happen, they ignore any further communication and your requests for a command line switch for dosmcli.exe to allow you to bypass the version check and reflash the drive.

Other Thoughts: There might not be anything wrong with this drive, but are you willing to risk it?
Crucial apparently won't tell you if one of their drive series has massive widespread firmware problems, so why take a chance?
Buy from a manufacturer that tests and repairs the firmware and controllers they're selling to you.