News - Crucial pushes SSD price boundaries

[Noli]

Well I installed it and after a brief scare where it failed to format twice, I pushed the SATA cable in more and heard a slightly worrying click (or crack!?) but then it quick formatted in about 15 secs. This particular cable is usually attached to a raptor and from experience, it quite often comes loose etc.

Anyway, went to device manager, selected drive, details, hardware IDs (dropdown menu) and the lines showed that it indeed was firmware revisions 0007.

Next I checked out its SMART status using the intel SSD toolbox I usually use for my Intel X25-M SSD and it confirmed a Power Cycle Count of 1 and Power-On Hours Count of 0 so yay, despite being refurbished, the drive exhibits all the signs of being fresh and new... just thought I'd say in case anyone was interested.

Now I'll need to wait to get something (lappy) to install it into....

[aceuk]

That is strange, As most people who bought them said they had version 0007.

Besides me, there are a few other people who got the 0006 firmware on the HotUKDeals forums.

think I've hit my eSATA's maximum. HDTune tops out at 115MB/s, averaging 109MB/s.

3Gb/s or 6Gb/s eSATA? Which one did you get? The 64GB model is a bit slower than the others.

What is interesting is whether I can SMART test the drive to see if how many write cycles, if any, have already been made.

There isn't any point. Crucial have reset them all back to 0 so there's no way to tell.

[aceuk]

despite being refurbished, the drive exhibits all the signs of being fresh and new...

These Crucial SSDs are like an old car where the speedo has been reset back to 0 miles.

[Sputnik]

Besides me, there are a few other people who got the 0006 firmware on the HotUKDeals forums.

Maybe they were refurbished before 0007 was released ?

These Crucial SSDs are like an old car where the speedo has been reset back to 0 miles.

Yeah, I agree. You won't know what the Smart data was before refurbing.

[Ady168uk]

got mine, 128gb, got win7 installed, well chuffed not the fastest one on the market but its made a massive difference to the system.

[miniyazz]

3Gb/s or 6Gb/s eSATA? Which one did you get? The 64GB model is a bit slower than the others.

Pffft none of this 64GB rubbish 256GB all the way!

Not sure on the eSATA but I suspect 1.5Gbps. It's the default eSATA on the latest Dell XPS 15. Anyway once plugged in internally, it exceeds 350MB/s read on ATTO with it as the boot drive, probably slightly faster as a secondary drive but not much in it I expect.

[Ciber]

I went for one to replace my old samsung SSD. Looking forward to an instant improvement to my PC experience as well as lots more room!

What's the best, easiest, cheapest, software to image from a system drive to a new SSD? I've found EZ Gig and it looks like it will work, has anyone tried it before? Edit: Don't bother with EZGig, only works with their hardware.

got mine, 128gb, got win7 installed, well chuffed not the fastest one on the market but its made a massive difference to the system.

They are very nearly as fast as the fastest single drives and as far as you will notice in real use the same as the fastest.

[aceuk]

What's the best, easiest, cheapest, software to image from a system drive to a new SSD?

I used EaseUS ToDo Backup to clone a 320GB HDD to my 64GB SSD. Apart from being free, the best thing is that it has an option to align the partition(s) correctly (check the box called "Optimize for SSD" on the Destination screen).

Note. DO NOT download this software from Download.com. Get it from MajorGeeks instead.

[miniyazz]

I went for one to replace my old samsung SSD. Looking forward to an instant improvement to my PC experience as well as lots more room!

What's the best, easiest, cheapest, software to image from a system drive to a new SSD? I've found EZ Gig and it looks like it will work, has anyone tried it before? http://www.apricorn.com/products/software/ezgig.html


They are very nearly as fast as the fastest single drives and as far as you will notice in real use the same as the fastest.

I used Macrium Reflect (the free version). There's the odd guide around too if you need help figuring it out, but it's pretty straightforward and does the job nicely.

[Ciber]

So, my new drive arrived and I decided to update the firmware from 006 to 007. Unfortunately it seem to be stuck as it has looked like this for just over an hour. Not sure what to do tbh. Should I stl-alt-del, leave it overnight and see what it looks like in the morning, turn off the PC? There's no obvious guidance on the crucial website.



Update: I decided the only thing I could do it turn off the PC, so I did that. I connected the SSD to a different SATA port and tried again and it worked OK.

Update 2: I tried using EZGig to clone my system drive, but it only works with their hardware, so please don't bother with that. Going to try Macruim reflect.

Update 3: The macrium reflect free version I found does not do drive cloning, but I did have success with the 30 day trial version. Expanded the partition to fill the bigger drive and it's all go. Much faster and bigger than my old samsung SSD, so I'm happy with this special ofer even if my wallet isn't! I've yet to tell the GF what I've just spent nearly £200 on, but does she need to know?

[bondlegend]

bargain. warranty is a big headache though!