How is reliability of Crucial C300 SSD in X220?

Hi,

I'm interested in getting an SSD in the X220 and since now ALL 9.5mm SSD can be installed without voiding the warranty (see this german link with pics: ThinkPad-Forum.de), I'm considering 3 SATA III drives:

Crucial C300
Crucial M4
Intel 510

I'm especially interested in the C300 because it is the cheapest now (1 year old) but still has better random reads compared to M4 and Intel 510. It is just slightly slower in write performances but it seems that random reads are what makes the system snappy... The only question concerns reliability of the drive. I know there is firmware 0007 that is supposed to solve many issues with that drive. For those who use the C300 in the X220, could you please let me know whether you experience slow-downs or freezing issues? Are your read and write speeds as expected? Any experience in performance degradation over time with the latest 0007 firmware?

I may want to pay a little more to go with the Intel 510 if reliability is better but it seems read perfs are low (even lower than 320 SATA2...) and basically it uses the same controller as the C300 so I wonder whether the reliability would be better than the Crucial since now it is not 100% intel anymore... As for the M4, I'm a little concerned about the use of 25um NAND vs 34um. Seems like the 34 is more durable...and I wonder if M4 would be more reliable compared to C300. Overall the C300 seems nice since it is low priced now.

Any comment appreciated!

 

I had a C300 in my x220 for a while (like a week, then swapped out for the original drive + mSATA). Be aware that the intel driver causes the C300 to freak out at times. Something to do with some power management signal that the C300 doesn't know how to handle. This causes the drive to completely lock up for 20 seconds or so, and an error will be logged in Event Viewer.

There is a fix for this, Solution: C300 Disk Freeze-ups in Windows 7 solved... - Crucial Community which I applied, but didn't use long enough to confirm that it entirely removed the freezing problem.

Just thought you should know.

 

Thanks chaosphenix! This is exactly the kind of experience I'm interested to know about. These kind of issues is what I don't like about non-Intel SSD. Although the C300 is "cheap" now, I don't want to play a lot with fixes and tricks to have it working. If Intel SSD work out of the box, I may consider the 510 even if its more expensive and a tad slower. I may also be interested to know if the M4 works out of the box or if it also needs fixes. I mean having to apply a few fixes is OK but it just doesn't look good.

 

I have the old crucial in my SSD desktop and have had no trouble with it at all.

Renee

 

Moved my C300 from an X200T to X201T to my W520. Best drive ever owned, reaches insane transfer speeds in the W520 over the X201T (Sata3 vs Sata2) and the one glitch with the power management driver is fixed by a registry setting.

 

Oh, it also hits 7.9 for my WEI index - non-raid.

 

Yes after reading Crucial forums it seems that the registry fix solve the freezing issues on the C300. However this fix deactivates LPM which is supposed to improve battery life. Any experience with that? Also do you know how the drive behaves over time? No performance issues? I've seen some tests that show decreased performances over time which seems more problematic than Intel drives. However it's always benchmarks and real usage might be different.

 

Oh yea. I did notice that when I had the C300 in my x220. That was awesome

Kilou, its a great drive. Don't let the registry fix scare you off. I just wanted to make sure you knew about it. Also, LPM is a feature that is supposed to help improve battery life, however the C300 on its own is not already a power hungry beast. Compared to other SSDs, it draws quite a bit more power. However I didn't notice any battery life hit in my x220 (then again I didn't measure exact numbers). If you look at C300 benchmarks, its peak power consumption is higher than the competition.

I have used the C300 in my Vaio for about 5 months before I decided to try it in my X220. Since my Vaio is an older computer, I didn't have the LPM problem (I'm assuming the LPM is from newer intel chipsets/drivers). It was FREAKING AMAZING. On the other hand, it was my first SSD, so my opinions might be biased. Used it for 5 months with no problems. Everything loaded instantaneously (Vaio only was capable of SATA II (300MBps), so I never really even tapped into the real power of the C300.

 

If you're truly concerned about reliability, why by a drive not designed to fit the X220?

 

How does that have anything to do with reliability? The C300 can easily be modded to 7mm height.. The spacer was only put there to make it 9.5mm compliant... because that was the drive height specified by the rest of the industry..

 

Haven't noticed any battery drop. Also the performance after over half a year of use... still insanely fast. Like I said, never had a better drive. I've used Intel and Kingston drives in the past.

 

No one said you couldn't fit the drive in. You asked about reliability, but then ask about drives that are by default not compatible. It just seems odd to me. There are a number of drives which will fit and the performance difference between any of the drives is very small unless you benchmark all day.

 

The fact that it doesn't fit doesn't say anything about the reliability though. The fact that its easily moddable (because of the spacer) just shows that the spacer was only thrown in there to conform to 9.5mm industry standards..

 

Could be better. Could be worse. Since neither of us are flash engineers, we probably can't argue the point either way. My point was/is if your primary concern is reliability, getting a drive that was not designed to be used with the X220 seems counter-intuitive, regardless of whether you can do it or not. Especially since there are a number of drives that are just as good, but will work with the X220.

 

And use of the MSAHCI drivers (older Intel driver) seems to solve the freeze problems and is a bit faster to boot.

I use 2 C300s. One with the Intel driver and one with the MSAHCI. Both have no issues in the W520. And I think the issues with the latest drives are a SSD/Sandy Bridge issue as Apple is having the same problems.

Perry

 

Ok thanks to everyone for your answers! Perhaps the term reliability is a bit too strong for a drive that is "not" designed to fit in the X220 directly, that's true. But I'm more concerned about problems in the area of freezes etc rather than "physical" compatibility. One remaining question though is the heat generated by these 9.5mm drives when installed in the tiny X220... Not sure that would be an issue but honestly I don't feel like getting an Intel 320 when the laptop supports SATA III....just because the 320 is a 7mm. Of course it's certainly not a bad drive but would you install Geo Metro tires on a Ferrari???.......even after removing the spacers

I still can't decide between the Intel 510, M4 and C300 all in 120-128Gb.... Benchmarks give me headaches!