Crucial M4 SSD Firmware Update (0009) Boosts Performance

Final Thoughts & Conclusions

Performing the firmware update is simple and Crucial provides a very nice guide to walk you through it. All it takes is downloading the firmware, burning an image to a disc, and then running the installer. Of course, be sure to back up all data first. The updater is not destructive so this is a precaution only. Although the documentation doesn’t reference Mac computers, there are reports of Mac users on Intel based machines successfully performing the updates on their machines while others have said they weren’t able to get it to work and had to use a PC. It may be worth a try before tearing things apart.

At this point we’ll say congratulations to Crucial for the excellent job they did on their latest firmware update. As promised, we saw significant performance increases in many areas. The sequential read scores on the ATTO benchmark using compressible data increased over 18%. Just as impressively, the incompressible data scores on CrystalDiskMark increased up to 30% which is a massive increase. Even our real world tests showed a positive result from the new firmware. Honestly, we see no reason not to go ahead and apply the update immediately. We all know there can be some risk with firmware updates, as the saying goes – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. However, there’s been enough time since it was released and there doesn’t appear to be any reported issues so as long as you back up your data you should be fine.

Legit Bottom Line: Crucial has released a firmware update that offers up significant performance improvements, among other things, and all for the low, low price of free.