Upgraded to SSD; SSD is EXTREMELY Slow

See what firmware you have on your Crucial M4.

There are a few of us here using the Crucial M4 with no issues.

Make sure your firmware is 0309. If it's the newer one, downgrade to the older firmware. it runs much better in with the mb when you have 0309.

Hey Lee....

There are a few Crucial M4 users here that have downgraded back to 0309 because of speed issues with MB.

I myself haven't done that. (firmware update)

You don't have to reinstall your software just download an update/downgrade.

Hope that sorts it out for you.

Enjoy your SSD. It's one of the best one out there. (just have a few bugs to sort out right now)

there's a member here called "clintonfrombirmingham".....shoot him a message when you see him online.

better yet, check his profile if you wish, he's email is posted there. tell him i told you to email him.

he'll help you. he's been messing around with his m4 so he knows more about it.

good luck. don't give up on your M4. might even be a simple fix that you haven't thought about yet.

You're welcome.....

I'm glad you had it all sorted out.

Enjoy your new Crucial M4 - Pretty fast eh?

Thank you so much! I bought this SSD and thought it was the drive. I ended up getting a new one and had the same problem. I downgraded and it fixed everything! Now everything runs smooth! thanks!

I had a 'spinning beachball' issue with my Crucial M4 2.5" 256GB SSD, and found the following fix to create a USB boot ISO w/ the 0309 firmware. NOTE: Do NOT update Firmware to the most recent version released 04/2012 (000F). Make sure to have your SSD backed up prior to update, unless of course you're trying to re-load.

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The SSD firmware version is stored on the SSD itself so the upgrade does not need to be carried out on the system the SSD will be used in. The easiest way to upgrade the firmware is by connecting the SSD to a system that has a CD drive.

If this is not possible, you can follow these steps to create a bootable USB flash drive and upgrade the firmware from that.

1. Connect an empty USB flash drive

2. Download rEFIt-syslinux from the link below. This will allow your USB drive to be recognized as a startup volume by the Mac.

http://blog.io101.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/rEFIt-Syslinux.dmg_.zip

3. Mount the dmg. This will mount two volumes called 'rEFIt' and 'SYSLINUX'

4. Open a Terminal and take a note of which volume is which with the command <diskutil list>

e.g. /dev/disk1 for the USB drive and /dev/disk2 for the dmg

5. Unmount (NOT eject) both volumes, after you have confirmed the two new volumes (e.g. disk1 & disk2):

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2

You should get a message saying you were successful

6. Copy the dmg onto the USB drive:

dd if=/dev/disk2 of=/dev/disk1 bs=1m

You should get a message detailing the number of records in and out and number of bytes transferred

7. Eject both:

diskutil eject /dev/disk1

diskutil eject /dev/disk2

8. Unplug and plug back in the USB drive and mount the SYSLINUX volume

9. Download the firmware version 0309 for the M4 SSD here:

http://edge.crucial.com/firmware/m4/0309/Crucialm4_0309.zip

10. Unzip and mount the firmware ISO and go into the folder BOOT, then ISOLINUX

11. Copy the contents into the SYSLINUX volume

12. Delete the existing file syslinux.cfg and rename ISOLINUX.CFG to syslinux.cfg

13. Reboot your mac and hold the option key to select a boot volume and select the eEFIt volume, then choose the "Boot legacy OS SYSLINUX' option

14. Follow the instructions to update the firmware.

I am trying to do the firmware update to the M4 256gb on my early 2011 MBP from a cd. It boots just fine from the cd but the firmware Doesn't show my drive in the list of eligible drives. I can boot from this SSD and it work (really slowly) but it works.

Does anyone know why firmware 0309 won't find my drive?

Use the USB method I described above.....it works! Not sure why firmware can't use your cd, you can do a txt chat with Crucial support reps, they may help. Good Luck.