Samsung 840 EVO SSD: Tested At 120, 250, 500, And 1000 GB

[JPNpower]

Hey Plextor, you got some serious danger in this product. C'mon give us the M6 already

 

[cryan]

Surely it would make sense to compare it to the vanilla SSD840. Also, there's no 840 Pro in the power charts.

While the 1TB drive coming down to ~65c/GB is nice, seeing the 120 GB drives get near there would be nice. Especially since this is meant to be the value king.

You're right about the power charts. I didn't even notice that they were missing, so I'll run back and fix it.


Regards,
C. Ryan

 

[moideux]

On the whole this article is good, though it comes across as half-baked with all the grammatical and spelling errors. What's happening to Tom's?

 

[cangelini]

On the whole this article is good, though it comes across as half-baked with all the grammatical and spelling errors. What's happening to Tom's?

Nothing. We had fewer than 100 hours to test these drives, write about them, and get our coverage translated into several other languages. Unfortunately, that meant less time for edits. Please feel free to point out the errors, though, and I'll fix them. I always do 😉

 

[J_E_D_70]

Thank you for the review! I don't give two s***s about typos.

 

[BranFlake5]

Finally affordable large size SSDs with enthusiast grade performance...

 

[Timur Born]

I don't understand exactly why the Samsung RAPID software cache should bring higher performance in *practice* than Windows' own cache? Using two software caches will lead to the same information being stored in RAM twice or even thrice, which is exactly what that the Windows cache tries to avoid since XP days.

That the usual benchmark programs get fooled is visible, as they think to be working without a software cache. So the higher values ​there are not surprising. But I would like to see more comments on why the THG Storage Bench results increase, too?! Why is RAPID software caching better than Windows' own cache in this scenario? Or does the THG SB bypass Windows' cache, too (like most benchmarks)?

By the way: ATTO allows the Windows cache to be turned ON for testing. My "old" Crucial M4 256 gets even higher read rates than the ones listed in the article once ATTO makes use of Windows' cache. Only the write rates remain significantly smaller.

Therefor an ATTO test with combinations of either or both software caches (RAPID and Windows) would be interesting.

 

[nekromobo]

Its memory DIE not memory dice.

Why isnt there comparison to Crucial m500 witch I see the main competitor for this..

 

[nekromobo]

Its memory DIE not memory dice.

Why isnt there comparison to Crucial m500 witch I see the main competitor for this..

 

[Someone Somewhere]

I'm assuming (hoping) that's a pun. Probably should be 'dies'.

 

[Au_equus]

Samsung is going to have RAPID retroactively available to the 840 pro series. Does anybody know about the 830 series?

 

[MC_K7]

Hey Plextor, you got some serious danger in this product. C'mon give us the M6 already

What do you mean? I have the 256GB version of the M5 Pro and it runs flawlessly. Max theoretical speed might be lower than other models, but that's just peak performance, you reach that only in some rare scenarios. When I purchased it all the reviews said that the M5 Pro had one of the best sustained speed, and I'll take sustained performance over peak performance anytime. I think the M5 Pro is still a very decent drive even after 1 year of release.

 

[JonnyDough]

FIVE YEAR WARRANTY OR BUST! REPLACEMENTS SENT BEFORE RECEIVING DEAD SSD! Real customer service FTW. With all the competition, I could give two craps about speed.

 

[laststop311]

i hope the 840 pro's successor gives as large of a boost as the evo did for the plain 840.

 

[laststop311]

The 1 TB drive is a good value but for the same price i can get a 960GB crucial m500 that uses 20nm MLC (2 bits per cell). The evo uses 19nm TLC (3 bits per cell). Smaller process and more bits per cell hurts the endurance of the drive. With the price being the same the nand used on the crucial ssd is longer lasting and more reliable and pretty much the same speed so I can't see why you would choose the evo over that.

 

[laststop311]

that intel 525 msata would be great in an ultrabook. only 0.58 watt average power consumption. That's a huge cut compared to a standard HDD and will give a noticeable boost to battery life just switching from a spinning hdd. And since it completes things faster it goes back to idle faster which increases the energy saving gains even more.

 

[JPNpower]

Hey Plextor, you got some serious danger in this product. C'mon give us the M6 already

What do you mean? I have the 256GB version of the M5 Pro and it runs flawlessly. Max theoretical speed might be lower than other models, but that's just peek performance, you reach that only in some rare scenarios. When I purchased it all the reviews said that the M5 Pro had one of the best sustained speed, and I'll take sustained performance over peek performance anytime. I think the M5 Pro is still a very decent drive even after 1 year of release.

I know... I love Plextor, just wishing for more goods.

 

[jackt]

this should replace the 840 serie, now I expect an EVO PRO...

 

[hero1]

Nice review for a nice SSD line. I will indeed consider this but the Intel 3500 has me shook and add in the fact that Samsung has no warranty for products purchased in Canada makes it a no brainer that most of us Canucks should be avoiding them. Other than that, I like what they brought out and the pricing is icing on the cake.

 

[ceomrman2]

I really appreciate that Tom's is making an effort to include real-world performance info. I don't care how quickly a drive runs a synthetic benchmark. I want to know how a component will effect my system. To that end, overall PC Mark 7 system scores would be even MORE useful to determine what components make sense to spend your cash on, but the home-grown benchie, PC Mark 7, and the big file copy test do help a lot. I am pleased. The 1 TB drive looks like a fantastic option for premium systems, too. I know the vast majority of reads are covered by Seagate's hybrid designs, and that's great, but there is something nice about overkill.
Regarding SSD reliability, all I know if that my workplace has a slew of ThinkPad t410s with 6 years old SSDs and only a precious few have failed. Mine seems as quick as ever - I plow through a crazy amount of spreadsheets and whatnot and it's always kept up as fast as I can hit Save. For what it's worth, I have a Samsung MMCRE28G8MXP-0VBL1 (per system info).

 

[Neodinium]

Does Samsung makes the 840 series in smaller 32gb & 64gb sizes? I would rather buy 2 x 32gb or 3 x 32gb drives and run them in RAID Stripe 0 configuration than have a single 120gb drive.

 

[JPNpower]

Neodinium, it will be incredibly expensive. Would you swallow an extra $40?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Plus there's reliability issues - several times the failure rate, plus you wouldn't get any reasonable performance out of it, because it wouldn't be pushing against the SATA6Gb/s barrier like the 250GB+ ones are.

 

[WILLYumDAO]

So basically, with the retroactive RAPID, 840 Pro will still be superior? (Debating on buying a Pro or EVO at the 120/128GB range.)

 

[Someone Somewhere]

About the same, maybe very slightly slower in sequential read.

You're not being SSD bottlenecked - it's pretty much impossible to tell the difference between even moderately recent SSDs without benchmarks.