Hardware Samsung SSD 840 Evo 120GB, 500GB, 750GB, 1TB Review

Samsung's latest SSDs are superfast and available in sizes up to 1TB.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2013/07/25/samsung-ssd-840-evo-500-750gb-1tb-revie/1

 

Up to double the performance of other drives, and still sell it for a really reasonable price? My god i love Samsung.

 

I'm very skeptical about Rapid Mode, and dubious about the value of including it in the benchmarking. As far as I can make out, when using it, you've essentially got a RAM drive with lazy save to disk; but the whole reason for using persistent storage rather than RAM is that it's persistent, i.e. you don't lose data when your machine crashes or the power goes out.

Did you test resiliency when using Rapid Mode? What happens when you save a document and power off the machine shortly after? Is the window for data loss increased? What is the impact on free memory for other applications? How stable is the driver that it uses, have there been stability issues in the past with it? Compatibility across Windows versions?

Personally, I'd only use it for console-like machines used for gaming and other unimportant data.

The other question I have is why the Vertex 3 240GB is faster to boot, yet slower than the Samsung drives in every other benchmark. Clearly Windows is doing something that the Vertex 3 is better at, yet it hasn't been captured by any of the synthetic benchmarks. I find myself wondering what exactly that is?

(Current owner of a Samsung 830, and would-be purchaser of Samsung 840 if I were buying tomorrow; not trying to be overly skeptical.)

 

Hmm might snag me a couple of those 1tb drives and raid them.

Yoyotech are relaunching since they were brought out and are offering some discounts on items for their launch. Info is on their Facebook page, looks like I'll be registering my launch offer on 2 of these bad boys

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

 

I share your skepticism over Rapid Mode, What happens in the event of a power cut ? how much does faster RAM affect the benchmarks ?

I can answer "Compatibility across Windows versions?", afaik its only Windows 7&8
As for "What is the impact on free memory for other applications?" afaik it uses 1GB of system RAM.

I can only theorise why the Vertex 3 240GB is faster to boot, and i think it maybe due to the higher IOPS and possibly the lower latency.

 

Firslty, well done to Samsung. I have been spending 500 GBP on SSDs for some time, 256Gb C300, 500Gb M4, so a 1Tb 840 makes sense to me.

The Rapid Mode is exactly as described. It is a ram based caching system. However please keep in mind that almost all HDD and SSDs have some form of volatile cache built in to them anyway. This is just bigger Rapid Mode is implemented as a windows driver that loads post boot, so no faster boot time. I am not sure how important it is to me to bring down my current <10s boot time from cold or 2-3s warm boot. However the performance upgrade with general use, is extremely impressive. Yes, if you are using the feature, it uses RAM so you have less for other apps.

In the event of a power cut, your PC dies unless you have a UPS. I don't know many PCs that live well with random power cuts, so I would suggest you use a UPS. Whether you choose to use Rapid Mode is up to each user and their use case. Either way, its a darn fast, cheap, well made SSD.

The hardest engineering issue with the new flash memory being used is its high latency. The way that Samsung have used some of the memory in SLC mode to offset this issue is not unique but has been implemented exceedingly well.

 

well the 840 caused a run on the 830, that's for sure.

Also: pricing, the 840 EVO is 25% up compared to the 840, and nearly on par with the 840 Pro.

Though I suppose this will change.

 

Hard to get excited about these SSD's. The technology is moving along with the release of nffg ssd's just around the corner.

 

I share your guys skepticism about RAPID mode, but it does have real-world impacts. Slicing 2 seconds off boot times and dramatically improving the very difficult PC Mark 7 results is testament to that, but the power loss concerns are certainly valid. Not one for those who like to hard reset or shutdown their PCs I think.

Just to clarify, I don't think we used the RAPID performance figures for the scoring - these are based on the standard drive performance.

 

How's about a review or even a comparison between the Evo 1TB and the Crucial 960GB M500 that Ebuyer are doing for £450 at the mo???

 

I bought the 840 drive when then were doing the cashback... I'm still waiting my £40 back

 

If the power goes when the SSD is still writing out to the flash, then you lose the data.
However, if you didn't have the cache, then the OS would still be writing to disk, and you'd still lose the data. If you were using and HDD you'd lose the data and possibly suffer a head crash.

Basically, if you want resiliency then you should be looking at some kind of battery backup.
If the cache speeds up the data write then it's reducing the time that you're vulnerable to power loss. That said, the disadvantage of the cache is that the OS will think that the write has succeeded which might cause even more problems.

 

@phuzz, yes normal SSD&HDD can lose data in the event of a power failure, but most drives come with, what 8 to 64Mb ? when your dealing with what in essence is a 1GB ram drive the potential for data loss could be a lot greater.

 

Despite all the scepticism re: Rapid Mode... it still seems like a better choice of drive for performance over the 840 Pro, even without Rapid Mode.

Interesting drive... Definitely tempted.

 

True, but I would take the greater day-to-day speed over the small chance of data loss any day. Aside from which, as others have pointed out, you should really be running on a UPS anyway. If you shelled out for a half-decent system, not spending the $50 on a UPS is insane.

 

Maybe Bit-Tech should do a group test on UPS items?

 

That would be nice , i never knew they had become something your average human could afford until fluxtatic said how cheap they are now. Going to show my age here but last time i looked at UPS's they where exclusively for servers, as they cost almost as much as your average desktop PC at the time.

 

That'd be good. I've had mine since early 2005 and am thinking of an upgrade. Saved my PC again last night from a couple of brief dropouts - I have a terrible electricity supply where I am & would be lost with my UPS. (I bought it after a quick succession of spikes and dropouts killed half the components in my PC).

Corky, you mustn't half be going back a long way - I'm sure I paid less than £150 for it at the time, although they are cheaper still now.

 

Was that sometime in middle of last decade ? Because i bought a 700VA APC UPS sometime around 2008 for maybe 100 euros and i bought a newer one 1200VA Eaton UPS last year for 180 euros.

 

Longer ago than that it was in the mid 90's