Samsung SSD 840 Evo Review: 250GB & 1TB Drives Tested

Julio Franco

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[newwindow=https://www.techspot.com/review/709-samsung-840-evo-ssd/]https://www.techspot.com/review/709-samsung-840-evo-ssd/[/newwindow]

Please leave your feedback here.
 
Heh, I was completely oblivious to the fact there were 1TB SSDs out there. I just imagined the prices to be too expensive to even bother. Now I see, $650? Damn.
 
I don't own an EVO, but I have one of the 840 Pro series (256GB) and I can say I am completely satisfied with it. I think it also comes with a 5 year warranty which is pretty generous.
 
I just went from a Pro to Evo. The 128GB Pros have poor (if you can call it that) read performance (~350MBs) for some reason.

If overprovisioned the 250 Evowrites 500-600. Without overprovisioning, it writes the same as the PRO ~350MBs. If you want to spare 1G RAM Rapid boost takes writes through the roof, but IMO it's not really worth it.
 
I'll stick with a platter drive for now. Booting isn't an issue. I leave the laptop in sleep mode, the home computer the same, might reboot once a month or so. A small SSD for booting and a conventional drive for storage would be the way to go, if I got an SSD.
 
I'm also wondering what the relevance is of Sata 3.1? Surely Intel could push out an update to allow newer motherboards to take advantage?
 
I'm also wondering what the relevance is of Sata 3.1? Surely Intel could push out an update to allow newer motherboards to take advantage?
If I was gonna say probably the same relevance of PCIE-2.1 or similar :p.
But the major differences between Sata 3.0 and Sata 3.1 is some new power-saving measures, TRIM performance improvements, and just some minor random additions. The TRIM improvements are the highlight that most sites speak of when comparing the two, though its not like a night and day difference.

Honestly, in my opinion, Samsung makes some excellent drives for an excellent price. I cant believe were already at the point of affordable 1tb SSD's (I say affordable by meaning less than 75cents a Gig). I love my 512gb Samsung 840 Pro, its one heck of a drive and right now, Samsung has a customer for life when it at least comes to the SSD area (Though I do like their Speaker systems, TV's and other electronic devices).

Love this review of these drives!
 
No matter what SSD you buy today they all reached the SATA cap of possible data throughput. We desperately need a new interface (SATA 4.0) to push them to the next level.
 
No matter what SSD you buy today they all reached the SATA cap of possible data throughput. We desperately need a new interface (SATA 4.0) to push them to the next level.

You have to wait for SATA Express which is coming with Haswell-E in 2014.

And from what I read that will top out at 2 GBps
 
The question is... Do I buy now or wait for more competitors to show their products?
 
I'm also wondering what the relevance is of Sata 3.1? Surely Intel could push out an update to allow newer motherboards to take advantage?
They don't have a history of doing this. Tend to lag a bit on newer specs. They only just went > 2 SATA 6gbps ports from their controller after how many years? Next gen enthusiast chipset in late 2014 should be SATA 3.2 spec but that is only the current plan. We'll see what they actually deliver.
 
I currently have ... well I think I've said it enough times and now I feel like it's just showing off :cool:
 
TLC - Bang Headshot!

That is why this SSD is less expensive when compared to similar sized MLC or SLC. TLC should only be used for tasks which don't require any kind of data modification (e.g. storage for movies), other than that and you asking for trouble.

Not a fan of SSDs as whole, but TLC is just ludicrous idea.
 
TLC - Bang Headshot!

That is why this SSD is less expensive when compared to similar sized MLC or SLC. TLC should only be used for tasks which don't require any kind of data modification (e.g. storage for movies), other than that and you asking for trouble.

Not a fan of SSDs as whole, but TLC is just ludicrous idea.
Personally I'd never buy a TLC drive (being conservative wrt reliability and happy to splash on higher spec) but TLC drives with light to moderate users are really viable. NAND write life has been greatly under-rated in product life expectations in the specs so MLC and TLC life is much higher in reality than what the manufacturers quote on paper.

If you can't afford the extra 20%+ cost but want a massive perf increase over spinning disks, there won't be many situations where a TLC drive is going to be a real risk, especially from a company with cred in SSDs like Samsung.
 
Nice review guys, would have been good to see a comparison with Corsair's HDD's though
 
Oh my lawd .. they be doing good. Who will be first to use 4bits per cell? Clever use of TLC as SLC and dram cacheing, v.good. LSI/Sandforce are going to have to go some to beat this. And intel appear to be being left behind. No Mo mobo's?
Still not actually bought any SSd .....:shameface:
 
Hi,


Thanks for your review. I've read a lot of stuff regarding SSD's before ordering an 840 EVO 250gb. As I was looking for a "solution" more than just for a piece of hardware, I found Samsung's offer to be the more balanced in regard to my needs.

When I say "solution", I mean the ssd and the software.
When I looked at Crucial for example, these are cool ssd's, but the bundled cloning soft was not compatible with Win 8 and win 8.1 ==> you got to buy one or use a freeware as Partition Magic. I saw that Samsung adapted its own software immediatly after the release of Win 8.1. Good point.

Same thing about firmware update and OS optimisation: it seems that Samsung Magician does it all for you. And again, immediatly available for Win 8.1.

the 840 EVO is maybe not the best (but certainly not the worst either), but Samsung all in house solution (ssd, cloning soft, install kit, optimisation tool) convinced me.
 
Same here. Just had two of them installed in two trusty but aging Thinkpad T series laptops. Feels like I just got two new laptops. Nothing but good things to say so far at least. Makes moving parts tech of traditional HDs seem prehistoric all of a sudden.
 
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