[Brian]

Samsung has released their third generation SSD, the SSD 840 Pro. As the name implies, the 840 Pro is designed for enthusiasts and entry enterprise markets.

Samsung SSD 840 Pro Review

[Lamb0]

So far, it looks like I'll lean toward the old 830 in the "reliable bang4buck" segment while it's still available. However, I would have liked to see the M5Pro rather than the M5S compared for the performance segment. There's clearly some big penalties when trying to pinch too many pennies!

[Brian]

We haven't reviewed our M5P yet but will get to it. Honestly, Plextor didn't give us enough time to review the drive when they sampled it out. It takes use normally 2+ weeks to gather drive data before we can even start the review. For most other sites this task is done in an afternoon. So we de-prioritized it, choosing to focus on embargos we could hit or drives that we have that are exclusive.

As to the 830, for most users, the benefits of the 840 are going to be subtle as you've seen. Samsung does make a good drive though, so you'll be fine either way is my guess.

[[ETA]MrSpadge]

The 840 Pro is clearly superior to the 830, but as the 830 is (still considerably) cheaper I'd go with that one.

You might want to rebalance your conclusion a bit after the power consumption update from Samsung, or when some independent measurements confirm this low power consumption in laptops.

It's also interesting that the 840 Pro was clearly ahead in Anands heavy and light real world tests, whereas it doesn't do so well in yours. Well, actually anything non-Sandforce has trouble keeping up with the SF-boys there.

MrS

[Brian]

Fair enough on power, we tweaked it some. Quoting power like that is still silly though, especially when in the reviewers guide they put the DIPM numbers next to the 830's desktop numbers to imply the new one is unicorn power infused or some such.

[ChrisMcPole]

Nah, still waiting for Corsair Performance Pro refresh with 88SS9187. This sammy does not look good at all considering the competition.

[Donuts]

You'd be right to call Samsung out on their complete-BS-for-marketing power consumption figures.

I bet Samsung give very different figures to OEMs looking to integrate Samsung SSDs in their products. The label on the drive itself shows it rated at 5V 1.5A (i.e. 7.5W). Presumably that number is just over the maximum possible instantaneous power consumption of the drive.

Samsung say their figures are "based on MobileMark 2007", but that benchmark wouldn't stress an SSD at all. I reckon Samsung's "active" power consumption figure is an average power consumption over some test run, where the drive would actually have been idle over 90% of the time. MobileMark 2007 is a completely unsuitable way to derive an active power consumption figure, unless you're wanting to mislead consumers. Any reasonable person would assume, unless it's clearly stated otherwise, that active power consumption means power when the drive is actually reading or writing data.

Your review's ~3.5W figure shows how misleading Samsung's marketing power figures are. 3.5W is over fifty times Samsung's published active figure. I bet if you were to enable DIPM on your desktop system or test the drive in a laptop, the sustained write power would still be similar to your review 3.5W figure.

There's been some criticism of MobileMark 2007 for giving overly-optimistic battery life figures. The same would apply to using it to calculate drive active power. None of the applications in the benchmark stress the disk much.

Here's a quote from a MobileMark 2007 white paper:

Quote

The Productivity module is somewhat more complex. One cycle of this workload is
completed every two hours. There is a fixed amount of work that takes place within that
period of time, with the balance of the time taken by fixed-length and variable-length user
delays distributed throughout the workload to simulate user “away” or “think” time. The
variable-length pauses ensure that a faster system and a slower system will do the same
amount of work in a given amount of time. This two-hour cycle is repeated until the
battery is depleted.

So as well as using applications which don't do much disk I/O, the MobileMark 2007 Productivity test pauses/waits a lot of the time. That would further increase the proportion of idle time.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, based on the reviews I've read the 840 Pro does seems like a great drive. It's just that Samsung's ridiculous marketing power figures make them come across as a bunch of charlatans.

This post has been edited by Donuts: 01 October 2012 - 10:50 AM

[nightwatch]

So do you guys know why we haven't seen sales on 512GB 830 SSDs? I saw the 256GB for $149 this week. The 256 still stays above $530. Why? And especially with he 540 coming out. I need a 480 or 512 and it looks like I'll have to go with Mushkin DX or San Disk. It's also surprising because Samsung was building its rep on afforibulity as seen by the 830 128GB for $89 and the mentioned 256 sale.

Thanks for any insights. Btw, I'm looking for a lightly used 512GB 830 for the right price.

[Kdawgca]

Can you use 2x 256GB 830 in Raid 0? It is not ideal, but it would be cheaper and I am seeing more deals/better prices for 256GB drives.

You will likely have to ask Samsung Marketing department as Samsung deals are still pretty rare. Take a look at Storagereview Tech Bargain forum and you should see barely any Samsung deals(though you have factor in that some deals get used up before I can post it or are not that great).

If you can wait, there should be more sales/price cuts on 512GB SSDs...they are becoming more common.
For example:

Quote

512GB deals on mainly OCZ/Crucial from the Storagereview tech bargain forum:

3 so far - October

2 - September

1 - August

[nightwatch]

To Kdawgca - I have two 256s in a RAID 0 for a file drive for two reasons. One, I needed more space and two, even on SATA II it's a little faster. But I'd rather not RAID a boot SSD. One, because TRIM isn't supported in a RAID. And on boot drives files get deleted a lot. My file drive, nothing ever gets deleted. So TRIM isnt so important. And two, I'm out of drive bays. I'd prefer to keep my boot drive a single SSD.

I like Samsung products, but the 830 doesn't seem to be that fast anyway. It's probably the slower buss I have. I'd rather not get a Sandforce SSD, but I can get a 480/512GB Mushkin or SanDisk at Newegg for about $200 because I have a gift card.

But I'd like to see Samsung have some sales on the 830 512GB. It doesn't make any sense that they're not. At least nothing that I know about. That's why I'm asking if anyone knows why. But at least you mentioned some. I think what's happening is that the sales started with the 64GBs, then 128s then the 256s and I think we're about to see deals on 512s. Hopefully Samsung will join in. I really like the 830 line overall.

Thanks

By the way, I'm not trying to be off topic. I'm reading everyone's remarks on the 840 and 840 Pro because I'm interested in those too. The IOPS are higher, right. But the specs on the 840 did not blow me away. Certainly not what I expected after the 830. Unless one of you can tell me otherwise, I'm still more interested in a 512GB 830 than an 840. Can anyone tell me why I should be wanting an 840 more that an 830 other than the price?

Thanks all!