The Samsung SSD 830 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 24, 2011 1:02 AM EST- Posted in
- SSDs
- Storage
- Samsung
- pm830
- Samsung SSD 830
Final Words
The Samsung SSD 830 isn't the fastest drive we've tested, but it generally produces results in the upper echelon of high-end SSDs. If Samsung is able to at least match the current pricing of the SSD 470 and continue its excellent track record in drive reliability, I can see the 830 being a fine recommendation for pretty much any desktop user. The power consumption numbers are a bit troubling but as I alluded to earlier, we are testing a ridiculously high capacity unit - it remains to be seen how smaller capacity drives fare in the power charts.
It's amazing to see Samsung come so far in the enthusiast space. From a drive that I simply wouldn't recommend to building a downright competitive solution backed by a near flawless track record. What I'm even more excited about with this drive is the fact that it will likely find its way into a number of high end OEM systems over the next year. Although I'm glad that more manufacturers are offering SSDs with their systems, I'm often disappointed by their controller selection. If the PM830 is included in the option pool for the next round of design wins however, I'll be much more comfortable recommending that users tick the vendor-supplied SSD option (*cough* Apple).
I've had the SSD 830 for less than a week and in my limited testing it does seem to do very well. I'll be hammering on it for the weeks and hopefully months to come but as I've already mentioned, Samsung's reputation for reliability rivals that of Intel. Despite the praise though I do wish Samsung would more significantly address one of its long standing issues. I honestly believe Intel has the right idea of performing as much garbage collection in real time as possible. Very few (if any) desktop workloads require > 100MB/s of small file random writes, I would gladly trade some performance there for higher numbers in a fragmented state. Idle time garbage collection just seems like an ineffecient way to do things, you end up dealing with very high write amplification and potentially harm the overall user experience when you're not idle as a result.
In the end I welcome the 830 as another high-speed option in the 6Gbps space. We have a number of great performers to choose from, but what matters most today is reliability and solid validation testing. The Samsung SSD 830 may be able to join Intel's SSD 510 in delivering both of those without sacrificing performance.
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piiman - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
Might have something to do with Apple's and Samsungs legal issues. They seem to be trying to kill each other at the moment and having your supply line coming from someone you are suing and being sued by, isn't a good idea. Has soon as those supply contracts are up Samsung may tell them to kiss their $%@#lyeoh - Sunday, September 25, 2011 - link
It's probably less of "killing each other" and more of haggling and "poker" between the two.By diversifying Apple can say to Samsung, "Go ahead, make my day".
Havor - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
Wit most SSDs the size realy matters, why not just format a drive in to different size partitions.Format one partition to 120GB and fill the other 392GB partition up data so it cant be used for trim or any other optimizing benefits.
Because I am sick and tired of these firms sending big SSDs that dont represent real world use, as I will never buy a +$700 512GB drive, the sweets spot for most people is around 120/128GB.
I wane know how a 120/128GB drive preforms not a model that's way above my budget.
akedia - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
Partitioning wouldn't affect the number of channels, which does affect performance quite a lot, so you'd end up with numbers that reflect no actual product at all.juhatus - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
With Samsung's budget on these..EMC is using Samsung drive's in their enterprise storage products (Clariion) and they are the same sata drive's, except different stamp.
If its good enough for the enterprise-class serious work than it sure is good enough for consumers.
When's the availability for consumers?
jwcalla - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
It seems that every SSD article I read on AnandTech ends with a plug for an Intel drive. I understand some of the logic there, but it's not like Intel has an unblemished reliability record. The 320 fiasco was just as bad as anything we saw with the Corsair or SandForce drives. And IMO the price premium of the Intel 510 weighs heavily against it in comparison to, say, the m4 or Samsung options.Fun Guy - Monday, September 26, 2011 - link
Agreed - the reviews at New Egg show Crucial to be top dog, with Intel somewhere near the middle.JarredWalton - Monday, September 26, 2011 - link
I can't take Newegg reviews seriously, though: "I bought this product with my own money, so now I have to praise it to avoid buyer's remorse." Sure, there are bad reviews and good reviews out there, but even taking the average review score at Newegg isn't as useful as a real review looking at benchmarks and comparing with other drives.Crucial is one of the cheapest SSDs and still offers good performance, which is what most Newegg shoppers are after. Intel on the other hand charges a price premium, which is precisely what Newegg shoppers don't like. Outside of the 320 "fiasco" (which is something we warn about with every new SSD), Intel SSDs have proven very reliable over time, particularly compared with their contemporaries. The G1 no-TRIM thing was Intel being greedy, but G1 still worked quite well for the vast majority of users (even if it could get backed into a corner where performance would tank). G2 wasn't the fastest in its day, but it was fast enough and rarely gets into the poor performance realm.
Ultimately, if I'm putting my data on a device, I want it to be long-term reliable. So, I'm not buying any brand-new SSD or HDD. I let it stew for a couple months at least and then see if there are any issues cropping up. That gets you around things like SF-2200 issues, Intel 320, etc.
Oxford Guy - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
"The G1 no-TRIM thing was Intel being greedy, but G1 still worked quite well for the vast majority of users (even if it could get backed into a corner where performance would tank)."In other words, it was a reliability issue because the vendor could not be relied upon to do the right thing.
elerick - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
Anand you used a Intel h67 in your test bed and I am currently run a 990FX chipset. Due to budget I'm looking for a good 120GB SSD(OS drive), what would you recommend? Also I cant wait if there is something around the corner.