Samsung SSD 840 Pro (256GB) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 24, 2012 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Samsung
- Samsung SSD 840
Final Words
The performance and power characteristics of Samsung's SSD 840 Pro are as close to perfect as we've seen from any drive this generation. In all but a handful of benchmarks, the 840 Pro is the fastest consumer SSD we've ever tested. Even more important than its industry leading performance is the fact that the 840 Pro delivers great performance while remaining one of the lowest power SSDs to make it through our labs. Assuming the premature death of our review sample was a fluke and not indicative of a bigger issue, the 840 Pro could be the first drive in quite a while to offer the absolute best performance at power consumption levels that are notebook friendly. Update: Our replacement 840 Pro also died prematurely, I'd recommend holding off any purchases until we hear back from Samsung as to the cause of death. Update 2: It looks like this may have been a firmware issue. Retail drives should ship with fixed firmware.
The 830 proved quite reliable, so as long as Samsung can guarantee similar levels of compatibility and reliability out of the 840 Pro it looks to have a real winner on its hands.
The vanilla 840 is super interesting. We've never tested a 3bpc MLC drive in house, and although Samsung isn't promising huge cost savings initially - over time the move to 3bpc MLC will aggressively drive mainstream SSD prices down.
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KPOM - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
This looks like a nice SSD from Samsung offering top tier performance combined with low power consumption.nathanddrews - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
Agreed. I love my Samsung 830 drives, so at least now I know where to go when I upgrade!Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
I came THIS close to buying an 830 yesterday for my laptop. I even did a search for "Samsung 840" to see if there was any news of a successor, to no avail. Still, something stopped me from doing it, and it looks like my procrastination paid off...HisDivineOrder - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
Exact same thing happened to me. Think the sales were just a little too good lately. Made me suspicious.Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
Ha ha, come to think of it, I know exactly what you mean. And not that the 256GB 830 isn't a good deal at $200, but I think the improvements in the 840 Pro will be worth it.I wish I could justify the cost of a 500/512GB drive, but I can always throw my laptop's original HD in a hard drive caddy if I need more storage.
Grok42 - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
Same here. I kept seeing the 830 show up in sales but couldn't find any rumors about a next generation drive. I've been putting off my new build for a while now. Prior to waiting on the 840 I waited for the next Nvidia release which ended up being the 660TI. I get everyone worry about a new SSD drive but by the time I actually pull the trigger on everything it will have been out a month and I'll know by then.TrackSmart - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
If you can get the 830 at a massive discount, why not go for it? A couple of thoughts:1) I would never put a new-to-market SSD in on of my machines. It's not worth the risk. Check back in 6 months, or a year, and see how they have held up.
2) There's no discernible difference in performance among any of the top-tier SSDs under normal workloads. Anand and company make these drives jump through flaming hoops (i.e. their Bench suite) before they see differences between the drives under normal workloads.
I'd rather buy something that is fast, proven reliable, and at a good price. I'll let others be the crash test dummies for new SSDs.
Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
Yeah, I thought about that, too. Why not go for a cheaper, proven drive that's nearly as fast? On the other hand, I bought a 320 based on its reputation for reliability, and a month later, bam, 8MB power bug, so you really never know.In my case, my laptop is not a mission-critical device; I have a desktop, as well as access to other laptops in the house, so if it suddenly needs service, it's not the end of the world. It's on me to do regular backups, and the 840 Pro has a FIVE YEAR warranty. So I think maybe I will be the crash test dummy this time, for the heck of it. Worst case scenario, I can always just toss the original hard drive back in there.
peterfares - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
The thing is, you're not going to ever notice the difference between the 830 and the 840, or even the Crucial M4. I've seen the 256GB Crucial M4 for as low as $140 in the past couple weeks. That is a much better purchase than the 840 if the 256GB 840 is any more then $180 or so.Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
Back when I got my Intel 320 SSD, I bought it because of Intel's reputation for reliability. Then they went with Sandforce controllers and I just don't trust them anymore. Meanwhile, Samsung also developed a reputation for reliability, and I'm inclined (perhaps unfairly) to trust them over other manufacturers.I'll be curious to see what Samsung and Anand have to say about the failure of the unit used for this review. I could still see going for the 830 if there's an indication that reliability HAS been compromised in some way.