Samsung SSD 840 (250GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on October 8, 2012 12:14 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Samsung
- TLC
- Samsung SSD 840
Final Words
I have to say I was very skeptical when I first heard that the 840 will use TLC NAND. Samsung kept the TLC/MLC divide between the 840 and 840 Pro quiet until it took the stage at the SSD Summit for good reason. Prior to the 840's launch TLC NAND was mostly used in low cost devices (USB sticks, cheap tablets, etc...)—no one would dare throw a TLC drive into a high performance PC. However, after spending a week with the 840 running various tests, I'm pleasantly surprised. After seeing how slow NAND can impact performance with other drives I didn't have high hopes for the 840 when I heard it used TLC NAND.
Fortunately, the 840 exceeded all our expectations. It's faster, overall, than most of the previous generation MLC NAND based SSDs we have tested, which says a lot about Samsung's skill with it comes to designing a controller and firmware. When you take slower and lower endurance NAND, there is much more you have to do at the controller and firmware level to get things right. You can't sacrifice too much endurance for performance or vice versa. While long term endurance is still unproven, Samsung is definitely upping the ante in terms of low-cost SSD performance.
What's just as surprising is that Samsung is the first manufacturer with a TLC NAND based SSD. Samsung was under no pressure to release a TLC drive but it managed to beat the competition without sacrificing performance. Samsung hasn't been too aggressive in the past, but since the 830 it's clear the company has tapped some new found energy.
The 840 is very important for two reasons. For starters, it really shows the benefits of being a vertically integrated SSD maker. Samsung could easily coordinate SSD development with TLC NAND production ramps to make the 840 launch a seamless reality. The second aspect of the 840 that makes it so important is that this now gives the market a new solution to driving SSD prices down.
Prior to the 840, if you wanted a low cost SSD you either had to sacrifice on capacity or performance (or both). Sacrifice enough on capacity and you end up being forced into a SSD + HDD caching solution. Sacrifice enough on performance and you end up with a bad SSD. If TLC NAND pricing ramps to where it should be, the 840 can deliver the best of both worlds: low-cost pricing with all of the quality (and a lot of the performance) of a more expensive drive.
I'm less concerned about the 840's impact on other high end drive/controller makers and more interested to see what it does to companies like Phison or SanDisk. If Samsung can make its pricing aggressive enough, there should be no reason to consider any of the slower controllers for lower cost drives. We've been wondering about what it would take to get SSDs into truly mainstream PCs and it seems like the Samsung SSD 840 is exactly the right path to take.
In the end, a lot will be up to the final pricing but I believe Samsung can and will be very aggressive with the 840. Samsung is the only manufacturer with a price benefit thanks to the cheaper NAND, which at least in theory allows them to price themselves lower than anyone else. I'm sure we will see some MLC drives being sold for less than the 840, but it's very hard to challenge the 840 in terms of performance, especially when taking Samsung's reliability track record into account. Consider also that as recently as July 2012, Samsung's 830 was priced roughly 50% higher than the current street prices; with the 256GB 830 now going for $200 (and sometimes less with sales), that's likely where the 840 will start before continuing the downward trend.
We will see about final pricing in a couple of weeks, but for now the 840 looks like the entry level SSD to buy. The 840 Pro is likely the drive to buy for your primary notebook/workstation, while the 840 is the drive to recommend for a relative who isn't as concerned with performance and has a much lighter workload. I have to say, this is the first performance/value split of an SSD line that's really made sense.
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mayankleoboy1 - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Samsung is known to release only a few firmware updates (unlike SF).But due to the somewhat quirky nature of TLC NAND, do you expect Samsung to release a newer firmware , with maybe better read performance , or better TRIM support ?
Taft12 - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Who cares?? Frequent firmware updates are a sign of an incompetent engineering and testing. I'll stick with the vendors known for getting it right the first time thank you very much.JuneBugKiller - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
If Samsung 840 120GB cost's $109.99 and you can get an OCZ Vertex 4 128GB for $104.99, which is faster in 80% of the benchmarks and is $5 cheaper then who's going to want it? So what if the price goes down to $80, are people going to save $25 thinking their hard drive is going to die twice as fast. I have bought (with works money) around 30 ssd's including Intel 80GB & 160GB Silver Case, Intel 710 100GB, Vertex 3 Max IOPS 120GB and Vertex 4 128. So far I've only had 2 ssd's go bad and they were both Intel 80GB ssd's. One wouldn't power on and the other reported at 8MB. Intel replaced them under warranty.The point is I have been buying SSD's for years and I just don't see how anyone would want these samsung ssd's. Samsung is famous for huge margins on each product. When a company pockets $240 off of a $500 tablet and their name isn't Apple then something is wrong.
JarredWalton - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Wow, talk about skewing the data by cherry picking the worst-case numbers for the 840. The Vertex 4 is only 85% faster in one specific test: AS-SSD Write performance. Of course, in the AS-SSD Read performance it's also 10% faster than the Vertex 4 256GB, but you just ignore that? Samsung also has some of the best SSDs in terms of large reliability figures, so even if the 840 is slightly slower than other drives in some tests, it may be the better option. Also don't forget to factor in that the 840 appears to be well-tuned for light workloads (e.g it's near the top of our light workload results).Personally, I think the 840 needs to come in below the current 830 drive prices to make sense, and it probably will not long after the official release. 128GB 830 drives already go for under $100, and 256GB drives have been at $200 for over a month now -- likely all in preparation for the release of the 840. TLC NAND is cheaper to manufacture (per GB), and long-term it will be significantly more profitable for Samsung. Get some good DSPs added into the mix and I wouldn't be surprised to see most SSDs in two generations being TLC based, with MLC moving to the enterprise level and SLC basically going away because it's too expensive.
JuneBugKiller - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
No I'm talking about counting each benchmark add the total and divide the number by how many OCZ Vertex 4 won and it was over 80% of the total number of benchmarks. How is Samsung a better option? TLC over MLC, OCZ fastest drive to Samsungs slowest new drive. Of course Samsung is going to make more profit but why would you want to spend the same amount on a slower drive with less endurance?JarredWalton - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Sorry, 80% of benchmarks is correct; I read that wrong. But let's put that in perspective:http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/678?vs=628
If we look at average performance across all benchmarks, the difference between OCZ Vertex 256GB and Samsung 840 250GB is a 12.4% advantage for OCZ. However, OCZ hasn't exactly been free from firmware issues. That right there is the reason many people will pay a bit more for a Samsung (even if it's slower).
Would I buy an 840 right now for $200 or whatever? Definitely not -- I'd actually take the 830, just for proven reliability over time. Give the 840 a couple months just to be safe, then check the prices. If it's still more expensive than the Vertex 4, sure, go for OCZ if you'd like. If they're the same price, though, the 12% performance is practically meaningless for most consumer workloads.
sean.crees - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Because it's not just about performance, it's also about reliability. This is user data we are talking about. Even a single loss could be catastrophic. OCZ doesn't have the reliability track record that Samsung and Intel has, and for that reason there are many people who will only ever buy from Samsung or Intel. So then OCZ isn't even mentionable. It doesn't matter if they are faster because who cares if your data is at risk?Also you have to consider that the REAL WORLD difference between any modern 6Gbps SSD is negligible, so then performance means even less. It ends up being a contest of reliability instead of a contest of speed. In that contest, OCZ loses.
krumme - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
I would want it :)We have about 7-8 ssd in the house, about 3 of those is vertex 3 ssd, and there have been realiability and firmware issues.
I think ssd speeds since the last 2 years have been good enough and would prioritize reliability any day.
I had to replace an sandisk u100 in my Samsung 9 series x3c to a faster one, but that was because the u100 was like a return to 4 years ago. Its a good backup now.
Now hopefully reliability is there, and prices will go down so everyone can afford it. We dont need more firmware updates and shit. Its like the first 3d gfx in the mid 90, - a mess.
But you are right Samsung is starting to get expensive, and charge for the brand. Wether you like it or not it will certainly mean more Samsung reviews too. Being a big boy, have advantages :)
Taft12 - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
"If Samsung 840 120GB cost's $109.99 and you can get an OCZ Vertex 4 128GB for $104.99, which is faster in 80% of the benchmarks and is $5 cheaper then who's going to want it?"A person who values reliability at a value higher than $0 will choose the non-OCZ product every time.
Jaybus - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link
Time will tell. The TLC NAND should end up around 30% cheaper per GB than MLC. Then it will come down to buying a 240 GB MLC for $200 or a 320 GB TLC for the same price.