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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iwod - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
I would be buying an Intel instead if it cost $109.99. While Sammy is possibly the closest to intel in terms of reliability. I wouldn't want a TLC SSD for the same price. And the difference would be marginal anyway. I could feel the difference between a decent 3Gbps SSD and 6Gbps SSD, i am not sure if there is anything to feel for two decent 6Gbps SSD.Now if the retail price is really in the range of $70 - 80 that would be a huge difference. Because you are essentially choosing the second best reliable SSD for decent performance and cheapest price.
Death666Angel - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
The Samsung 830 is the 7th cheapest SSD (based on €/GB) I can find on my go-to price comparison website. 3 of the six before it are much slower Kingston/OCZ drives and the other 3 have SF controllers. Considering the kind of inconsistent performance that delivers and the track record, I would go with the Samsung all the time.Now, the 840 just launched and the pricing here is 25% above the 830. But it isn't even available for shipping anywhere. So I don't think that your comparison based on the Vertex4 ship has been shipping for months has any relevance. Also, aren't the Vertex4 numbers with their turbo-mode enabled which stops working after filling the drive to 50%? The Vertex4 256GB model costs 175€, the Samsung 830 256GB model costs 148€. Do you really think the 840 will be more expensive than the 830 in a couple of months? And even so, do you think the Vertex4 if that much better for consumers than the 830? I just don't see it.
Blazorthon - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Actually, the slowing down after 50% and such for Vertex 4 was fixed in firmware 1.5. The current numbers don't rely on Turbo, they're all the time.Also, to all of you, Vertex 4, unlike its predecessors, uses a Marvell-designed controller. Anyone who's used a Crucial or Plextor SSD probably knows that Marvell based SSDs are about as reliability as you can get, up there with Samsung and Intel. Vertex 4 is OCZ's most reliable SSD to date by huge margins, especially with current firmware where it rivals even Samsung and the others in reliability unlike the original firmware (which was specifically stated to be in beta, so anyone who bought Vertex 4 around launch time without doing their research and finding that out probably isn't someone who should be allowed to buy their own SSDs without expert help).
Also, IDK about UK prices, but in the USA, the Vertex 4, Samsung 830, Samsung 840, and occasionally also the Crucial M4 and Plextor M5S are all at about the same price points for 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities right now. As someone who has experience with Vertex 4, I'd definitely recommend it over Samsung 830 and Samsung 840 so long as it's not more expensive.
Assimilator87 - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
How come the OCZ 4 series just suddenly disappear when the review gets to the power consumption tests?JarredWalton - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Because Kristian imported the results from SSD Bench for the "1.4 Firmware" for the OCZ drives, and when those were retested Anand didn't add in power use figures. I've added them to the graphs using the original power figures at release. Thanks for the heads up!Coup27 - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Excellent article Kristian, enjoyed it.Some constructive criticism, although I appreciate that English is not your native language. Sentences aren't that clear when you use a double negative, such as "I wouldn't find it unlikely...". It would be much clearer if you had wrote "It would be likely..."
Kristian Vättö - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Point taken, thanks for the feedback :-)Some things sound logical in my ears but they may not make much sense for a native speaker. I guess this is partially because in English exams and stuff, using more difficult sentence structures (like double negative) will yield higher scores, even though they are not commonly used by natives. Will try to pay more attention to this in the future.
Sufo - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
I don't know if I agree with this. While double negatives are certainly inappropriate in some situations, the example you give is nit picking. Add to that, there is a subtle (albeit not technical) difference between "I wouldn't find it unlikely" and "I would find it likely". I accept that had Kristian made a legitimate grammatical error, then correcting it (while a little pedantic) may have been justified, but simply editing for style seems unnecessary.I guess my point is Kristian was not objectively wrong, or even unclear (although admittedly, complexity for complexity's sake benefits no one) and so he shouldn't pay too much heed to comments like this simply because OP is an English speaking native and he is not. I am, however, confident that he's more than capable of coming to his own conclusions on the matter :P
smartthanyou - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
I am probably in the minority on this, but as a matter of policy, I don't think you should call anything a review without pricing and a approximate release date.Particularly the price. If I don't see a price, I don't bother to read the article.
sean.crees - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Price is on the 5th page labeled "The Samsung SSD 840" about half way down.Although i noticed the price for the 840 250GB is the same as the 840 Pro's 256GB? Is this a typo? Why would anyone buy the non pro with 6 less GB and slower speeds for the same price?