Samsung SSD 840 EVO Review: 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, 750GB & 1TB Models Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 25, 2013 1:53 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Samsung
- TLC
- Samsung SSD 840
Final Words
I was extremely excited about Crucial's M500 because it was the first reasonably priced ~1TB SSD. Even though its performance wasn't class leading, it was honestly good enough to make the recommendation a no-brainer. The inclusion of features like eDrive support were just the icing on the cake. With the EVO, Samsung puts forth a formidable competitor to the M500. It's faster, uses less power at idle and carries lower MSRPs for most of the capacity range. Microsoft's eDrive standard isn't supported at launch, but Samsung expects to change that via a firmware update this September.
Endurance isn't a concern with TLC for client workloads, although I wouldn't recommend deploying the EVO in a write heavy database server or anything like that.
The additional features that Samsung threw in the pot this round really show some innovative thinking. TurboWrite does a good job of blurring the lines between MLC and TLC performance, while Samsung's RAPID DRAM cache offers adventurous users a way of getting a taste of high-end PCIe SSD performance out of an affordable TLC SATA drive.
The 1TB version is exciting because it offers a competitive price with the 960GB M500 but with better performance. It's also good to have an alternative there as the 960GB M500 has been supply constrained at times. At first I didn't believe that Samsung's TLC strategy could hold weight against the Intel/Micron approach of aggressively pursuing smaller process nodes with MLC NAND, but the EVO does a lot to change my opinion. I'd have no issues with one of these drives in my system even as primary storage. The performance story is really good (particularly with the larger capacities), performance consistency out of the box is ok (and gets better if you can leave more free space on the drive) and you've got Samsung's firmware expertise supporting you along the way as well.
To say that I really like the EVO is an understatement. If Samsung can keep quantities of the 840 EVO flowing, and keep prices at or below its MSRP, it'll be a real winner and probably my pick for best mainstream SSD.
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MrSpadge - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
Agreed: no real drive (read: not a rubbish sale) can touch the price of a 128 GB 840 here in Germany either.MamiyaOtaru - Friday, July 26, 2013 - link
hell with that I want SLCNotmyusualid - Friday, July 26, 2013 - link
Me too...Dal Makhani - Thursday, July 25, 2013 - link
why still a dealbreaker? Unless you write a TON. Its a great drive and you dont really need MLC.Heavensrevenge - Thursday, July 25, 2013 - link
The worries of TLC is a pretty useless worry. I still have a 32MB Sony flash stick I used around 2003, and its flash memory wasn't rated and wear-leveled like it does nowadays by design and It's not dead nor corrupted somehow lol. If you have a USB stick older than 5 years old or any flash cards for a camera that's a few years old and still working 100% fine when people weren't so uselessly worried about flash endurance, then these drive will pose no problems whatsoever.Oxford Guy - Thursday, July 25, 2013 - link
I thought the Vertex 2 firmware problems (especially the wake-from-sleep bug) were overblown until I had three of them die. I finally gave up on RMAs because the replacements died, too. Anandtech was so positive about OCZ and its Vertex 2. Funny how the drives didn't turn out to be so great. I don't remember the rave reviews covering the wonderful panic mode, either.HisDivineOrder - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
Lots of people were raving about OCZ back then. Today, it's clear. Friends don't let friends OCZ.Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, July 25, 2013 - link
Can you test RAPID by cutting power to a pc while doing normal everyday stuff like surfing the web or watching a youtube or loadign a game. I would like to know how likely it is for windows to have an unrecoverable error if it loses power while this cachign solution is active.Spunjji - Friday, July 26, 2013 - link
I second that request.MrSpadge - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
You'd need to be writing to the disk to provoke errors, not reading.