Samsung SSD 840 EVO mSATA (120GB, 250GB, 500GB & 1TB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on January 9, 2014 1:35 PM ESTFinal Words
I would say the biggest market for mSATA drives right now is DIY upgrades to Ultrabooks and other laptops with existing mSATA SSDs (or in some cases there's an empty mSATA slot). One of the most common complaints I hear about Ultrabooks is their limited storage capacity because many got used to the thinking that even $400 laptops have 500GB of storage. Nowadays most SSD-only systems ship with a 128GB SSD, which to be honest is a significant downgrade if you've gotten used to having at least half a terabyte in your laptop. The rise of cloud services has reduced the need for internal storage (most smartphones and tablets only have 8-32GB) but there are still plenty of scenarios where cloud is out of question. Take photographers as an example -- if you shoot large RAW photos, uploading/downloading them constantly doesn't sound like the best idea especially if you happen to live in a region where unlimited Internet is only a dream.
In the past if you wanted a bigger mSATA SSD, your options maxed out at 256GB (Mushkin's Atlas was the only exception, though you had to sacrifice performance for capacity). For hybrid systems (i.e. PCs with a small SSD for caching and a hard drive for storage) 256GB can cut it since the storage needs are fulfilled by the hard drive but if you have an SSD-only system 256GB may not be much of an upgrade over the 128GB that most systems ship with.
Four EVO mSATA take roughly the same space as one 2.5" drive
That is where the EVO mSATA excels in. With capacity of up to 1TB and an impressive performance result, it is truly a no-compromise mSATA SSD. mSATA is no longer a tradeoff between capacity and size, the EVO mSATA provides everything that the 2.5" EVO does but at ~1/4 the footprint. Add that to the fact that the EVO mSATA is built on the same platform as the 2.5" EVO, which has been one of our highest recommendations since its release. What Anand said in his 840 EVO review's final words suits here perfectly as well: "To say that I really like the EVO is an understatement".
Samsung continually amazes me in the SSD space. The EVO mSATA is yet another proof that their engineering is state-of-the-art and almost one step ahead of others. I cannot wait to see what else Samsung has in their sleeves for 2014, and we will analyze with a critical eye as always, but the start is great for sure.
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Brenderick - Saturday, February 15, 2014 - link
mSata was what the commenter wanted.MoFoQ - Friday, January 10, 2014 - link
same hardware?The mSATA version has 4 NAND packages.
The 2.5" version has 8.
Sure, the number of dies total might be the same.
It's like comparing two houses of the same square-footage....except one of them is a two-story house and the other, a single-story one.
With that said, it is an interesting development for mSATA SSDs.
I can't wait until other manufacturers come to market to help drive the price down.
emvonline - Friday, January 10, 2014 - link
16 die packages are possible at all NAND suppliers and it is relatively straight forward to implement. the issue is usually that there is minimal demand for anything requiring it. What percentage of the market is 1TB? I think we are talking less than 3% above 512G for consumers. let me know if I am wrong.TLC is great for Samsung product margins. so far it hasn't led to a cost decrease for consumers.
Samsung's execution is the amazing part. they have good (or great) products in every market at every density. And they have the most aggressive marketing campaign. No one else has been able to achieve this.
Marrixster - Saturday, January 11, 2014 - link
Thanks very much indeed for this review. I already have 2 Samsung PM851 512GB (MZMTE512HMHP-00000). And, just prior to reading this review ordered the 1TB model (MZ-MTE1T0BW).The price is AUD822.99 (ramcity.com.au), very expensive. However, the convenience of this form factor justifies cost from my point of view.
Now, it's simply a matter of deciding which lappy it gets installed in.
Unit Igor - Saturday, January 11, 2014 - link
Tell me Kristian please would EVO 120GB msata have any advantage over EVO 250gb msata in longer battery life when you compare power consumption vs. disk busy times and mb/s.I use my ultrabook only for mails ,sometimes watching movies and surfing.I dont need more then 120GB SSD but i am willing to buy 250Gb if it would give me more battery life.What i wanted to see in your benchmark is MobileMark 2012 because msata is for laptops and that is where battery life play big role.philipma1957 - Sunday, January 12, 2014 - link
the new gigabyte brix with the i7 4770r cpu 16th ram and a 1tb mSata would be really nice gear.nogoms - Monday, January 13, 2014 - link
You start off with the claim that "Samsung is in a unique position in the SSD market. It’s the only company in the consumer SSD business with a fully vertically integrated business model and zero reliance on other companies."This is, however, not actually true. SK Hynix is in a similar position, as they've had their own controllers, NAND, and DRAM since their purchase of LAMD a year and a half ago. Admittedly, they hadn't actually released a completely in-house SSD using a LAMD controller until late last year with the release of the SH 920 series. In fact, the Surface Pro 2 uses an SK Hynix mSATA SSD (with a LAMD controller), as noted in Anand's review and iFixIt's teardown. SK Hynix also doesn't appear to be making the SH920 series available in retail outside of Asia, though Super Talent's Supernova3 series is available in retail in North America (from the likes of SuperBiiz and various third-party sellers on Amazon and Newegg) and appears to be rebranded 2.5" SK Hynix SH920 series drives.
Kristian Vättö - Monday, January 13, 2014 - link
I did mention SK Hynix and LAMD later in the article:"Sure, Samsung isn't the only NAND manufacturer but it is the only one with a consumer orientated controller IP (although SK Hynix owns LAMD now but that deal has yet to materialize in a product)"
The thing is, while Hynix does have a LAMD based SSD, it's the same controller that other's are using. It's possible that Hynix has contributed to the firmware but it's not a fully in-house designed platform (the controller was designed way before the acquisition took place).
nogoms - Monday, January 13, 2014 - link
That statement is also false, as SK Hynix's LAMD controller *has* materialized in products, as I pointed out in my previous post--they're available in complete systems like the Surface Pro 2 worldwide as well as standalone at retail (in East Asia). Also, it's disingenuous to say it's not fully in-house when the controller and firmware were designed and written by teams currently in the employ of SK Hynix, and even if one were to accept your contention that such an arrangement is not "fully in-house designed," the opening statement of the article does not all of a sudden become true, as Samsung is still not the only manufacturer with "a fully integrated business model" or "zero reliance on other companies."Hrel - Monday, January 13, 2014 - link
any idea when we'll be able to get 512GB drives for under $200?