Samsung 840 Pro SSD Review
Introduction and Technical Specifications
Published: 21st December 2012 | Source: Samsung | Price: £185 |
Introduction
This time last year we took our first look at the Samsung 830. It was a drive that made a lot of sense, especially as Samsung make the memory chips for nearly every SSD on the planet. In the end we found that it was very good indeed, just lacking a little at the top end of the speed range.
The past year has seen an influx of huge performing SSD's, and with the price per GB plummeting there is absolutely no reason not to have at least one SSD in your system, and not one so small you can only just squeeze the OS onto it either.
Samsung have released the 840 in three flavours. We have the standard model with 3 year warranty and TLC NAND, the 840 Pro we're reviewing today with a 5 year warranty and the faster MLC NAND, and it's available as the simple drive option, or with a mounting kit and sundries too. The 840 Pro is aimed at the Enterprise crowd, and enthusiast users. We all love stuff that's been engineered for the Enterprise market thanks to the speed and reliability, so the 840 Pro could be just the thing to make your gaming rig fly.
Technical Specifications
At a glance you might be forgiven for thinking this is the same as the old drive. Both were (in review form) 256GB models with a SATA6 interface. However this is Samsung we're talking about so beneath the hood all is very different.
The original 830 had 133Mbps NAND, this has 400Mbps. The original MCX controller was a 220MHz ARM 9, whereas this has a tri-core ARM Cortex R4 at 300MHz. As well as the big jump in general speed the 840 has built in AES256 Encryption, ensuring your data remains safe and secure. The biggest claimed improvement is in the small block size, which was the one area we really felt the 830 was lacking.
Finally whereas a lot of drives utilise compression to help keep up the attention grabbing numbers up, the Samsung 840 Pro doesn't compress the data, meaning that no matter what type of file you're using you'll see the same speeds across the board. If you think about RARs, Zips, JPGs and MP3s, you'll realise how many file types you use that already are compressed and therefore will transfer slower on a drive that compresses your data, and therefore how fast the Samsung 840 remains in all scenarios.
| Product Type | Solid State Drive |
| Design | 2.5" 7mm ultra-slim |
| Series | 840 Pro |
| Capacity | 256GB |
| Read Speed | Up to 540 MB/s |
| Write Speed | Up to 520 MB/s |
| Random Read | Up to 100K IOPS |
| Random Write | Up to 90K IOPS |
| Power Consumption | .15W |
| Warranty | 5 Years |
| Contents | Samsung SmartMigration Software, Samsung Software & Manual CD |
Most Recent Comments
I also found the same results with anvil and wandered what was going on
Brill review as always Bryan
I was thinking about buying the 830, but the sellers are apparently running out of stock. While 840 Pro seems to be a great drive, is it really worth the extra £60 compared to the non-pro 840 or the £30 over the 830? I'm taking about the 256/250GB versions.
Still waiting for my first SSD
hopefully in 2013 now.
Good review as always
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Originally Posted by Ulchar
Sorta wish I didn't get a 830 256GB now so i could get this...
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lurving them 
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