Replacement for a Samsung EVO as an OS Drive

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davidst95

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HI, first let me say I'm a Samsung EVO fan boy. I been using a 512GB EVO for the past year and it's been great. I respect Samsung on how they can compete with more expensive drives at a much lower price points. However this performance increase might be limited to benchmarking tools. (Most SSD articles don't point this out) I don't like how they use RAM to boost it's performance. It's kind of misleading of the drive true performance and could cause data lost in event of a power distribution with RAPID mode enable. For this reason I don't think an EVO should be used as a main OS drive. Also, I can get any SSD drive to perform like an EVO by using ramdisk or similar software SSD-RAM based solution that also provides better customization.

Back on point, are they any 256GB SSD drive that performs as well as the EVO without the RAPID mode gimmick for my OS drive? I'm looking to pay anywhere from 200-300. Is that an unrealistic price range? Thanks.

PS. I might be completed wrong with my analysis. If I am please correct me so I can be a better consumer! Thanks.



David
 
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geofelt
I think your analysis is wrong.

You do not need to use rapid mode if you do not want to. It is an option.

There is much hype with SSD benchmarks. Fast sequential reads and high IOPS seem to be the performance metrics.
Unfortunately, that is not what we normally do. The OS does mainly small random reads and writes. It does so at relatively low queue
lengths.
The actual drive response times are what matters, and those response times do not differ much among all SSD's.
The SSD gives you much better response times compared to even the fastest hard drives.

In actual usage, all 240gb SSD drives will perform the same.

In theory, the Samsung PRO is a bit faster with writes and has more endurance.

As it turns out, I cloned my 240gb...
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geofelt

geofelt

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I think your analysis is wrong.

You do not need to use rapid mode if you do not want to. It is an option.

There is much hype with SSD benchmarks. Fast sequential reads and high IOPS seem to be the performance metrics.
Unfortunately, that is not what we normally do. The OS does mainly small random reads and writes. It does so at relatively low queue
lengths.
The actual drive response times are what matters, and those response times do not differ much among all SSD's.
The SSD gives you much better response times compared to even the fastest hard drives.

In actual usage, all 240gb SSD drives will perform the same.

In theory, the Samsung PRO is a bit faster with writes and has more endurance.

As it turns out, I cloned my 240gb PRO to an EVO for a update to my motherboard.
I am now running on the EVO and can detect no difference. I turned off rapid and did not use the Samsung windows optimizer.
It turned off system restore which I like to have on.
In time, I will clone again and keep the EVO as a hot backup in case I ever needed to do a clean install.
One benefit of sticking with Samsung is that their clone utility works... and only on their drives.
I suppose the same strategy would work with Intel too.
 
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davidst95

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geofelt, thanks for your response. I stand corrected. I was thinking about getting a smaller 256GB Samsung Pro for my OS drive. From what you say this might not be necessary. I still use RAPID mode. I have back up software that runs every night that copies file changes on the SSD over to conventional hard drives in RAID 0. Maybe I'm being overly cautious. Thanks again.

David
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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Larger ssd's are a tad faster in sequential and updates because of more nand chips.
A smaller pro would not perform any better .

One worry I always had was how confident could I be that my backup procedure was good.
I am reluctant to test it and possibly find out that I missed something and ended up destroying a perfectly good system.
I can handle incremental updates to files well enough. Pictures primarily.
What takes a long time is rebuilding an OS with a clean install and then installing all the apps and games that have accumulated over time.

If your raid-0 array is on your pc, you have an exposure to a failure of the raid controller or a virus that attacks your pc. For files that you value, an external backup should be considered.

I have a USB attached hard drive in an enclosure with a on/off switch. I backup to that intermittently.
Since it is not connected to the pc when switched off, I have reduced exposure to malware.
In the event of a hurricane or such, I can grab the external drive and my cloned ssd and run.
 
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