Intel 730 Vs Samsung 850 Pro

M7madDK,

In Passmark Performance Test user systems, the top five disk scores (of 1207 tested) for Samsung 850 Pro are:

5131 __ 1TB
5125 __1TB
5109 __512GB
5095 __ 512GB
5087 __ 256GB

> and when they are in unknown RAID arrays- possibly RAID 0 or RAID 10 on controllers, the scores immediately above the one's listed are:

23,316
21,210
15,796
16,375

> so the potential is very high.

With Intel 730's:

The first 11 scores (of 127 tests) range from

77,153
60,614
51,173
47,756
35,294

and No. 11 = 28,735,

>again in unknown configurations.

The first five presumably single SSDSC2BP480G4R5's (480GB) are:

4853
4845
4840
4838
4826

My impression is that the Samsung 850 will have faster transfer and read /write rates. The interesting feature of the Intel is that it is rated as an enterprise drive with a MTBF of 2,000,000 hours. The 480GB drive actually has as much physical memory as a Samsung 512GB but with more memory for reallocation. Using the Intel calculation of 70GB/day, I calculated that a 730 480GB would last about 14 years in my use. Samsung are rated for 40GB /day, which is quite a large proportion and seems to me to be the most important difference.

It's interesting too that the highest array scores for the 730 are so much higher than those for the 850, but it's impossible to compare them directly without knowing the controllers and RAID's, and so on.

In summary if you are using one or two drives singly for performance use, the Samsung is a faster. If you're a heavy user shifting 100GB's per day in a business situation, and /or running in big RAID 10, 50, 60 on LSI or Adaptec controllers, the Intel 730 appears suited to that use, given it's much longer longevity rating.

My impression is that the differences in performance results in only a one or two seconds in startup or perhaps ten seconds on a one hour rendering, so other factors such as longevity / reliability make a complicated equation. When I chose in January for my new HP z40 I chose an Intel 730 basd on the reliability rating and given the very good performance, I'm planning to buy again, or I might try the new Intel 750 PCIe- or the Samsung 491 one- except they're quite expensive and probably exceed my need.

This is not a short answer but these components are difficult to judge objectively.

Cheers,
BambiBoom

HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 six-core @ 3.7 /4.0GHz > 16GB DDR3 ECC 1866 RAM > Quadro K2200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > Logitech z2300 > Linksys AE3000 USB WiFi > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440) > Windows 7 Professional 64 >
[ Passmark Rating = 4918 > CPU= 13941 / 2D= 823 / 3D=3464 / Mem= 2669 / Disk= 4764 < 6GB.s SATA controller]

Dell Precision T5500 (2011) > Xeon X5680 six -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz, 24GB DDR3 ECC 1333 > Quadro 4000 (2GB ) > Samsung 840 250GB /WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card> Linksys WMP600N PCI WiFi > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (1920 X 1440)
[ Passmark system rating = 3339 / CPU = 9347 / 2D= 684 / 3D= 2030 / Mem= 1871 / Disk= 2234 < this system has a 3GB/s SATA controller]