SSD/mSata noticeable difference and reliability.

[InEvX]

I'm thinking about either getting a 256gb Samsung 840 PRO or a crucial m4 mSATA (256 gb).

My question are:
1. Is there a noticeable difference between these two SSD's?
2. I have an dell XPS 8500 desktop (supports 6 gb/s), with a mSATA port that is free. Should I fill it up with the Crucial M4 mSata and have two mechanical hard drives (2TB Barracuda and 640 GB WD Black) or switch out one of the mechanical hard drive for the Samsung 840 pro?
3. Reliability is kind of a big criteria for me. I've heard that the Crucial M4 has been out for awhile and proved to be quite reliable. Should that swing my decision towards the Crucial M4 mSATA?

I'm kind of swinging towards the Crucial M4 mSATA if there isn't a noticeable difference. (I know "noticeable" is quite arbitrary, but work with me )

Thanks in advance!!!!!!

 

[nukemaster]

I do not think you will notice a difference from one to the other as the underlying technology of the SSD is the same for SATA and MSATA.

The 840 Pro should be faster on paper. How much faster in day to day use is another story. Even my old Kingston V100 64 gigabyte SSD feels quite fast despite being much slower then my M4 256(benchmarks).

I have 2 M4 256's and one M4 128 they are all working great so far. The 128 has recently been placed in my media center(173 days or operation as per smart monitoring(not in a row)) so if long time use hurts it, I will know.

The 2x 256's in the gaming system are only on for a short time a day(second or 3rd day sometimes).

 

[legendkiller]

Crucial is more reliable but the 840 PRO is faster in performance but you wont notice any different since it's about 5-50MB/s differences... both SSD offers 500MB/s so anything over 200MB/s is already fast enough for anything and wont get slow especially on a SSD...

 

[InEvX]

Thanks for the replies!
I was looking on NewEgg and the Samsung 840 Pro is has:
Sustained Sequential Read: 540 MB/s
Sustained Sequential Write: 520 MB/s
4KB Random Read: Up to 100,000 IOPS
4KB Random Write: Up to 90,000 IOPS

while the Crucial M4 Msata only has:
Performance
Max Sequential Read: Up to 500 MB/s
Max Sequential Write: Up to 260 MB/s
4KB Random Read: Up to 45,000
IOPS 4KB Random Write: Up to 50,000 IOPS

----
Read is very similar for both drives, but write speeds and IOPS are drastically different (or that's how it seems on paper)

 

[mad-max79]

Performance of the 840 Pro is much higher and standard SATA is easy usable in many other system. mSATA is much more special and not needed for a desktop.

 

[legendkiller]

Thanks for the replies!
I was looking on NewEgg and the Samsung 840 Pro is has:
Sustained Sequential Read: 540 MB/s
Sustained Sequential Write: 520 MB/s
4KB Random Read: Up to 100,000 IOPS
4KB Random Write: Up to 90,000 IOPS

while the Crucial M4 Msata only has:
Performance
Max Sequential Read: Up to 500 MB/s
Max Sequential Write: Up to 260 MB/s
4KB Random Read: Up to 45,000
IOPS 4KB Random Write: Up to 50,000 IOPS

----
Read is very similar for both drives, but write speeds and IOPS are drastically different (or that's how it seems on paper)

as long as it's over 200MB/s then you wont notice different UNLESS your a heavy duty, you'll notice differences when you do all these hardcore stuff like large file transferring and extreme video editing
for my uses like gaming watching movies and browsing the net, i'd prefer the crucial because it's more reliable and i dont need the extra 200-300MB/s write since I dont move files or hardcore stuff...

 

[InEvX]

as long as it's over 200MB/s then you wont notice different UNLESS your a heavy duty, you'll notice differences when you do all these hardcore stuff like large file transferring and extreme video editing
for my uses like gaming watching movies and browsing the net, i'd prefer the crucial because it's more reliable and i dont need the extra 200-300MB/s write since I dont move files or hardcore stuff...

Could you approximately know the difference in boot times between these two drives?
Heard the samsung 840 pro is 10 seconds or so max...

Also could you approximate the time opening photoshop or something equivalent?

 

[nukemaster]

Load times depend on what you have starting with the system(for instance, loading a ram drive will slow it down for sure).

Photoshop will depend on plugins and filters as well.

Either way, it will be FAST and is read heavy operation not write heavy.

 

[Blacklightning]

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/disk-drives/f/3534/t/19453190.aspx

I don't think you can use the mSata drive as a hard drive on that dell

 

[InEvX]

Load times depend on what you have starting with the system(for instance, loading a ram drive will slow it down for sure).

Photoshop will depend on plugins and filters as well.

Either way, it will be FAST and is read heavy operation not write heavy.

I know I'm asking tons of questions, but:
will the almost double (4KB Random Read IOPS and 4KB Random Write IOPS) make a substantial difference? It SEEMS to be a big difference, but I honestly don't know if it is or isn't.

I'm mainly looking for fast boot times and loading applications. I don't do any substantial installations that would warrant fast writing as a top requirement for me.

 

[nukemaster]

I only have M4's and an old Kingston to speak about. Never had a Samsung. I am sure its speed will help under heavy loads.

No way around it, The 840 pro is very fast. Without one, I can not run real world tests.

 

[InEvX]

I only have M4's and an old Kingston to speak about. Never had a Samsung. I am sure its speed will help under heavy loads.

No way around it, The 840 pro is very fast. Without one, I can not run real world tests.

Thank you so much for your info
Hopefully I'll the M4 will meet my needs. (most likely a yes)

 

[InEvX]

Best answer selected by InEvX.

 

[mmv]

I just purchased Samsung 840 Pro, and I have Crucial M4 256 from before. I tested them using iozone for 4k blocs (common). Below are the results. Where Samsung shines are sequential writes, where it outperforms Crucial M4 by at least 30%. Everything else, however, is a tie, with Crucial slightly outperforming Samsung in reading speeds. Had I knew these results before the purchase, I would have gone for another Crucial as it was $50 cheaper. So my advice is - get a cheaper one. If the price is the same, think about your application - if doing mostly reading, get Crucial. If writing speed is more important, especially if sequential writing is what you do often, get Samsung.

Ran iozone with: ./iozone -R -l 5 -u 5 -r 4k -s 100m -F /home/f1 /home/f2 /home/f3 /home/f4 /home/f5
"Record size = 4 Kbytes "
"Output is in Kbytes/sec"

M4 Crucial 256 results summary:
Initial write " 5589895.38
Rewrite " 10216725.12
Read " 17729462.50
Re-read " 17845670.50
Reverse Read " 17311866.00
Stride read " 13995686.50
Random read " 14686804.25
Mixed workload " 14951833.25
Random write " 11729392.12
Pwrite " 7180696.00
Pread " 16048511.00
Fwrite " 12523109.12
Fread " 21778576.00

Samsung 840 Pro 256 results summary:
Initial write " 7063922.12
Rewrite " 13907324.88
Read " 16738235.00
Re-read " 16597966.25
Reverse Read " 15813359.25
Stride read " 14849809.25
Random read " 14182669.25
Mixed workload " 14139508.00
Random write " 12026399.75
Pwrite " 7349728.50
Pread " 15685447.00
Fwrite " 13923909.75
Fread " 17165019.50