256gb 840 pro or 500gb 840?

Better get 256GB "830". No, really.

May I ask why? As I found a 840 pro which from what I've read is faster for the same price.

830s are generally have larger reliability percent and life span, than 840s.
Because better components used in their assembling (cherry-picked), while 840s are basically an outsourced material for cheaper production.
840s are good, no denying that, but 830s better in the means of overall quality, even if they're not faster. For an SSD, quality, reliability and longevity means much more than speed (it doesn't matter how fast your SSD performs if it can die easily a couple of days/months after the purchase, that's why OCZ's garbage is so cheap, because they are very fast, but absolute crap in means of reliability and life span).

It's like comparing Intel's SSDs: 520s newer, but they're much worse than GODLIKE 510s, even though 510s considerably slower and older than 520s.
Because 520s (also "3xx"s) made by low-cost production methods, while 510s were cherry-picked - having the best components of best quality used in their assemble.

Yea, I have to agree. I wouldn't get the 840 series. I would either get the 840 Pro or 830 series since they have much better manufacturing processes and quality. I've never had a single problem with my 256gb 830.

I'll get the 840 pro then. I was worried about TLC, but I can't justify paying the same for a last gen product versus the newest one.

master_chen - Please post links to reference articles that clearly indicate the Samsung 830's have a larger reliability percentage and life span than the 840's. The 840 and 840 Pro are new ssd's. They haven't been out long enough to compare longevity and lifespan. In addition, please post links to reference article clearly indicating Samsung outsourced for the 840.

fudoka711 - Please post links to reference articles indicating that Samsung uses much better manufacturing processes and quality for the 840 Pro and 830 than the 840

Mrcoltux - You mentioned ssd's and gaming in the same sentence. Have you read any of the technical reviews about ssd's and gaming? You also mentioned speed. Modern 3rd generation ssd's form a very tight performance cluster. The only way to tell any difference between them is with synthetic benchmarks. When you mentioned speed were you referring to synthetic benchmarks?

While I don't appreciate your generally hostile and "know-it-all" attitude, I should have said "architecture" instead of "manufacturing process." I stand corrected.

Also, there are plenty of articles - check out hardocp or anandtech for reviews about the samsung 840 (250gb). The biggest problem with the 840 are the slow write times, followed by a lifespan 2-3x less than the 840 pro or 830.

@Mrcoltux - if you feel comfortable using TLC NAND in your ssd's, then I feel like you should go ahead and get the 840. If you feel like the lifespan could become an issue, then go with the 840 pro. There's also the cost difference to consider as well as write performance. Also, remember that the lifespan is just an estimate about reliability. Where the 500gb 840 will have an advantage is its sheer size. The amount of free space really hurts something with TLC more than it does MLC. So if you're keeping 50-100gb free on the larger sdd, then you should be fine with that.

While I don't appreciate your generally hostile and "know-it-all" attitude, I should have said "architecture" instead of "manufacturing process." I stand corrected.

Also, there are plenty of articles - check out hardocp or anandtech for reviews about the samsung 840 (250gb). The biggest problem with the 840 are the slow write times, followed by a lifespan 2-3x less than the 840 pro or 830.

@Mrcoltux - if you feel comfortable using TLC NAND in your ssd's, then I feel like you should go ahead and get the 840. If you feel like the lifespan could become an issue, then go with the 840 pro. There's also the cost difference to consider as well as write performance. Also, remember that the lifespan is just an estimate about reliability. Where the 500gb 840 will have an advantage is its sheer size. The amount of free space really hurts something with TLC more than it does MLC. So if you're keeping 50-100gb free on the larger sdd, then you should be fine with that.

I agree with JohnnyLucky. You probably wouldn't notice any real-world difference between the 2 drives.

Don't worry about drive longevity with current generation SSDs (any model).
A current gen SSD will die for other reasons long before it runs out of P/E (Program/Erase) cycles.

Members at Xtreme Systems Forum purchase off-the-shelf SSDs and continuously write test data to them 24/7 until they die.
Look at Post #5437 of this link: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?2710...

This Samsung 840 died after having 443,309.73GB of data written to it.

If I had the same drive and downloaded 10 Blu-ray movies every day and each movie was 10GB in size it would be 12.14 years before the drive ran out of P/E cycles.

I don't download and write that much data to my SSD 365 days a year so that drive would last me 20-30 years.  

Unless you're going to be using the drive as a server in a business don't worry about TLC NAND or drive longevity and just purchase the largest capacity that you can reasonably afford.

fudoka811 - It was neither hostility or an know it all attitude. It was curiosity. I thought you may have read articles or had industry information that I hadn't seen yet.

I am somewhat familiar with AnandTech and Hard OCP. I check them and 78 other sites every day for new hardware reviews. I do it to keep several hardware databases I maintain up to date. There's not enough time to read all of the reviews. However, since I have Samsung ssd's in two desktop pc's and a laptop I take time to read those reviews.

I am familiar with the concern expressed in the reviews about Samsung's use of TLC NAND and write speeds in the 840 series. Last December HARD OCP published their first review of a 256GB 840. Last month HARD OCP published a review of a 500GB 840. Here's what HARD OCP had to say in the second review:

"Simple rough math calculations can extrapolate that a write load of 10GB per day would result in a worst-case expected lifetime of 7 years for a 256GB TLC SSD. This number could easily be doubled for the 500GB SSD that we are testing today, and this is without even taking into consideration the ability of providing extra spare area to increase the endurance of the SSD. Users can also use the Samsung Magician SSD software to allocate more capacity of their SSD into spare area, commonly referred to as "over-provisioning," which results in increased endurance and write performance. "

Here is a link to the complete HARD OCP article:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/01/02/samsung_840_s...

Concern was also expressed about the 20nm architecture used in the Intel 335 ssd in an article published by AnandTech last November. Here's what AnandTech had to say:

"Doing the math on the 240GB capacity gives us 2083 full drive writes over the life of the drive, or about 5.7 years of useful life if you write 240GB of data to the NAND every day. Even if your workload has a write amplification factor of 10x, you're still talking about 24GB of writes per day for nearly 6 years."

Here is a link to the complete article at AnandTech:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6462/intel-explains-20nm-...

I guess the big question for consumers is how much data will be written to an ssd on a daily basis.

You may get some clues in this thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/292576-32-samsung

For gaming a Samsung 840 500 GB is a good decision!