Samsung Goes 6 Gb/s: Is The 830-Series SSD King Of The Hill?

[acku]

Samsung's 830 is a late entry to the 6 Gb/s SSD market, but the company claims impressive performance. Can it unseat the incumbent SandForce-based drives? Let's just say this new offering shakes up the SSD world in a major way. Other vendors, beware.

Samsung Goes 6 Gb/s: Is The 830-Series SSD King Of The Hill? : Read more

 

[pbrigido]

With all of these fast SSDs coming to market, I can only hope that the competition starts to drive down prices soon.

 

[Guest]

I still opt for the M4 in all the enthusiast builds I do!

It boils down to reliability, not one hiccup on M4 yet (or any crucial drive Ive installed), 4/5 Sandforce drives I have installed have had some form of callback problem to resolve once deployed, mostly requiring firmware updates, but a few failed drives as well!

Mind you, still better than the early Corsair force Series I used, every single one failed! Stopped using them quick!

Am tempted by OCZ, once they have reliability on their side I will give them a go again!

 

[Guest]

Would love to see an article addressing Sandforce controller problems people have been experiencing.

 

[mark_hamill]

Would love to see an article addressing Sandforce controller problems people have been experiencing.

 

[JamesSneed]

Looks like a really nice SSD. Samsung has one of the best validation proceses along with Intel and Crucial so I really don't expect people to have issues like they do with OCZ drives. Now the real question how much will it be on the egg?

I saw this quote below in the summary and laughed as nobody in there right mind would use a basic MLC drive in a database server. So Samsung tuned the drive for what it will be used in ,desktops, good.
"Although we'd probably think twice before picking this as our first choice for a database server, it does just fine in an enthusiast's machine."

 

[kikireeki]

When will we be seeing articles like: SSD price slashed 50%?

 

[JohnnyLucky]

great review. now we just have to wait and see how the ssd will hold up over the long haul. If it is anything like the 470, then it should be problem free.

 

[alikum]

Make it $1 per GB at least

 

[beenthere]

We'll see how this series of Samsung SSDs fair. The previous gen was a nightmare of problems so I don't think Samsung's validation process is any better that the rest of the SSD suppliers - which is sad when Samsung controls everything including NAND production. It's amazing that we still have SSDs NOT readt for Prime Time.

 

[AppleBlowsDonkeyBalls]

[citation][nom]beenthere[/nom]We'll see how this series of Samsung SSDs fair. The previous gen was a nightmare of problems so I don't think Samsung's validation process is any better that the rest of the SSD suppliers - which is sad when Samsung controls everything including NAND production. It's amazing that we still have SSDs NOT readt for Prime Time.[/citation]

Proof? I think you just pulled this out of your ass or from someone's that told you some story. The 470 series was VERY reliable.

 

[Kamab]

I've stuck with Intel and crucial drives on rigs that I had any decision on, but it's always nice to see a little competition. I expect prices will continue to drop pretty linearly over the next few years.

 

[David 617]

ahh, its always refreshing to see a newer and faster SSD.

 

[yurim]

What is the physical height of the drive, is it 7 or 9.5 mm? I want to know if it will fit in a ThinkPad x200.

 

[acku]

[citation][nom]yurim[/nom]What is the physical height of the drive, is it 7 or 9.5 mm? I want to know if it will fit in a ThinkPad x200.[/citation]

7mm but it comes with a spacer to fit 9.5mm

 

[belardo]

Performance matters, but reliability over-rules that.

Even today, I would NOT use OCZ drives on any computer. Yeah, they are generally the fastest drives on the market, but I'd rather get an intel, even an M2-X25. The return rates for ALL drives, other than intel... are bad. Samsung is worst in performances and tools. But this new drive... we'll have to see over time.

 

[cmartin011]

Another two years before we meet dollar 1gb range for high performance ssd

 

[ikyung]

[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]Performance matters, but reliability over-rules that.Even today, I would NOT use OCZ drives on any computer. Yeah, they are generally the fastest drives on the market, but I'd rather get an intel, even an M2-X25. The return rates for ALL drives, other than intel... are bad. Samsung is worst in performances and tools. But this new drive... we'll have to see over time.[/citation]
Really? Hmm, this is the first time I heard something negative about the 470series SSD. Everytime I read a SSD article the 470series always had good reviews on solid reliability.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]Performance matters, but reliability over-rules that.Even today, I would NOT use OCZ drives on any computer. Yeah, they are generally the fastest drives on the market, but I'd rather get an intel, even an M2-X25. The return rates for ALL drives, other than intel... are bad. Samsung is worst in performances and tools. But this new drive... we'll have to see over time.[/citation]


I have googled every which way and cannot find any references to any major problems or issues with the 470 series that is similar to what other brands have been going through.

 

[boletus]

I'll be watching the customer feedback on objective forums wrt reliability (certainly not mfgr-reported failure rates, which Tom's, and reality, have demonstrated to be useless). If these new Sammys can approach Intel's level of customer satisfaction, it will be a great step forward for SSD technology. If not, well just another pipe dream for those that value reliability over speed.

 

[beenthere]

All you need to do is read the actual owner reviews to know that Samsung a has had a ton of problems with their SSDs, similar to the other SSD suppliers. See Newegg, Samsung, etc. for user reports. I sure hope these folks finally invest the necessary effort to correct all of these SSD issues or I'm not buying their crap.

 

[compton]

Samsung's drives have always complemented laptops well. Their 470 series is among the best drives you can get for SATA II controllers. With that said, I'm not real excited about advances in NAND process. With each drop in lithography, not only do you get less endurance (this isn't as big of a deal at 34 vs 25nm as the controller has much of the say), but you have to double the size to get similar performance. That means at 25 and 27nm you have to rock a 256GB drive to get the performance of a 120GB drive with 32/34nm nand. Samsung's 50nm nand made some Indilinx drives absoutely shine a few years back, and premium drives now still use 32/34nm. Fundamental performance gets outshone by the max sequential numbers anyway (at least in marketing), but better controllers can only get you so far without the number of devices holding you back on every day performance. I like smaller drives personally, and my X25-E 32GB will remain one of my most prized possessions - but times are changing. Once SSDs get really cheap and spacious, no one will care as much anyway.

I can't believe it's almost 2012, and there are still people out there bitching about SSD performance and capacity as well as price per GB. People, there's no circumstance where I'd rather have a multi TB HDD instead of a SSD. But that's the great part -- you don't have to choose. If you shop around, you can find some great deals on drives. I've recently bought two fantastic drives for about $1.10/GB, and would rather have one of those than all the mechanical drives in the world.

BTW, looking at user reviews on newegg for SSDs is the worst way to gauge reliability. If you're sweating it, Intel and Crucial/Micron are the way to go and if you're looking for a first SSD, I recommend the M4 64GB/128GB. They're probably the best value going.

 

[RedJaron]

More competition from an industry heavy hitter is excellent. More competition, more technology battles, is always better for the consumer. Prices ought to start falling faster in a few months.

 

[halcyon]

Nice drive, but I have 256GB Vertex 3 in my 15" MacBook Pro and I've had no issues with it. Its very fast. I have a pair of 128GB Vertex 2's in RAID 0 in my Mac Pro and same deal. They continue to work splendidly are are quite fast. I hear a lot of bad things about the Vertex drives but I guess I just got lucky.

 

[belardo]

[citation][nom]ikyung[/nom]Really? Hmm, this is the first time I heard something negative about the 470series SSD. Everytime I read a SSD article the 470series always had good reviews on solid reliability.[/citation]
Did I say anything about the reliability of the 470s? The older Samsung drives have the low-performance "problem"... yet many notebooks companies use them.

OCZ is the top dog, selling many models to many people... but I wouldn't use one.