
While Turbo Write is a feature that you can almost always take advantage of, Dynamic Thermal Guard is something that you hope to never use. Almost every SSD not specified for industrial applications has an operating range between 0 and 70 degrees Celsius. High temperatures can cause a number of issues with NAND, from lower write endurance to bit errors.
So, when Dynamic Thermal Guard picks up temperatures in excess of 70 degrees, it cuts back on write performance to reduce power consumption and, consequently, heat until the drive falls back into a safer thermal range. SSDs certainly aren't indestructible. They consume power, dissipate heat, and typically require airflow over their enclosures. This feature should help safeguard an SSD's sensitive components, even if the other parts in your PC are aggressively overclocked.

Finally, Samsung showed of the spoils of its 2012 acquisition of data caching company Nvelo. It's RAPID software-based feature allows the Samsung's SSDs to cache hot data in host memory to accelerate I/O. The performance improvements it showed off on-stage (and we later demonstrated on this page of our 840 EVO review) were outstanding.
The demo we saw in Seoul had read performance jump over 750 MB/s, while writes more than doubled to 1100 MB/s. Even though Windows already caches writes, RAPID takes this to another level entirely. It does come at a cost, though. RAPID uses up to 1 GB of host memory, though that number is dynamic and depends on the amount of RAM available. When asked about the possibility of power loss, David Lin, vice president of product management for RAPID, conceded that data could be compromised. He then tempered our concern somewhat by adding that RAPID responds to operating system flush commands, which are issued regularly.

RAPID is currently only enabled in Windows, but will be available for all 840-series drives once Samsung's Magician 4.2 software is released.
We're glad to see Samsung investing heavily in innovative ways to boost storage performance, and not just relying on its most obvious advantages over other companies. It's latest features aren't necessarily exclusive; however, when you combine them with a proprietary controller, the company's own flash, and planned firmware updates, it's clear to see that Samsung isn't resting on its laurels.
My 840 has about 0.41TB written to it, and i bought this drive a few months ago.
Anyway, looking forward to RAPID.
Anyone else find that this reads like an infomercial?
Everyone wins.
NVMe is a protocol to work with PCIe. This is quite clear from the slides. What is PCIe? Do you remember your last video card upgrade? The slot your card plugged into was most likely a PCIe slot. NVMe has no business with SATA, and that's the way you want it to be.
Last year, Samsung touched on some new technologies that they were working on, but didn't share any insight during their latest summit,
NVMe is a protocol to work with PCIe. This is quite clear from the slides. What is PCIe? Do you remember your last video card upgrade? The slot your card plugged into was most likely a PCIe slot. NVMe has no business with SATA, and that's the way you want it to be.
...SATA 3.2 (SATA Express) uses PCIe lanes (2x PCIe 3.0) to provide faster communication between the CPU and the storage media, hence reducing the bottleneck. I understand NVMe is an independent tech from SATA 3.2 (notice that ".2" behind the 3).
*** Edited by Moderator ***
That's a solid question and one that isn't always easy to answer. There are so many new interfaces and protocols, it's hard to keep them all straight. To answer your question, SATA 3.2 now includes SATA Express. SATA Express is a standard that defines two driver interfaces and two physical interfaces. You can connect via legacy SATA or PCIe. For SATA, you will use the AHCI interface. In this way, it will work just like every other SATA SSD that is on the market. For PCIe, the driver interface is either AHCI or NVMe. With AHCI, you still see a PCIe device dangling off of the PCIe root port and you use the same AHCI drivers that comes with your operating system of choice. With NVMe, you get all of the added benefits of the new protocol, but you will need OS driver support. All of that should *crosses fingers* be ironed out in the next year.
What makes things slightly confusing is that any of these combinations are valid, so you have to pay particular attention to whether your M.2 card is SATA or PCIe, and if it is PCIe, whether it is AHCI or NVMe. If you want more information, I recommended looking at the SATAIO page, they have a lot of good information. https://www.sata-io.org/sata-express
My 840 Pro 256GB doesn't allow for RAPID even while using Samsung Magician 4.2
It passes the Genuine Validation check and everything so I don't think this is true, or I'm an unlucky bloke.
Does anyone have an answer as to why this is?
This should be able to clarify
Any ideas fellas?
That's a solid question and one that isn't always easy to answer. There are so many new interfaces and protocols, it's hard to keep them all straight. To answer your question, SATA 3.2 now includes SATA Express. SATA Express is a standard that defines two driver interfaces and two physical interfaces. You can connect via legacy SATA or PCIe. For SATA, you will use the AHCI interface. In this way, it will work just like every other SATA SSD that is on the market. For PCIe, the driver interface is either AHCI or NVMe. With AHCI, you still see a PCIe device dangling off of the PCIe root port and you use the same AHCI drivers that comes with your operating system of choice. With NVMe, you get all of the added benefits of the new protocol, but you will need OS driver support. All of that should *crosses fingers* be ironed out in the next year.
What makes things slightly confusing is that any of these combinations are valid, so you have to pay particular attention to whether your M.2 card is SATA or PCIe, and if it is PCIe, whether it is AHCI or NVMe. If you want more information, I recommended looking at the SATAIO page, they have a lot of good information. https://www.sata-io.org/sata-express
Thank you for addressing my query.
This should be able to clarify
Any ideas fellas?
There is a note on the Samsung Magician download page ATM:
* Notice : Official release of Magician 4.2 will be tentatively postponed until late August in order to ensure compatibility with all devices.
My early release of 4.2 didn't support the 840 Pro, and I seemed to recall Samsung saying that the 840 Pro would get a FW upgrade that would let it use RAPID (but don't quote me on this). Or, it's just that they couldn't work out the kinks, and you'll have to wait until later this month for a fixed version.
I know RAPID doesn't work on my 840 Pros with the 4.2 Beta that I used in the EVO review.
Regards,
Christopher Ryan
There is a note on the Samsung Magician download page ATM:
* Notice : Official release of Magician 4.2 will be tentatively postponed until late August in order to ensure compatibility with all devices.
My early release of 4.2 didn't support the 840 Pro, and I seemed to recall Samsung saying that the 840 Pro would get a FW upgrade that would let it use RAPID (but don't quote me on this). Or, it's just that they couldn't work out the kinks, and you'll have to wait until later this month for a fixed version.
I know RAPID doesn't work on my 840 Pros with the 4.2 Beta that I used in the EVO review.
Regards,
Christopher Ryan
Isn't that something... my magician actually got notified and auto-updated lol, I don't have an EVO since RAPID would probably work if I did, and the download page DID have 4.2 on there a few days ago so it I guess they reverted their decision to offer 4.2 to download.
I did know that reviews stated their 840 Pro's weren't detected in 4.2 to allow enabling RAPID but since it was an auto-update, I was under suspicion it was a minor version updated vs the 4.2 software included in the EVO packaging which allowed enabling of RAPID from being an official update for me.
Ill give a screeny & checksum of my magician installer in-case anyone want to see vs theirs since I don't think this is 4.2 Beta. And if anyone wants I can upload it for others to download.
Guess I'll need to wait for Magician 4.2.1/4.3 or a FW update then.
Good to know I wasn't preventing it's ability to update, and that it's still incompatible at the moment.
Thank you for the verification
There is a note on the Samsung Magician download page ATM:
* Notice : Official release of Magician 4.2 will be tentatively postponed until late August in order to ensure compatibility with all devices.
My early release of 4.2 didn't support the 840 Pro, and I seemed to recall Samsung saying that the 840 Pro would get a FW upgrade that would let it use RAPID (but don't quote me on this). Or, it's just that they couldn't work out the kinks, and you'll have to wait until later this month for a fixed version.
I know RAPID doesn't work on my 840 Pros with the 4.2 Beta that I used in the EVO review.
Regards,
Christopher Ryan
Isn't that something... my magician actually got notified and auto-updated lol, I don't have an EVO since RAPID would probably work if I did, and the download page DID have 4.2 on there a few days ago so it I guess they reverted their decision to offer 4.2 to download.
I did know that reviews stated their 840 Pro's weren't detected in 4.2 to allow enabling RAPID but since it was an auto-update, I was under suspicion it was a minor version updated vs the 4.2 software included in the EVO packaging which allowed enabling of RAPID from being an official update for me.
Ill give a screeny & checksum of my magician installer in-case anyone want to see vs theirs since I don't think this is 4.2 Beta. And if anyone wants I can upload it for others to download.
Guess I'll need to wait for Magician 4.2.1/4.3 or a FW update then.
Good to know I wasn't preventing it's ability to update, and that it's still incompatible at the moment.
Thank you for the verification
Yeah, it seems as though it was pulled. The version most reviewers were supplied with was basically just a 4.2 preview.
The 830 and 470 won't be getting any more FW updates, but the 840 lines should be getting new FW over the next couple weeks/months. I believe most 840 EVOs will be available on the 20th, so its possible that the new updated version of Magician will coincide with the launch -- though the early retail packaging I have included 4.1 on the software CD. I'd expect most retail 840 EVOs will have new firmware and a new Magician version to download.
It would be incredibly awesome if the 830 could get RAPID too, though.
Regards,
Christopher Ryan