Samsung 840 EVO mSATA Review: 120, 250, 500, And 1000 GB, Tested

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Once upon a time, adopting mSATA-based storage meant compromising capacity and performance. With its 840 EVO, Samsung gives you access to as much as 1000 GB at incredibly fast speeds. The company even manages attractive pricing to keep mSATA competitive.

Test Setup And Benchmarks

Our consumer storage test bench is based on Intel's Z77 Platform Controller Hub paired with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU. Intel's 6- and 7-series chipsets are virtually identical from a storage perspective. We're standardizing on older RST 10.6.1002 drivers for the foreseeable future.

Updates to the RST driver package occasionally result in subtle performance changes. They can also lead to some truly profound variance in scores and results as well, depending on the revision. Some versions flush writes more or less frequently. Others work better in RAID situations. Builds 11.2 and newer support TRIM in RAID as well. Regardless, results obtained with one revision may or may not be comparable to results obtained with another, so sticking with one version across all testing is mandatory.

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Test Hardware
ProcessorIntel Core i5-2400 (Sandy Bridge), 32 nm, 3.1 GHz, LGA 1155, 6 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost Enabled
MotherboardGigabyte G1.Sniper M3
MemoryG.Skill Ripjaws 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866 @ DDR3-1333, 1.5 V
System DriveKingston HyperX 3K 240 GB, Firmware 5.02
Drive(s) Under TestSamsung 840 EVO mSATA 120 GB, Firmware: EXT41B6Q
Row 5 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 250 GB, Firmware: EXT41B6Q
Row 6 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 500 GB, Firmware: EXT41B6Q
Row 7 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 1000 GB, Firmware: EXT41B6Q
Row 8 - Cell 0 SanDisk X210 256 GB, Firmware X210400
Row 9 - Cell 0 SanDisk X210 512 GB, Firmware X210400
Comparison DrivesIntel SSD 530 180 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: DC12
Row 11 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 520 180 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 400i
Row 12 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 180 GB mSATA, Firmware: LLKi
Row 13 - Cell 0 SanDisk A110 256 GB M.2 PCIe x2, Firmware: A200100
Row 14 - Cell 0 Silicon Motion SM226EN 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: M0709A
Row 15 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 120 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 16 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 17 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 480 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 18 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 960 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 19 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 20 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 21 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 480 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 22 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 23 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 64 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: X211200
Row 24 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware X211200
Row 25 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware X211200
Row 26 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware DXM04B0Q
Row 27 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware DXM04B0Q
Row 28 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 120 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 29 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 240 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 30 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 480 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 31 - Cell 0 Seagate 600 SSD 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: B660
Row 32 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 30 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 33 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 60 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 34 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 120 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 35 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 180 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 36 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 240 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 37 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 335 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 335s
Row 38 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 510 250 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: PWG2
Row 39 - Cell 0 OCZ Vertex 3.20 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.25
Row 40 - Cell 0 OCZ Vector 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.0
Row 41 - Cell 0 Samsung 830 512 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: CXMO3B1Q
Row 42 - Cell 0 Crucial m4 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 000F
Row 43 - Cell 0 Plextor M5 Pro 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 1.02
Row 44 - Cell 0 Corsair Neutron GTX 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: M206
GraphicsMSI Cyclone GTX 460 1 GB
Power SupplySeasonic X-650, 650 W 80 PLUS Gold
ChassisLian Li Pitstop
RAIDLSI 9266-8i PCIe x8, FastPath and CacheCade AFK
System Software and Drivers
OperatingSystemWindows 7 x64 Ultimate
DirectXDirectX 11
DriversGraphics: Nvidia 314.07RST: 10.6.1002IMEI: 7.1.21.1124Generic AHCI: MSAHCI.SYS
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Benchmarks
Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0Trace-Based
Iometer 1.1.0# Workers = 1, 4 KB Random: LBA=16 GB, varying QDs, 128 KB Sequential, 8 GB LBA Precondition, Exponential QD Scaling
PCMark 7Secondary Storage Suite
PCM VantageStorage Suite
Christopher Ryan
15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • vaughn2k
    Now all we need is the price to drop, then I'll get one.. ;)
    Reply
  • blackmagnum
    Maybe it's time to upgrade the HD of an old working notebook to SSD! But will a Core2Duo processor bottleneck a SSD?
    Reply
  • jrharbort
    @blackmagnum: You don't have to worry about your processor being a bottleneck, but rather, your system's SATA interface. It is highly doubtful that your Core 2-based notebook (much like my own) has an m-sata slot, and the 2.5" bay for a HDD would have a SATAII port, not SATAIII. So the overall max read/write rates would be cut in half. But to answer your question in another way, tom's posted an article almost a year ago on the subject of upgrading older systems with an SSD: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-upgrade-sata-3gbps,3469.html
    Reply
  • spookyman
    @blackmagnum: You be glad to upgrade your hard drive to a SSD drive. Did it for my goddaughter's after she had a hard drive crash and it runs a lot faster then before.
    Reply
  • JohnnyLucky
    Interesting article. It coincides with the current shift from desktop pc's to mobile pc's.
    Reply
  • nekromobo
    But aren't we already moving to M.2. Why can't I buy Samsung XP941 :(
    Reply
  • pyro226
    "The latest version offers RAPID support to non-EVO drives like the 840 Pro."Got my hopes up there. The standard 840 series SSDs are NOT supported. The article didn't explicitly state they were, but what other drives (aside from the 840 Pro and EVO) have Rapid support? Perhaps "The latest version offers RAPID support to both EVO and 840 Pro SSDs." would be more accurate.
    Reply
  • LordConrad
    "This company has a track record of disrupting the markets it enters; now that it's focusing attention on smaller form factors with enthusiast-class hardware, it's only a matter of time before we start seeing M.2-based offerings as well."This is mainstream hardware, I don't know any enthusiats who will settle for drives with TLC NAND.
    Reply
  • lowguppy
    It is nice to see these finally available. I've been watching the Crucial m500 mSATA drive for a while, and the 480gb version frequently falls under $300 on NewEgg, which is competitive with 2.5" SSDs.
    Reply
  • RedJaron
    12750948 said:
    This is mainstream hardware, I don't know any enthusiats who will settle for drives with TLC NAND.
    "Enthusiast" to me doesn't automatically mean getting the fastest, biggest, bestest, craziest parts regardless of price. It also means people who put a lot more thought into their systems and thoroughly weigh all their options. MLC, TLC, or not, the fact remains that the EVO is a fast, reliable drive for a good price.

    Your argument sounds similar to, "I don't know any enthusiasts who will settle for LGA 1150 instead of LGA 2011," or "I don't know any enthusiasts that would settle for a non-K CPU."
    Reply