Samsung 840 EVO SSD: Tested At 120, 250, 500, And 1000 GB

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Last week, Samsung unveiled a successor to its wildly popular 840 at the company's Global SSD Summit in Seoul, South Korea. Stacked with a series of new features and 19 nm, three-bit-per-cell NAND, we benchmark four models and make a recommendation.

Results: Robocopy File Copy Performance

File Copy Performance with Microsoft Robocopy

Microsoft's Robocopy, a CLI directory replication command, gradually replaced the older xcopy. It rocks a whole host of features that make it the logical choice for transferring a large number of files. It's multi-threaded, has a ton of options, and generally outperforms vanilla Windows copy operations. Best of all, it's built right in to Redmond's operating system. Especially useful for network copy operations and backups, Robocopy doesn't stop to ask you one hundred questions while it copies over your music collection, either.

The reality of benchmarking file copy performance is that you need something fast to copy from and something fast to copy to. This is most important with SSDs. It doesn't matter if your drive can write sequentially at 500 MB/s if the source files are hosted on a USB 2.0-attached external hard drive. We're copying our test files from an Intel SSD DC S3700 to the drives in the chart below, taking source speed out of the equation.

There are 9065 files comprising the 16.2 GB payload. Some of the files are huge (up to 2 GB), while others are best described as tiny. On average, that's around 1.8 MB per file. The files are a mix of music, program, pictures, and random file types.

It's fair to say that this chart would look much different if we were copying from a hard drive to a SSD. Even if the disk drive's sequential throughput wasn't a bottleneck, it'd still choke on the smaller files.

Samsung's 840 EVOs don't quite show up where we were expecting. The 500 GB model comes close to the 128 GB 840 Pro, while the 1 TB model squares up against SanDisk's 120 GB Extreme II. You'd think that write caching via Turbo Write would excel, especially the biggest model and its 12 GB of simulated SLC memory. For comparison, the 120 GB model is just slightly faster than the 64 GB Ultra Plus from SanDisk. Meanwhile, the 250 GB drive is just three seconds ahead of the 128 GB Ultra Plus.

Christopher Ryan
64 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Someone Somewhere
    Surely it would make sense to compare it to the vanilla SSD840. Also, there's no 840 Pro in the power charts.

    While the 1TB drive coming down to ~65c/GB is nice, seeing the 120 GB drives get near there would be nice. Especially since this is meant to be the value king.
    Reply
  • drwho1
    I have 2 840 pro 512 GB SSD's (1 on my notebook 1 on my PC)

    I got them on a sale on Newegg for around $500 for both of them. :)

    A 1TB would be cool if I find it on sale....
    or maybe I should try out writing a letter to someone fat in some weird red costume...
    Reply
  • slomo4sho
    The performance gap between the 840 Evo and 840 Pro is discouraging for the lower capacity models. I understand that the Pro is the flagship product but I was expecting less of a gap in in the 120GB models since this is a newer generation product and the 840 Pro is still based on the 21nm MLC NAND. However, the 1TB model is is a great choice for mass SSD storage. Lets hope the prices drop below $0.50 per GB soon.
    Reply
  • Someone Somewhere
    MLC is faster than TLC, and bigger node NAND is usually faster. Only reason to go smaller is price and power.
    Reply
  • SteelCity1981
    I wonder if samsung plans on releasing a pro evo series since the regular series evo is to replace the older non pro versions.
    Reply
  • razor512
    ripoff, high prices for triple level flash especially at 19mm, the lifespan will likely suck and their shortened warranty represents that.
    Reply
  • master9716
    Cost for performance = Very High . ofcourse its not going to perform like a Pro but for the cost im amazed its that much better than the Regular 840.
    Reply
  • expl0itfinder
    Samsung makes some good looking drives. I'm loving the matte grey.
    Reply
  • J_E_D_70
    Glad this review also refutes the perception of low TLC write endurance in normal desktop workloads. Been using a 128GB 840 in a daily-use desktop for eight months now and the endurance counter hasn't decremented at all. I'll have replaced the entire rig long before it wears out.
    Reply
  • JohnnyLucky
    Interesting review. I think the point to remember is that the 840 EVO is not a high end enthusiast ssd like the 840 Pro. Instead, consider the 840 EVO as a mainstream ssd suitable for most consumer and home office scenarios.
    Reply