Samsung 840 Pro SSD: More Speed, Less Power, And Toggle-Mode 2.0

Features
By Andrew Ku
published

Samsung is taking the wraps off its new flagship 840 Pro SSD. It's promising better performance, lower power consumption, a five-year warranty, and aggressive pricing. Is such a compelling combination of benefits really possible in such a crowded market?

Benchmark Results: Storage Suite v1.0 And PCMark 7

Storage Bench v1.0 (Background Info)

Storage Bench v1.0 is our homegrown trace tool that stores and replays the first two weeks of I/O activity on a desktop workstation. Including several software installations, the trace incorporates quite a bit of sequentially-written compressible and incompressible information.

Samsung's 512 GB 840 Pro jumps to the top of the chart, beating every other drive we've tested so far. This big 512 GB repository certainly looks like it's the new king of the hill.

Unfortunately, we don't have a 128 GB model to test. At least in theory, the 256 GB version should serve up identical performance, given the degree of NAND parallelism and larger data buffer. But we'd suspect the 128 GB drive of being a little slower.

PCMark 7

PCMark 7 puts more emphasis on compressible data. But, yet again, Samsung's 840 Pro springs to the top of our chart. That's an impressive finish considering that SSDs based on SandForce's second-gen controller have held the top spot in this metric for almost a year.

Andrew Ku
44 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mayankleoboy1
    Kudos to Samsung for getting ahead of the competition yet again. And the complete SSD is designed and manufactured in house! And thay are sure of its reliability, hence the 5 year warranty.

    I dont see why it did not get a Toms approved award.... its faster, uses less power, and offers better warranty than the competition. And the firmware is also stable, unlike SF.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    Where are the TRIM efficiency tests ?
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    Despite what the judges believe, Samsung is a great innovator. Unlike some fruity companies, that basically license other companies tech....
    Reply
  • willyroc
    Wow, Samsung was ahead of competitors with its 830 due to superior performance and low prices. Now I bet the 840 has, (or will) widened that lead.
    Reply
  • pocketdrummer
    mayankleoboy1Kudos to Samsung for getting ahead of the competition yet again. And the complete SSD is designed and manufactured in house! And thay are sure of its reliability, hence the 5 year warranty. I dont see why it did not get a Toms approved award.... its faster, uses less power, and offers better warranty than the competition. And the firmware is also stable, unlike SF.
    Probably because it still costs $600 for a pathetic 512gb of memory. Once you can get 512gb for under $200 and have a life span that gets close to a decent HDD, then you can expect an award.

    They keep increasing the speed, but they do nothing to reduce the COST. I would take an SSD half as fast as some that are out now if they cost me half as much and had a decent amount of storage. It's still pointless for someone like me who has over 1.5TB of space used. I can't load Windows and all of my critical programs on a 256GB SSD, and the 512GB wouldn't give me much wiggle room. Not to mention my sample libraries that would benefit from the speed... that are hundreds of GB each.
    Reply
  • So it's the Samsung 840Pro 256GB for C:, and it's the Seagate single-platter 1TB drive (ST1000DM003) for storage. Awesome awesome combo.
    Reply
  • sherlockwing
    Gah, 1 month after I get the 830 now comes the 840 Pro who gets another 120 mb/s in extra speed.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    sherlockwingGah, 1 month after I get the 830 now comes the 840 Pro who gets another 120 mb/s in extra speed.
    Thats technology growth for you :D
    Reply
  • aicom
    Well this makes my new SSD decision much easier.
    Reply
  • sherlockwing
    To those that complain about SSD life span, the truth is that in 3 years(typical warranty of an SSD) you won't be using the same SSD because the new SSD will be 40-50% faster. 3 year from now I'd be using the 860 Pro with anyway and when an SSD reach end life it just can't write anymore, you can still read all the files onto your new SSD unlike a hard drive that just breaks down.
    Reply