840 evo discussion... vs. cheap pro drives?

[z28dreams]

I'm looking for an SSD for my 2011 macbook pro (5400rpm!!!) and wanted something affordable in the 256gb range.

The new 840 evo looks promising, however I'm also seeing some older drives on sale that might be competitive.

For example, the Plextor M5P (pro version) was on sale for $190. Assuming the 840 evo would be the same price, which would perform better?

840 evo review:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7173/...-120gb-250gb-500gb-750gb-1tb-models-tested/12

M5P review:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6153/plextor-m5-pro-256gb-review

Are there any other older "pro" drives that might make more sense to buy than a newer evo? It looks like the old M5P will have faster sequential writes, but use a touch more power.

What do you think?

 

[Cerb]

You're going from a 5400 RPM HDD. I think you're stressing too much over it. Unless you have IO-heavy work that you simply can't do right now because of your Mac's HDD, the differences are mostly splitting hairs.

The Evo will technically be the better SSD, on one hand. On the other, will it really matter, so long as the regular active idle is <0.5W? Probably not.

I wouldn't get a Seagate 600, or other known power-hog, but they're kind of expensive anyway (they're more geared towards workstation and server users, as many businesses don't want or need the extra cost of "enterprise" storage, but also don't want fragile SF-like performance).

 

[Germanic]

IMO if you're coming from a laptop HDD, any SSD will do.

You don't need to get an 840 Pro.

I would probably get an 840 EVO and save some money.

The 840 EVO is superb value for how much of a performance improvement it offers over the normal 840. The read speeds are a huge improvement and the read speeds are probably the most important criteria for 90% of people out there.

 

[z28dreams]

You're going from a 5400 RPM HDD. I think you're stressing too much over it. Unless you have IO-heavy work that you simply can't do right now because of your Mac's HDD, the differences are mostly splitting hairs.

The Evo will technically be the better SSD, on one hand. On the other, will it really matter, so long as the regular active idle is <0.5W? Probably not.

I wouldn't get a Seagate 600, or other known power-hog, but they're kind of expensive anyway (they're more geared towards workstation and server users, as many businesses don't want or need the extra cost of "enterprise" storage, but also don't want fragile SF-like performance).

Why do you say the Evo will be the better SSD? From what I'm seeing the old M5P benchmarks for write are actually better, but I'm wondering if I'm not looking at some other important benchmarks.

Here are all the benchmarks from the Tom's Hardware review:

128kb sequential read:
840 evo (256gb): 528
M5P (256gb): 533 (+1%)

128kb sequential write:
840 evo:324
M5P: 438 (+35%)

4kb random read:
840 evo: 89,908
M5P: 97,556 (+8.5%)

4kb random write:
No chart, but from the graph it looks like the 840 evo wins with a queue depth < 8 but the M5P wins with a queue depth > 8. Not sure which really wins here, then.

Storage Bench 1.0 (higher is better):
840 evo: 237.45 (+5%)
M5P: 225.56


This graph seems to sum it up nicely:
http://media.bestofmicro.com/7/6/394242/original/Trace-Service-Scatter-RevB.png

It seems that the 840 evo does fairly well in the storage benches (5%) because the writes are small, but loses with any large sequential write by a LOT (35%)

 

[Cerb]

Why do you say the Evo will be the better SSD? From what I'm seeing the old M5P benchmarks for write are actually better, but I'm wondering if I'm not looking at some other important benchmarks.

$167 AR ($177 up front) v. $251 for a 250GB v. 256GB.

What are the chances that you will be transferring tens of GBs at a time from another interface connected to another SSD capable of 450+MB/s reads, to make write performance differences visible at all? And, even if you could, on occasion, how much would it affect your daily use of the machine?

Chances are pretty close to zero, for that. Everything else is so close you'd never notice it beyond benchmarks. Chances of having some use for $70-80? I think pretty high.

 

[z28dreams]

$167 AR ($177 up front) v. $251 for a 250GB v. 256GB.

What are the chances that you will be transferring tens of GBs at a time from another interface connected to another SSD capable of 450+MB/s reads, to make write performance differences visible at all? And, even if you could, on occasion, how much would it affect your daily use of the machine?

Chances are pretty close to zero, for that. Everything else is so close you'd never notice it beyond benchmarks. Chances of having some use for $70-80? I think pretty high.

I'm assuming the drives can be had for roughly the same price. (840 evo pricing MSRP is $190, and I saw the M5P on sale for $190).

My question was simple: Assuming the SAME PRICE, which drive would you go with? I'm not sure that we can count on the 840 evo dropping down to current 840 non-pro sale prices for a while.

 

[Cerb]

The Evo or Plextor M5S. The release MSRP for the 840 Evo 250GB is $190, so it will still be $60 cheaper. The same price between those two SSDs is not going to happen, unless Plextor is willing to lose money to help get rid of lingering M5P inventories.

If the two were the same price, flip a coin, because they'll be about equal. I would get the Plextor in that fictional situation, just because it's been around longer. The reality is that Samsung is offering an aggressive MSRP, and it's that going to be good for companies without their own memory fabs. If you see an M5P again for $190, you might as well buy it and go ahead and have an SSD.

If you currently can use your MBA, with its HDD, and you use it on the go, then any current-gen SSD with a decent active idle will be fast enough, won't be bad for your battery health/life, and you won't be able to tell a difference between them in use. Get one, be rid of the HDD, and be happy.

 

[z28dreams]

The Evo or Plextor M5S. The release MSRP for the 840 Evo 250GB is $190, so it will still be $60 cheaper. The same price between those two SSDs is not going to happen, unless Plextor is willing to lose money to help get rid of lingering M5P inventories.

If the two were the same price, flip a coin, because they'll be about equal. I would get the Plextor in that fictional situation, just because it's been around longer. The reality is that Samsung is offering an aggressive MSRP, and it's that going to be good for companies without their own memory fabs. If you see an M5P again for $190, you might as well buy it and go ahead and have an SSD.

If you currently can use your MBA, with its HDD, and you use it on the go, then any current-gen SSD with a decent active idle will be fast enough, won't be bad for your battery health/life, and you won't be able to tell a difference between them in use. Get one, be rid of the HDD, and be happy.

The Plextor M5P was as cheap as $190 just 9 days ago on Amazon:

http://slickdeals.net/f/6165194-256...ernal-Solid-State-Drive-SSD-190-Free-Shipping

It's not some kind of fictional situation. The same price came up a month ago as well.

 

[Cerb]

The Plextor M5P was as cheap as $190 just 9 days ago on Amazon:

http://slickdeals.net/f/6165194-256...ernal-Solid-State-Drive-SSD-190-Free-Shipping

It's not some kind of fictional situation. The same price came up a month ago as well.

As a steep sale, and previously unknown information. Lots of things happen when you're not needing it ASAP. If you want to wait another month, do that. Or, get a current 840, or an 840 Evo as soon as they come out.

The thing is, if your MBA is is even remotely tolerable with the HDD, any current-gen SSD is going to be able to outrun you, no matter the benchmarks--they're trying to stress the SSD, but if you can handle a 5400 RPM HDD, combined with you being slower due to it being a small notebook, you're not going to. Given the context, it's a lot of worry over something that won't make a practical difference, while having an SSD will. It would be different if you were looking at older SF-based SSDs as an option, that could sometimes become very slow over time, or if you had an IO-limited program to worry about, or some other such extenuating circumstance. Without that, you'll never notice a difference, with regular use on your MBA, between an 840, 840 Evo, 840 Pro, M5S, or M5P, or M5 Pro Xtreme.

 

[z28dreams]

As a steep sale, and previously unknown information. Lots of things happen when you're not needing it ASAP. If you want to wait another month, do that. Or, get a current 840, or an 840 Evo as soon as they come out.

The thing is, if your MBA is is even remotely tolerable with the HDD, any current-gen SSD is going to be able to outrun you, no matter the benchmarks--they're trying to stress the SSD, but if you can handle a 5400 RPM HDD, combined with you being slower due to it being a small notebook, you're not going to. Given the context, it's a lot of worry over something that won't make a practical difference, while having an SSD will. It would be different if you were looking at older SF-based SSDs as an option, that could sometimes become very slow over time, or if you had an IO-limited program to worry about, or some other such extenuating circumstance. Without that, you'll never notice a difference, with regular use on your MBA, between an 840, 840 Evo, 840 Pro, M5S, or M5P, or M5 Pro Xtreme.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with everything you said. I'm currently waiting for OSX Mavericks before I buy the SSD, since I want to do a fresh install all at once.

The point of this thread was to simply decide which drive to buy though, since I have a few months before I need it. If I'm going to spend roughly the same amount of money I might as well get the better drive, but apparently I have to fight for that answer.

 

[Cerb]

Don't get me wrong, I agree with everything you said. I'm currently waiting for OSX Mavericks before I buy the SSD, since I want to do a fresh install all at once.

The point of this thread was to simply decide which drive to buy though, since I have a few months before I need it. If I'm going to spend roughly the same amount of money I might as well get the better drive, but apparently I have to fight for that answer.

There really isn't such an answer, since you're not trying to decide between a good drive and a bad drive, or even a good drive from a shaky company (FI, an OCZ). The performance and power use are so close that it won't matter. Random performance is very close, varying by benchmark as to which is better, and the sequential performance differences won't matter to most users at all. Mixed read/write might, but only for drive-limited programs/workflows, with most current SSDs (which is unlikely to be an issue, if a 5400 RPM HDD isn't so slow as to drive you crazy). The best answer is to buy the one with the better price when it comes time to buy (the Evo has good performance and low WA, for a rather good MSRP, but isn't for sale anywhere, yet). If they're both the same price when that time comes, just call heads or tails, and go with the result of a coin. Otherwise, buy a cheaper one, if a really great sale comes along, in the mean time.