Big difference between Samsung 840 Pro and 840 EVO?

fuzzybabybunny

Moderator<br>Digital & Video Cameras
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Jan 2, 2006
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512GB Samsung 840 Pro: $380

500GB Samsung 840 EVO: $260

Uhhhh.... there really isn't going to be much of a performance difference right?
 

UaVaj

Golden Member
Nov 16, 2012
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measurable difference? yes.
will you ever notice it? no.

if time is money. get the pro
if just your home/gaming computer. get the evo.

for bragging rights. only the pro.
 
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G73S

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Mar 14, 2012
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After a 3 day research, from what I read, the Pro is slightly better in benchmarks only, but you will never be able to tell a difference in real world usage. So go with the cheaper one. I opted for two 1 TB EVOs and my system has never been faster
 

fuzzybabybunny

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Alright, cool. That's what I figured. After a certain level "fast" is just as quick as "very fast" for typical usage.
 

BonzaiDuck

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Jun 30, 2004
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After a 3 day research, from what I read, the Pro is slightly better in benchmarks only, but you will never be able to tell a difference in real world usage. So go with the cheaper one. I opted for two 1 TB EVOs and my system has never been faster

I got the Pro model. Either one -- in AHCI mode -- can use Magician's "RAPID" RAM caching. I didn't know there was a performance difference; I thought it was instead just the difference between MLC and TLC. And I'd paid a premium for the Pro: it was closer to 5 Franklins than the price cited in this thread.

Thing is . . . I'd been using the ISRT configuration with a VelociRaptor before I replaced it with the Sammy Pro. During the transition, I unhinged the 60GB SSD caching drive. I had always seen that an HDD standalone was a slug, but I actually got used to it for the last couple weeks.

Someone could argue that the difference isn't worth the expense of these larger SSDs. Depends on your objectives. But an 840 with "RAPID" -- just freaking incredible. And so nice! -- that I could clean up the Windows installation to "near-perfect" before cloning to the SSD. You could say "Time is money," but "time and effort = perfection."
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
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EVO uses TLC. Not a big deal if you don't write a lot.

True. That's probably why I selected the Pro drive over the EVO when I did. But my best understanding from what I glean here so far from the forums: we're still talking about greater longevity for these units than you might expect for an HDD.

I have a server system for which I'd put the OS on a 120GB EVO, and I have a 60GB Mushkin Chronos I added to it for the volume shadow copies and the swap file. You'd think there will be a lot more writes on the Chronos, so no telling how long it will last. At least it's a fairly safe way to find out, though! By the time it starts to fail, I'm likely to have already replaced it with something else, and "something else" is more likely to cost a lot less.
 

G73S

Senior member
Mar 14, 2012
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I got the Pro model. Either one -- in AHCI mode -- can use Magician's "RAPID" RAM caching. I didn't know there was a performance difference; I thought it was instead just the difference between MLC and TLC. And I'd paid a premium for the Pro: it was closer to 5 Franklins than the price cited in this thread.

Thing is . . . I'd been using the ISRT configuration with a VelociRaptor before I replaced it with the Sammy Pro. During the transition, I unhinged the 60GB SSD caching drive. I had always seen that an HDD standalone was a slug, but I actually got used to it for the last couple weeks.

Someone could argue that the difference isn't worth the expense of these larger SSDs. Depends on your objectives. But an 840 with "RAPID" -- just freaking incredible. And so nice! -- that I could clean up the Windows installation to "near-perfect" before cloning to the SSD. You could say "Time is money," but "time and effort = perfection."

even if you do excessive writes to the SSD which I doubt that's one does in his daily usage patterns, the drivers be it TLC or MLC will last you more than you would want. I mean, in 3 years, I definitely will upgrade to a 2 TB SSD or so. Both are excellent drivers, the only reason I chose the Evo was the fact that they have 1 TB capacity. I want the largest capacity available and want to have as much space as I can for an SSD.

If I had to choose between a 500 GB Evo or Pro then I'd get the Pro just for bragging rights in benchmarks. No other reason. I could care less about TLC vs MLC personally.
 

npaladin-2000

Senior member
May 11, 2012
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Personally I'd get the EVO. Frankly RAPID makes most home-user use cases a wash, no matter what you're doing they're both going to be "screaming effing fast."

Power users might be a different story, and for a RAID setup the Pro would definitely be a better choice. But if you're chugging along on a single-drive Ultrabook, RAPID is the great equalizer. Literally in this case.
 

Essence_of_War

Platinum Member
Feb 21, 2013
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512GB Samsung 840 Pro: $380

500GB Samsung 840 EVO: $260

Uhhhh.... there really isn't going to be much of a performance difference right?

In normal desktop/notebook usage? Almost certainly not.

If you're doing something intense like caching a heavily used database, or doing a ton of professional photo/video editing scratch space you might see a difference.
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
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The likely bench seq read throughput on my Mom's system is probably around 300 MB/s, with an Elm Crest SATA-III connected to an SATA-II controller. The jump from HDD to SSD in that system was quite noticeable.

I could tell that my ISRT configuration was faster than the Elm Crest rig. It would bench somewhere around 400 in sequential reads.

Once you're configured for greater performance at around 500+/-, you notice less and less of a difference. But there are some things I noticed as faster with the RAPID configuration.

The entire thing about these caching schemes that indeed improve performance: they must be stable. As long as your RAM is good, as long as the Samsung SSD is good, it appears that RAPID is stable -- assuming your SATA configuration isn't buggy or you don't have a driver problem.
 

rsutoratosu

Platinum Member
Feb 18, 2011
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i have everything under the sun, 830, 840, 840 pro, 840 evo, all feels the same.. range from 256gb to 750gb. You can only tell via benchmarks