Samsung 840 250GB

[webstar]

I just ordered a Samsung 840 (non pro) 250GB for my laptop, and it's my first SSD so I'm a little skeptical on the TLC NAND matter. Should I avoid frequent downloads, installation of games and so on? What's the point of a 250GB SSD if I'm going to have an OS, a few programs that I use on a daily basis and a few games on it (~100GB at best) while the rest is empty?

 

[LoveMachine]

This whole TLC thing is likely overblown. For the general user, it will be years (hard to say how many) before anything happens. For a whole myriad of reasons, you should be backing up anyway, so at some far off time, if you still are even still using this drive and it fails, you replace it with a SATA7-megahyperdrivequantumspeed drive, re-image, and move on.

I have the 128GB 840, and I'm not losing any sleep or changing my behavior in any way. If it should fail in the next 3 years because of NAND burnout, you can chastise me then. We'll be on to some new tech by then anyways, so that'll be a reason to upgrade.

 

[SSBrain]

On my Samsung 840 250 GB (TLC) I've used up 9 write cycles in one month of relatively intense use (1.85 TB written). With at the very least 991 write cycles left to go, I would still have 200 TB of writes left, which means more than 10 years of continuous use at the current usage rate. I'm not really worrying about wearing up this drive any time soon.

My drive's Write Amplification factor might be lower than typical uses, though.
(which is however counterbalanced by the fact that most people write much less than around 2 TB/month).

By the way, I'm using my drive for everything, which inclues downloads, torrents, virtual machines, hybernation, etc.
I have not performed any tweak to reduce SSD writes, but I am monitoring them continuously with CrystalDiskInfo.

Again, I'm aware that my usage is more intense than that of most other people's:

 

[BFG10K]

Should I avoid frequent downloads, installation of games and so on?

No, treat it exactly like an HDD, minus the defrag of course.

What's the point of a 250GB SSD if I'm going to have an OS, a few programs that I use on a daily basis and a few games on it (~100GB at best) while the rest is empty?

Indeed.

 

[Josh123]

I bought the same SSD and should be here this Friday. I initially went with the 120gb but after getting it I figured it wouldn't be large enough. Plus finding a good deal on the 250gb kind of helped.

I'm currently trying to sell my 120gb since I've only had it for about a week but if I can't get rid of it I'll just throw it in my wife's PC.

 

[daveybrat]

I bought the same SSD and should be here this Friday. I initially went with the 120gb but after getting it I figured it wouldn't be large enough. Plus finding a good deal on the 250gb kind of helped.

I'm currently trying to sell my 120gb since I've only had it for about a week but if I can't get rid of it I'll just throw it in my wife's PC.

Also, the write speeds are much faster on the 250GB model over the 120GB model.


I too just got the 840 250GB drive for a great price and i'm not at all concerned about the lifespan of it. If it lasts me 5+ years i'll be just peachy.

I don't write much to my main drive anyways so with what i've seen, i should get about 10-15 years out of it.

 

[rsutoratosu]

you probably get new ones next year because price will be so low. This will probably happen before the samsung ssd dying on you.

I just pretty much replaced all the ssd I bought during last black friday with 840 and 840 pros..
so now I have 4 840 from 250 to 500gb and 1 830 256gb.

 

[Emulex]

remember the 840 series are incompatible with all LSI megaraid controller. 100% unsupported. Only the SM843 enteprise drives or the older 830 series are supported.

840 and 840 pro - nice dice with 9260 through 9271 megaraid and unsupported from lsi.

 

[Unoid]

I think I'll be getting a 500gb 840 for my new gaming drive. 256gb ain't cutting it.

 

[cgott42]

I just purchased one.
Do to replace my current 5400RPM SATA HDD

Do I need a special controller for this (being SATA III) or will my existing motherboard controller (Dell 620 Purchased in Dec. '12) be just as good?

thx

 

[daveybrat]

I just purchased one.
Do to replace my current 5400RPM SATA HDD

Do I need a special controller for this (being SATA III) or will my existing motherboard controller (Dell 620 Purchased in Dec. '12) be just as good?

thx

You don't need a special controller. Your Dell might have Sata 2 or Sata 3 ports on the motherboard. Either one will be a HUGE increase in speed over your old drive.

I currently use my Crucial 128GB SSD on a Sata 2 port and the difference over my old WD Black edition 640GB 7200RPM drive is beyond night and day!

 

[webstar]

I got it yesterday and immediately installed it in the laptop and did a fresh install of windows 7. It's blazing fast when compared both to the 1tb 5.4k rpm that was previously in the laptop and 7.2k hdd in my primary pc.

 

[SSBrain]

Hardware.info is testing the endurance of a Samsung 840 250GB here:
http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/4178/hardwareinfo-tests-lifespan-of-samsung-ssd-840-250gb-tlc-ssd

There's even a live video of the process.
Estimations are that its media wearout indicator will reach zero at about 230 TiB written, which is a lot given that most users only write a few TiB at most per year.

It will be interesting to see how much past that it will survive.