Samsung 840 Pro- Higher wear-out rate?

[gbohn]

Hi;

I recently replaced my old 160 GB Intel X-25M SSD with a new larger Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB drive. I'm using this as my C: drive for Windows 7.

It's early days yet, but it seems like I'm seeing a higher Wear rate on the Samsung than I was seeing on the old Intel.

After about 18,500 hours and 8,800 GB of writes, the Intel said it still has 99% of remaining life.

After about 290 hours and 290 GB of Host writes, I see a SMART reported "Wear Leveling" value of 6. As best as I can tell, the 'Write Amplification Factor' is currently running about 5.2, which seems higher than I was expecting. (I've seen reviews mentioning 3 or less as expected values).

Is this considered a normal rate? As best as I can tell, at the same rate, the Samsung will have gone through about 6% of it's 3000 wear count life by 8,800 GB written.

The partition start offset is 1,048,576 so that seems o.k. at least.

Thanks;

 

[Emulex]

turn off defrag

remember the smaller the die, the lower the P/E cycle count. At minimum you are talking 3x more P/E from the X25-M ! Plus it has its own G/C so if you cloned the X25-M with no trim and run the 840 PRO with no OP (over the default) then you are pushing its life.

We found the 840 pro works best with our servers with 192GB out of 256GB usable. Anything less than that reduced life and destabilized the drives, but before the Intel S3500 there was no better choice, Matter of fact almost all other SSD "for servers" are running 30-50% OP.

Since SATA 3.1 is required for NCQ trim, I think use of OP is a better way given the cost.

The G/C of the X25-M is designed for no TRIM and the G/C of the samsung 840 pro with no extra OP is not sufficient at all.

But honestly are you going to still have that SSD by the time it wears out?

That $199 2TB SSD probably will have found its way into your home.

the MWI doesn't mean anything as far as life, it is just a guess and a warranty mechanism. It is simple: OP OP OP and life will extend tremendously. Plus your iops don't drop from 50K to 1K after 20 seconds of solid writing (stock OP on 840 pro).

Great drives, but i'm afraid they are getting old in the tooth since S3500 has taken the server arena by storm (tantalum cap) and samsung is going to cannibilize their own 840 PRO with the evo+RAPID (if it feels as fast and coalescing can reduce write amplification) - then what place does the 840 PRO really have?

None.

SM843 -> 840 PRO with more OP %%

SM843T -> Tantalum cable plus SM843

SM843 Emlc -> Super capacitor (not tantalum) plus emlc plus more OP%% (same cpu etc)

The Mix of MLC/TLC is brilliant, the RAPID is brilliant, and the prices are falling like mad!

 

[gbohn]

> turn off defrag

Defrag is/was already off.

> We found the 840 pro works best with our servers with 192GB out of 256GB usable.

At the moment the drive in question is only 50% full.

> But honestly are you going to still have that SSD by the time it wears out?

Maybe. Maybe not. But I was still interested in knowing if the WAF I'm seeing (6 at last count) is normal (for Windows 7 C: drive use).

No use wasting drive life if something is accelerating the wear rate...

 

[Puffnstuff]

Did you use magician to configure your drive?

 

[Cerb]

An average of 1GB/hr might be screwing with it. Most users aren't going to be giving it more than a few GBs per day The performance isn't too consistent with the default OP, and the 840 series, pro and not, seem to act differently with TRIM v. OP, kind of like older SF drives.

A 5 WA is definitely high, unless you're running mostly DB-powered software, though.

 

[gbohn]

Did you use magician to configure your drive?

I checked through "OS optimization" if that's what you mean. Indexing and prefetch are disabled. Write Cache buffer is enabled.

> A 5 WA is definitely high, unless you're running mostly DB-powered software, though.

Not doing any explicit DB stuff. Aside from the initial load, I'm running around 0.6 GB/hour.

Just using it as my C: drive. I use the system both for work and Gaming, but many of the programs are on a different physical drive.

I have Norton Internet Security, but I'm not sure if that's related.

The wear level just clicked up again today and it stands at

POH- 445
Wear level Count- 8
Data written- 374.2 GB

Comparing that to when it clicked up to a Wear level Count of 7, the current WAF is running at about 6.6.

 

[F1shF4t]

Was the SSD wear leveling count 0 out of the box? Two out of three 840s I have came with something like 5-8.

 

[gbohn]

Was the SSD wear leveling count 0 out of the box? Two out of three 840s I have came with something like 5-8.

My Oldest notes are from 71 hours use (and after loading the saved C: drive image). At that time it was wear level count=1 with 177 GB written.

 

[gbohn]

My Oldest notes are from 71 hours use (and after loading the saved C: drive image). At that time it was wear level count=1 with 177 GB written.

Just an update. I managed to get my WAF (for the last cycle) down to about 4.6 from about 6.6. I discovered that a hardware monitor program (Aquasuite) had been configured to record temperature info (etc.) every 10 seconds.

Turning this off got me down to 4.6, but I was still hoping for better...

I have a suspicion that Norton Internet Security is being a bit 'chatty' with what/how often it's writing to the drive, but don't know for sure.

I'm up to

POH- 754
Wear level Count- 10
Data written- 484.5 GB

I'd appreciate it if someone could share their smart values for comparison (if they're using it as their C drive).

Thanks;

 

[Psyside]

I have Norton Internet Security, but I'm not sure if that's related.

Make sure you turn off idle time optimizer in Norton! (general settings) its defragmentation process which runs automatically.

 

[aigomorla]

840 samsung based off TLC has higher wear.

you cant compare a samsung to intel in durability.

Intel's can take a beating, and still say yes sir, while covered in mud.

However the samsung will go circles around the intel in speed.