Samsung 850 Evo or SanDisk Extreme pro 250 GB

[ramvalleru]

It's been 4 years I bought my first premium laptop with i5 2nd gen processor with 8 GB RAM and 1 GB graphics card. Now, I want to update the storage from 750 GB HDD @ 7200 RPM to an SSD with capacity 240 GB at least.

I heard SSD offer a power saving of up to 30%. I narrowed down my selection to Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB and SanDisk Extreme Pro 250 GB which are in my price range of 125-128 Euro.

Mostly I use my laptop for running virtual machines, browsing, watching videos, document editing, Eclipse, web and database servers(development).

Extreme Pro uses 1 GB of SLC for cache but when read from AnandhTech article, I understand that it is not used much as performance boost like Samsung's EVO 850 SLC cache which has 3 times more SLC cache compared to Extreme Pro.

I think power savings doesn't make much difference between these two but I need your suggestion in this aspect also. Even though Extreme Pro employs MLC NAND, in some aspects, the benchmarks favors Samsung EVO 850 250GB.

According to the comparison I did using articles on both these devices from AnandhTech, Extreme Pro has advantage of the warranty period and think because of MLC NAND, they are confident but at the same time 850 EVO even though its TLC NAND, it is using less power and outperform Extreme Pro in some aspects.

Please suggest me a SSD for my usage patterns. I need endurance, reliability, performance.

 

[Berryracer]

Stay away from TLC SSDs, I can tell you from experience, they are great in benchmark, suck for real world performance and they have their issues like the popular issue with the Samsung 840 EVO where old files will give you terrible read / write performance. That was remedied by a firmware update later by Samsung but still, they are not as reliable as SLC or MLC SSDs

 

[ramvalleru]

I also see some thing like, on SSD when files are kept long with out accessing them, they might go corrupt.

Since, I am using an old laptop with slightly depleted battery. Does Samsung 850 has more power saving then Extreme.

Reading old files is one of the important aspect I missed and thanks for reminding me of extremely important aspect to keep in consideration.

Compared to previous years, latest TLC technology infused in Samsung 850 Evo might give good endurance, your opinion.

 

[ramvalleru]

The endurance of 850 Evo is similar to Extreme Pro. Does it give us an impression that the new EVO 850 might endure like Extreme.

 

[Spanners]

Stay away from TLC SSDs, I can tell you from experience, they are great in benchmark, suck for real world performance and they have their issues like the popular issue with the Samsung 840 EVO where old files will give you terrible read / write performance. That was remedied by a firmware update later by Samsung but still, they are not as reliable as SLC or MLC SSDs

Can you show us some data of TLC drives sucking in real world performance? Saying they (TLC drives) have issues and then siting a specific issue that a different model of drive had and was fixed doesn't really speak to the quality of TLC drives as a whole or the 850 EVO specifically.

 

[Charlie98]

I need endurance, reliability, performance, while maintaining an overall budget.

There... FTFY. You are asking the same thing most every other SSD buyer is asking for, and you need it to fit into a specific budget restraint. Please don't fret over these small details... just buy the SSD that looks good to you without overanalyzing every 'inth detail. ANY SSD will be better than your current HDD, and modern (current production) SSDs are all very good. Pick one, install, enjoy your snappy lappy. 😀

 

[ramvalleru]

But reliability matters right and we need advice from people who used them.

I don't know whether I could rely on Samsung 850 Evo or SanDisk Extreme pro. Now both are priced competitively with each other at 125 to 128 Euros.

 

[Racan]

Personally I'd go with the Sandisk, much better performance in AnandTechs Storage Bench 2013: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1240?vs=1396 and double the warranty.

 

[Charlie98]

But reliability matters right and we need advice from people who used them.

I don't know whether I could rely on Samsung 850 Evo or SanDisk Extreme pro. Now both are priced competitively with each other at 125 to 128 Euros.

Your problem is you are restrained by budget, so the SSDs that would tend to have better NAND, warranty, etc, are out of your price range. All consumer-level SSDs are a trade off between price, performance, and reliability.

You ask about any specific SSD and you will have people who say they are the greatest thing since sliced bread, and others that wouldn't use them as a door stop.... that's the way it is.

If you don't know, at this point, if you can 'rely on' any specific mainstream SSD... maybe you should just stick with your HDD.

 

[ramvalleru]

Just I am confused with the choice of MLC and TLC offered by Extreme Pro and 850 Evo. The ranges are different but just checking which is better for the same price.

During Long term usage we are expecting MLC to outperform TLC. I have a doubt on whether cells in SSD will be corrupted if I don't turn on my laptop for a very long time or don't do much activity.

 

[R0H1T]

The 850EVO will have real world endurance pretty close to the Extreme Pro, even though the warranty is just 5yrs. The amount of data that can actually be written is different for each drive but it's safe to assume that unless you're doing some torture test ~ http://techreport.com/review/27436/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-two-freaking-petabytes

Both the drives will probably outlast their entire warranty period & still survive at the end of it, with the 850 EVO you're getting more GB/$ while the Extreme Pro gives you a longer warranty with essentially the same perf & virtually the same endurance.

 

[ramvalleru]

So, we can assume the latest TLC NAND technology introduced in Samsung doesn't suffer the degradation of read and write speeds after 2 to 3 years for old files and in the same case can we trust MLC.

 

[R0H1T]

So, we can assume the latest TLC NAND technology introduced in Samsung doesn't suffer the degradation of read and write speeds after 2 to 3 yearsfor old files and in the same case can we trust MLC.

The issue you're talking about was fixed last month in the 840 EVO via a firmware update, as for the 850 EVO there's no hard data to prove what you're asking, since the drive was just released this month, nor is there any anecdotal evidence to say otherwise. In any case what you need to do is to choose between the brand you trust more i.e. Samsung or Sandisk & the tech you trust more ~ 3D V-NAND TLC or 1xnm planar MLC based NAND. Any which way you look at it I doubt you'll be disappointed with their reliability in fact in 2~3yrs time you'll probably want an NVMe based drive that's 2~3 times faster than these two OR maybe one of these 😎

 

[ramvalleru]

Only concerned about power consumption now. 😀. Any one experienced at least a 30 min or 40 min of energy savings on battery.

 

[Berryracer]

The issue you're talking about was fixed last month in the 840 EVO via a firmware update, as for the 850 EVO there's no hard data to prove what you're asking, since the drive was just released this month, nor is there any anecdotal evidence to say otherwise. In any case what you need to do is to choose between the brand you trust more i.e. Samsung or Sandisk & the tech you trust more ~ 3D V-NAND TLC or 1xnm planar MLC based NAND. Any which way you look at it I doubt you'll be disappointed with their reliability in fact in 2~3yrs time you'll probably want an NVMe based drive that's 2~3 times faster than these two OR maybe one of these 😎

The issue is not and will not be fixed. The new firmware update just refreshes old data periodically when the SSD is idle. It is a workaround but you can't fix the way crappy TLC NAND works. In addition, refreshing the data will increase the amount of data written to the SSD significantly reducing its lifespan.

 

[R0H1T]

The issue is not and will not be fixed. The new firmware update just refreshes old data periodically when the SSD is idle. It is a workaround but you can't fix the way crappy TLC NAND works. In addition, refreshing the data will increase the amount of data written to the SSD significantly reducing its lifespan.

That still doesn't explain why you trash Samsung just because you had a bad experience with them, even their non TLC drives at times. I agree that 1x nm planar TLC NAND (maybe drive controller related?) from Samsung is running into major problems but then we have the Ultras from Toshibha/Sandisk that have not exhibited any such behavior not to mention the 850 EVO is a totally different beast.

I sometimes wonder why do you go to such extreme lengths trying to prove a point like this 😵

You've had a bad experience with them, share it & move on but don't assume that everyone will have the same trashy experience like you did.

 

[Berryracer]

That still doesn't explain why you trash Samsung just because you had a bad experience with them, even their non TLC drives at times. I agree that 1x nm planar TLC NAND from Samsung is running into major problems but then we have the Ultras from Toshibha/Sandisk that have not exhibited any such behavior not to mention the 850 EVO is a totally different beast.

I sometimes wonder why do you go to such extreme lengths trying to prove a point like this 😵

You've had a bad experience with them, share it & move on but don't assume that everyone will have the same trashy experience like you.

I am not anti-samsung bro, I have two 1TB 850 PROs and two 1TB 840 EVO mSATA at the moment. Before this, I also had two 512GB 840 PROs and two 840 EVO 2.5" SSDs (not the mSATA ones) so I was actually a Samsung Fanboy.

Now what happened recently....

1) Bought a 256GB 850 PRO which was great. a few months later, I bought two 1TB 850 PROs, the problem is, the original 256GB 850 PRO came with the initial firmware which was great, the two new ones had the newer firmware which Samsung recently pulled off due to bad performance and bricking many people's SSDs....... now I didn't get affected by the bricking since the SSDs already came with that firmware but the issue is the performance for example on sequential read would never exceed 480MB whilst the initial firmware gave me 520 MB/S on that benchmark... fine, companies make mistake.......but then FIX IT, it's been 2 months and they haven't released a 3rd firmware to fix the bad 2nd firmware which they pulled off and they don't offer a firmware downgrade option to customers.

2) The TLC issue that we all know about, they released a workaround (I won't call it a fix) for the 2.5" 840 EVOs but not the mSATA version? why? didn't I pay the same amount of money? Don't I deserve some proper customer care?

3) I bought them Samsung SSDs also for the great and long warranty. When I had reason to ask them on what to do if I need a warranty repair / claim. They said I had to send the SSD to the USA because even though they say the warranty is international, it still can only be serviced in the USA service center and Samsung Dubai said they only fix TVs and mobile phones not SSDs. Me sending an SSD to the USA would cost me 25% back and forth of its price, unreal. SanDisk on the otherhand told me that their international warranty is actually valid worldwide.

I am a fair person, if something is good, I praise it, if it's bad, I make sure everyone knows. Hope you understand my point.

 

[R0H1T]

I am not anti-samsung bro, I have two 1TB 850 PROs and two 1TB 840 EVO mSATA at the moment. Before this, I also had two 512GB 840 PROs and two 840 EVO 2.5" SSDs (not the mSATA ones) so I was actually a Samsung Fanboy.

Now what happened recently....

1) Bought a 256GB 850 PRO which was great. a few months later, I bought two 1TB 850 PROs, the problem is, the original 256GB 850 PRO came with the initial firmware which was great, the two new ones had the newer firmware which Samsung recently pulled off due to bad performance and bricking many people's SSDs....... now I didn't get affected by the bricking since the SSDs already came with that firmware but the issue is the performance for example on sequential read would never exceed 480MB whilst the initial firmware gave me 520 MB/S on that benchmark... fine, companies make mistake.......but then FIX IT, it's been 2 months and they haven't released a 3rd firmware to fix the bad 2nd firmware which they pulled off and they don't offer a firmware downgrade option to customers.

2) The TLC issue that we all know about, they released a workaround (I won't call it a fix) for the 2.5" 840 EVOs but not the mSATA version? why? didn't I pay the same amount of money? Don't I deserve some proper customer care?

3) I bought them Samsung SSDs also for the great and long warranty. When I had reason to ask them on what to do if I need a warranty repair / claim. They said I had to send the SSD to the USA because even though they say the warranty is international, it still can only be serviced in the USA service center and Samsung Dubai said they only fix TVs and mobile phones not SSDs. Me sending an SSD to the USA would cost me 25% back and forth of its price, unreal. SanDisk on the otherhand told me that their international warranty is actually valid worldwide.

I am a fair person, if something is good, I praise it, if it's bad, I make sure everyone knows. Hope you understand my point.

Yes I do & generally personal experience is the only way you really trust a company. Take my last SSD purchase as an example, bought two 256GB LITEON SSD's pulled from laptop & have them running in RAID0 for something just above 100$ 😎

Now I was tempted to go with a brand new Samsung or Sandisk SSD, considering their reputation & support, but two things stopped me ~

1) SSD's are still too expensive for anything I do, not much gaming or professional work on the main desktop, & I needed ample space to complement the 2TB (now) secondary drive. I wanted RAID0 speeds & good amount of space to install the OS on & hence 256GB, 512 GB models are still not cheap here even the used ones on ebay.

2) The risks associated are mainly flash related, like TLC, or some (rare?) controller issues. Also newer drives are generally less trustworthy because they don't have (many) users to back them up, so far as personal experience is concerned. Therefore TTF (j/k) like the 840 Pro are my first choice taking everything into consideration i.e. price, usage history, performance et al.

My point is that brand new SSD's are just as likely to fail as any other old/used model. However what I've observed is that OEM models, like mine that came with a 30day replacement warranty, tend to be highly reliable since the laptop manufacturers don't like issuing replacement parts so they're my fist choice for SSD's :thumbsup:

I guess when you've had the experience that you did with the 840 EVO, & Samsung warranty, anyone would want to stay away for them. However take it as a lesson that new tech (or drives) is high risk even if it comes from the world's biggest brands & no SSD maker is immune to such issues, not even Intel, & so in the future it's better to avoid the absolute latest & greatest in tech especially if you want more peace of mind.

Also if you're a little more courageous then you can find a lot of cheap SSD's on ebay, pretty reliable ones at that, just look at the seller rating & the number of units sold 😛

 

[Berryracer]

Yes I do & generally personal experience is the only way you really trust a company. Take my last SSD purchase as an example, bought two 256GB LITEON SSD's pulled from laptop & have them running in RAID0 for something just above 100$ 😎

Now I was tempted to go with a brand new Samsung or Sandisk SSD, considering their reputation & support, but two things stopped me ~

1) SSD's are still too expensive for anything I do, not much gaming or professional work on the main desktop, & I needed ample space to complement the 2TB (now) secondary drive. I wanted RAID0 speeds & good amount of space to install the OS on & hence 256GB, 512 GB models are still not cheap here even the used ones on ebay.

2) The risks associated are mainly flash related, like TLC, or some (rare?) controller issues. Also newer drives are generally less trustworthy because they don't have (many) users to back them up, so far as personal experience is concerned. Therefore TTF (j/k) like the 840 Pro are my first choice taking everything into consideration i.e. price, usage history, performance et al.

My point is that brand new SSD's are just as likely to fail as any other old/used model. However what I've observed is that OEM models, like mine that came with a 30day replacement warranty, tend to be highly reliable since the laptop manufacturers don't like issuing replacement parts so they're my fist choice for SSD's :thumbsup:

I guess when you've had the experience that you did with the 840 EVO, & Samsung warranty, anyone would want to stay away for them. However take it as a lesson that new tech (or drives) is high risk even if it comes from the world's biggest brands & no SSD maker is immune to such issues, not even Intel, & so in the future it's better to avoid the absolute latest & greatest in tech especially if you want more peace of mind.

Also if you're a little more courageous then you can find a lot of cheap SSD's on ebay, pretty reliable ones at that, just look at the seller rating & the number of units sold 😛

Agreed bro.....

BTW, you just reminded me of something man......

my first experience with an SSD was a LiteOn.... it came with an ASUS G75VW gaming laptop and man......it blew me away with its speed coming from an HDD before...... I didn't know anything about OPing at that time, it was never OPed, reinstalled the OS hundreds of times on it testing diff. drivers/configurations and that drive gave me consistent performance everytime man!

Here is a snapshot from the past:

Lite-On LAT-256M3S vs LCM-256M3S

Text at the time of the post........


On my ASUS G75VW Laptop it had the Lite-On 256 GB SSD LAT-256M3S and now with my new ASUS G750JX it came with a slightly improved Lite-On 256 GB SSD Lite-On LCM-256M3S

I did some benchmarks and here are the results which show how the LCM-256M3S beats its earlier brother by a 15% margin:

LAT-256M3S Crystal Disk Mark:

LCM-256M3S Crystal Disk Mark:

LAT-256M3S AS SSD Benchmark:

LCM-256M3S AS SSD Benchmark:

LAT-256M3S ATTO Disk Benchmark:

LCM-256M3S ATTO Disk Benchmark:

Benchmarks were run on the following system:

ALIENWARE 18 Laptop
CPU: Intel Core i7-4800MQ CPU @ 2.70GHz (6MB Cache, up to 3.70 GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
Memory: 32 GB Kingston HyperX 1866MHz DDR3 PC3-14900 RAM
Graphics: Dual GeForce GTX 770M SLI 6 GB GDDR5 RAM + Intel HD Graphics 4600
Sound: Realtek ALC668 HD Audio
Storage: Samsung 840 PRO 512GB SSD + Samsung 840 EVO 1TB SSD + Samsung 840 EVO 1TB mSATA SSD
Screen: Dell 18.4" WLED FHD (1920 X 1080) TrueLife Display IPS 16:9 1080p [SDC4C48]
LAN: Killer Networks e2200 Gigabit Ethernet
WLAN: Broadcom BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless
OS: Windows 7 Professional (x64)