Sandisk vs. Samsung

[mkam6588]

Hey. I'm new to the forum. Been wanting faster load times. But can't decide which one to get. SANDISK EXTREME SSD 120 GB? or SAMSUNG 840 SERIES 120GB? Any thoughts?

 

[nanaki333]

when you say faster load times, do you mean in games and applications, or your windows startup, or both? reason i ask is because 120GB is not a lot of space for a boot drive if you plan to install a lot of games on them.

i also ask because personally (this is just how i feel folks!), the TLC memory in the standard 840 drives is not proven. a boot drive is going to have a lot of random writes to it and i would personally would not use a standard 840 as a boot drive. now, if you're talking a drive to put in your computer as an additional drive to load games and applications on, that will not be getting a lot of writes (except installing TO it of course), then i would go samsung! if it's for your primary boot drive, i would go with sandisk.

i have an SSD in as my main drive and recently upgraded a 480GB SSD that i used for all of my games, due to running low on space (stupid awesome steam deals!).

 

[Charlie98]

Samsung.

 

[AkumaX]

Samsung.

Samsung 840 Pro 128GB > SanDisk Extreme 120GB > Samsung 840 120GB

Samsung 840 Pro 256GB > SanDisk Extreme 240GB = Samsung 840 240GB

 

[mkam6588]

Yea Im looking for both. But I found a good deal on both and not sure which would be best. Seems like the Samsung has a better deal though. its selling for $88 with free shipping. yall think its a good price?

 

[Hellhammer]

Yea Im looking for both. But I found a good deal on both and not sure which would be best. Seems like the Samsung has a better deal though. its selling for $88 with free shipping. yall think its a good price?

For 120GB, definitely.

 

[mkam6588]

great!! thank you so much!

 

[tweakboy]

Samsung sandisk is a joke of a SSD.

 

[CraigRT]

I have the 120GB Sandisk Extreme as a boot drive and I've not had a single issue with it in the year that I've had it.

I recommend this drive, it's fast, and it works. I have the latest firmware on it.

 

[Remobz]

samsung all the way!

 

[Phynaz]

i also ask because personally (this is just how i feel folks!), the TLC memory in the standard 840 drives is not proven. a boot drive is going to have a lot of random writes to it and i would personally would not use a standard 840 as a boot drive.

Why would you think a boot drive is going to have a lot of writes?

 

[nanaki333]

Why would you think a boot drive is going to have a lot of writes?

because windows makes a lot of random writes to your disk. page file, windows indexing, superfetch. i would just rather have an MLC for a boot drive vs TLC.

 

[Hellhammer]

because windows makes a lot of random writes to your disk. page file, windows indexing, superfetch. i would just rather have an MLC for a boot drive vs TLC.

Define "a lot". Based on the tracing I've done on my system, Windows barely writes 5GB/day, which is absolutely nothing. Maybe you should do the math for TLC vs MLC endurance before you make claims as a TLC based SSD will still outlive your PC. Unless you're range of daily writes is +30-50GB (depending on the workload as it affects WA), the SSD 840 is fine.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/samsung-ssd-840-testing-the-endurance-of-tlc-nand

 

[nanaki333]

Define "a lot". Based on the tracing I've done on my system, Windows barely writes 5GB/day, which is absolutely nothing. Maybe you should do the math for TLC vs MLC endurance before you make claims as a TLC based SSD will still outlive your PC. Unless you're range of daily writes is +30-50GB (depending on the workload as it affects WA), the SSD 840 is fine.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/samsung-ssd-840-testing-the-endurance-of-tlc-nand

i made the claim because it's TLC is in its infancy. i'd rather other people wear them out first before i invest in one. 5GB/day over the course of a year starts to add up. like you said, YOUR average is 5GB/day. that doesn't mean that's MY average or anybody else's on this forum. i'd rather have a proven MLC drive that's just as fast and similarly priced.

nothing against samsung. my primary OS drive is a sammy and the one i replaced it with was an 830. i was going to get 2x 840 500GB in raid0 for my games drive, but got the crucial instead so it's just a single drive. 🙂


was just looking up some more info on the 840 series, and this site's conclusion really stuck out to me regarding the 120GB.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/02/19/samsung_840_120gb_ssd_review/10#.UXrM57WG0pk

While we continue to recommend higher capacity Samsung TLC Model 840 SSDs, the TLC-equipped 120GB 840 Series SSD is simply not a good option for consumers. 3.5 to 4 years of projected light use is an endurance concern that users would be advised to watch closely if they were to purchase this SSD. Slow write speeds across the board in tandem with poor read and write maximum latency performance should overcome any temptation for saving a few bucks with this value SSD.

The read speed of the 120GB Samsung 840 SSD also fell tremendously when we tested in steady state conditions. This removes the one advantage that the product has, making it more suited for sitting on the shelf than setting in your computer.

Users looking for a 120GB or less capacity SSD should stick with MLC products.

 

[Hellhammer]

i made the claim because it's TLC is in its infancy.

TLC is not a new technology as it has existed for years, this is simply the first time it's used in an SSD. Usually it's used in gadgets such as USB flash drives and low-end tablets/smartphones.

i'd rather other people wear them out first before i invest in one.

By the time SSD 840s start to wear out in normal usage, the 840 has been EOL'ed years ago and we have new SSDs using newer NAND (if it's even NAND at that point). If you're just looking for someone to continuously write to the 840 until it dies, then that has already been done.

5GB/day over the course of a year starts to add up.

5GB*365 = 1.825TB. Meh, I write more than that when I test an SSD.

like you said, YOUR average is 5GB/day.

I did not say it was my average but the average I've found to be written by Windows (just letting system to idle and use it lightly for browsing/email). You said Windows does a lot of random writes, which is not true.

was just looking up some more info on the 840 series, and this site's conclusion really stuck out to me regarding the 120GB.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/02/19/samsung_840_120gb_ssd_review/10#.UXrM57WG0pk

They don't present any reasoning for their endurance numbers, hence evaluating their credibility is impossible. It takes 100GiB of writes per day (assuming WA=1) for the estimated lifespan to drop to 3.5 years. They are claiming that this is "light use", which is not true. Generally speaking, light use is less than 10GiB a day (this is actually a figure used by at least Toshiba, so I didn't just come up with it).

With 10GiB of writes a day and WA=3 (just to be conservative, in light use WA should stay below 2), the 120GB SSD 840 will last for 11.7 years.

 

[LoveMachine]

Both extremesystems and hardware.info had done endurance testing of the TLC based 840, and their estimates have put the lifespan at well over a decade if not much more (can't link for various reasons) with average use. I have an 840 non-pro, and I haven't spent a second worrying, nor changed my habits. If the drive wears out in the next 5 years, I'll post it and you can laugh at me. Until then, I'm going to go download some things and not worry one bit.

 

[nanaki333]

you're right, i did say "a lot", which is relative. and when i said TLC is in its infancy, i was referring to the consumer SSD market. unless there's other TLC based SSD drives out there.

that article also talks about the performance aspect of the TLC, and makes a good point, just go with an MLC in the same price range.

another quick read on a page that reviewed the 120GB model and they say not to bother with it either. i don't go through the same extensive testing that you do, so i just read the reviews when they come out. or, i'll read reviews when somebody like yourself tells me i'm wrong, so that i can educate myself further. if i read a review that says xyz, i'm going to regurgitate xyz until i'm proven otherwise. 🙂

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/353...-840-pro-review-every-model-tested-conclusion

Wit the 840 we are more reserved. Particularly the write speeds of these SSDs are limited, which does affect real-life performance. It turns out this differs depending on the storage capacity. We would not recommend the 120 GB, but the 250 GB is better and the 500 GB model is the best out of the three. Theses SSDs are more interesting because of their affordable price, which will likely go down even more thanks to the use of TLC memory. If you will use your SSD intensively, then we recommend getting another model. The Samsung 840 Pro earns the Gold Award.

EDITEDIT: i just read the anandtech link you posted hell, thanks. i was just going based on google hit reviews of the 120GB samsung.

wouldn't the 120GB be a decent bit less than the 250GB though?

 

[Hellhammer]

that article also talks about the performance aspect of the TLC, and makes a good point, just go with an MLC in the same price range.

It's not that simple. SandForce based 120GB SSDs (like the SanDisk Extreme) are pretty bad too, especially when it comes to incompressible data (SF relies heavily on parallelism with that).

IMO price is the important factor here, I would go with the one that's cheaper (seems to be Samsung). Both are good drives; I wasn't trying to say that the SSD 840 is better, just that the whole "TLC endurance issue" thing is a myth for consumers.

wouldn't the 120GB be a decent bit less than the 250GB though?

Yes, but the article I linked has calculations for both 120GB and 250GB. 120GB has estimated lifespan of 11.7 years and 250GB has 23.4 years (10GiB writes per day, WA=3)