[SOLVED] Is Samsung best at 256 GB?

[JasonBourne]

I'm gonna upgrade my notebook, so right now I,m looking at 256 GB SSD for OS and some applications and the existing 1 TB in a caddy at the optical drive bay. The thing is these 3 Samsung SSDs are closely priced and I feel completely lost in tracking down their performance related differences :
☺Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB
☺Samsung 840 Series 250 GB
☺Samsung 840 Pro Series 256 GB

Due to longer warranty I'm thinking of going with Pro Series. But I want to know which one gives the best bang for buck among these??

Also on a sidenote, is Samsung okay or should I opt for Adata, Sandisk or Crucial?

 

[StealthJet]

Also on a sidenote, is Samsung okay or should I opt for Adata, Sandisk or Crucial?

I'm pretty sure Samsung is more than "okay", it's actually the best and highest selling SSD company.

They are the most selling SSDs in Germany, my home country.

I recommend the 840 EVO 250GB.

Adata, Sandisk and Crucial are not as good.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm pretty sure Samsung is more than "okay", it's actually the best and highest selling SSD company.

They are the most selling SSDs in Germany, my home country.

I recommend the 840 EVO 250GB.

Adata, Sandisk and Crucial are not as good.

Pro has a slight advantage if OP wants to pay for it -- there might be a slight differential. The Crucial MX100 was only released earlier this year.

Pro and MX100 advantage over the EVO is use of MLC NAND instead of TLC. But even that difference isn't significant. Performance-wise, no significant difference that I know of.

If the warranty is better on the Sammies, you ought to try and find an e-mail entry-point at their web-site. I'm skeptical that they are "really there" for SSDs. I poked around for a couple hours.

You'll find the Crucial MX100's are aggressively priced right now. There's another thread here where we discussed it. I may have made the last post, but that can change.

I don't think the OP would be unhappy with any of those -- EVO, PRO, or MX100 -- except that Crucial doesn't bundle "Magician" with the SSD. For what you save, you can make that up for $30 -- but again. . . my post on the other thread.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Unless you're doing an extremely write intensive workload (high performance scratch for hi-res photo/video editing, running a database server) paying for performance for the 840 pro isn't very efficient.

Among those three, get the evo.

If you're not married to Samsung, which make excellent drives, the best bang for buck for people buying in the US is usually the Crucial MX100.

 

[JasonBourne]

Actually my laptop is of Samsung, so Samsung in a Samsung kinda feels good. Though I know it has nothing to do with performance. So all I get is EVO is best and PRO is not worth the premium, is that it??

 

[bbhaag]

Yep. If you're set on a Samsung drive get the EVO. It's a great consumer drive that will last you for years to come.

 

[JasonBourne]

Yep. If you're set on a Samsung drive get the EVO. It's a great consumer drive that will last you for years to come.

Got it.

Also I have heard that the Magician software makes OS migration very easy. Is it true??
I'm also hearing good things about Adata SP920

 

[jkauff]

Got it.

Also I have heard that the Magician software makes OS migration very easy. Is it true??
I'm also hearing good things about Adata SP920

It's not the Magician software. Samsung bundles a version of Acronis True Image with their drives that does the OS drive cloning quickly and easily.

 

[JasonBourne]

It's not the Magician software. Samsung bundles a version of Acronis True Image with their drives that does the OS drive cloning quickly and easily.

Oh. That's really cool cuz I've used Acronis a couple of years ago.

 

[Essence_of_War]

For reference, crucial is bundling acronis also.

Good luck with the upgrade OP!

 

[JasonBourne]

So whats it gonna be people - Sammy or Crucial ???
BTW I'm so anxious about this SSD upgrade.

EDIT: Just found out that Samsung 850 Pro 256GB is out and giving a 10 year warranty !!! That's one hell of a warranty. But the thing is is it okay to go with latest SSDs as many people get firmware glitches with them ?

 

[Pandasaurus]

Just gonna leave this here...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8066/crucial-mx100-256gb-512gb-review

MX100 outperforms the 840 Evo on nearly all of the benchmarks. Last time I looked (a couple weeks ago), Amazon had the lowest price on the 512GB. The 840 is without a doubt a fantastic drive, but I'll be buying the Crucial when the time comes.

 

[Essence_of_War]

So whats it gonna be people - Sammy or Crucial ???
BTW I'm so anxious about this SSD upgrade.

EDIT: Just found out that Samsung 850 Pro 256GB is out and giving a 10 year warranty !!! That's one hell of a warranty. But the thing is is it okay to go with latest SSDs as many people get firmware glitches with them ?

It is, but you should consider how valuable is a ten-year warranty is to you. I know if I take a look at what sorts of ordinary hard drives I have used, that if I still had one from 2004, and if it had died between 2009 and now, a refurbished 2004 model would be of very little value to me.

The SSD space seems even wilder. 5 years ago, the Intel X25-m 80GB cost almost $350. In 2014, 80GB SSDs are a waste of money, and I can get a 750GB 840 Evo, more than three doublings of capacity, for almost the same price. Even a 5-year warranty on the X25-m seems like it would probably feel 'meh'.

Anyway, you really can't go wrong with either the Evo or the MX100. They're both excellent drives. If I were buying today, I'd just get whichever was cheaper at the capacity I wanted, and since its release, that has been the MX100. YMMV depending on which sellers you're happiest with, who has a sale this week, etc.

 

[JasonBourne]

@Essence_of_War couldn't agree with you more. Crucial does have a considerable less price than EVO. But Crucial doesn't seem to have RAPID, will it affect my performance in games or applications ?? And as far as games are concerned I'm a casual gamer only.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I don't find Rapid to be very valuable. It has two main features:
1) Inflating your benchmark numbers
2) Ensuring that you're at extraordinarily high risk for data loss if you're not
connected to a UPS when power fluctuates.

I wouldn't buy the Evo for rapid, and I wouldn't personally use it if I had one. It's a good enough drive to recommend on its non-rapid merits.

For your use case, I wouldn't worry about any performance difference between the MX100 and the Evo. Both drives will perform splendidly. This is why I apply my highly technical "get whichever one is cheaper" heuristic

 

[JasonBourne]

I don't find Rapid to be very valuable. It has two main features:
1) Inflating your benchmark numbers
2) Ensuring that you're at extraordinarily high risk for data loss if you're not
connected to a UPS when power fluctuates.

I wouldn't buy the Evo for rapid, and I wouldn't personally use it if I had one. It's a good enough drive to recommend on its non-rapid merits.

For your use case, I wouldn't worry about any performance difference between the MX100 and the Evo. Both drives will perform splendidly. This is why I apply my highly technical "get whichever one is cheaper" heuristic

Thanks. So I'm gonna go with Crucial MX100 256GB. Will post after upgrading.

 

[Topweasel]

Thanks. So I'm gonna go with Crucial MX100 256GB. Will post after upgrading.

I would comment that the better choice would be the M550. Crucial wanting to keep performance consistent, uses an older process memory chips for the 550 on the 128 and 256 levels. For the 256 this means that it keeps the same performance profile of the 512GB level.

The Evo with rapid off and the MX100 see slight drops in read and very large drop offs in write at 256 and lower capacity over the ~500GB versions.

 

[JasonBourne]

I would comment that the better choice would be the M550. Crucial wanting to keep performance consistent, uses an older process memory chips for the 550 on the 128 and 256 levels. For the 256 this means that it keeps the same performance profile of the 512GB level.

The Evo with rapid off and the MX100 see slight drops in read and very large drop offs in write at 256 and lower capacity over the ~500GB versions.

Will take this into consideration. Thanks for the input.

 

[utpalakash]

I would comment that the better choice would be the M550, because M550 is best performance.

 

[JasonBourne]

Okay folks, so I dropped in a Crucial M550 256GB which was a tad less than the Samsung EVO. But I didn't clone my drives to it, just partitioned it and applied my ".WIM" recovery data onto it by WinPE. Running the computer on a SSD brings it to a whole new level folks. SSD is a must for any performance enthusiast.