840 EVO vs 850 PRO

Hello!

I am planning to change HDD of UX32LN with SSD. There are 2 alternatives for me: Samsung EVO 840 or Samsung PRO 850. They are both 250 (or 256, whatever) GB. 850 PRO has power consumption of 2.5 mW/3.3/3.0 W (idle/read/write) and 840 EVO has 3.1 mW/3.82/3.85 W. According to this thread, replacing HDD with 840 EVO didn't increase battery life. So, what about 850 PRO ? Is it worth it? (I mean a significant increase of battery life like 20 minutes?) It is approximately 60 USD more expesive.

*** Power consumption values are taken from Samsung 850 Pro versus 840 EVO and 840 SSD Series

Thank you...

 

Thanks!

I am very suprised when I saw these results... I thought that, their speeds are closer, since it is written that sequential read/write speeds are 550/520 MB/s and 540/520 MB/s. And random read/write speeds are 100k/90k and 97k/66k. So, in benchmarks, do random write speeds have major impact? (Since only random write speeds have big difference.)

So, what about power consumption values? Will it make any obvious difference on battery life (like more than 20 minutes) for such computer (Asus UX32LN)

By the way, their price difference is not 20 USD, I just checked and saw that it is 90 USD Anyway, at least I can consider 840 PRO.

Thanks for the such an informative answer!

 

These battery life results have the 250GB EVO and the 256GB 840 Pro, The 850 Pro in this size class hasn't been tested yet. Intel SSD Pro 2500 Series 240GB Encrypted SSD Review - Benchmarks - Power Testing The 840 Pro lasts 22 minutes longer. The results for the 128GB 850 Pro has it lasting 19 minutes longer.

 

Thanks for both answers.

According to benchmarks, I think Sandisk Extreme II 240 GB is also a very good alternative in terms of speed and energy consumption. What do you think? Its price is also same as Samsung 840 EVO, which is an impressive price. Isn't it very good in terms of price/performance? Or should I still go with a 840 or 850 PRO?

Thanks...

 

The Sandisk Extreme II is one of the fastest yet affordable SSDs that have MLC NAND. I don't think the 850Pro is particularly good value for money as the performance improvement is very incremental considering the cost.

 

I'm still satisfied with the 3 year old SATA2 SSDs that I have around. You really can't go wrong with almost any recent SSD.

4-5 years ago, there were SSDs that had big problems with small file writes. This is the 4K benchmark. Those drives would cause system stutters because they wrote small files so slowly.

 

Which other brands have you used and had bad experiences with?

What registry edits are needed to tweak a system for an SSD?

 

SandForce Controllers are not crappy! Intel knew what they were doing when they chose it. Of course, an Intel SandForce is different than any other SandForce SSD because of Intel's firmware and validation. In an OS environment there won't be only reads or only writes but a mix of both, generally, 80-20% R/W for typical consumers and 70-30% R/W for enthusiasts. A large percentage of the files in typical programs are compressible. Look at the results in TweakTown's new test of mixed workloads with compressible and incompressible data.
Intel SSD Pro 2500 Series 240GB Encrypted SSD Review - Benchmarks - Mixed Read / Write Workloads
The Intel document referenced.
https://newsroom.intel.com/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/2658-102-1-4517/Intel_SSD_520_Series_Compression_Technology_Brief.pdf

[H]ardOCP did a Steady State 70-30 R/W Mixed they were the first I saw do testing like this. Unfortunately, they haven't reviewed an SSD in over a year. I assume they are still looking for a reviewer. These results are from the SanDisk Extreme II 240GB HARDOCP - Iometer & Steady State Testing - SanDisk 240 GB Extreme II SSD Review

 

If we're talking about snappiness, then 840 Evo 1TB is about as snappy as it gets, and definitely edges past the 840 Pro 512GB.

 

Only 2 years ago there was the Sandisk U100 where the 4k performance was a big bottleneck as I described here.

Regarding power consumption, the higher than HDD power requirements will be sustained for much shorter periods than with an HDD handling the same amount of data because of the much faster speed. So, although the SSD peak power requirement may be higher than an HDD, the average power consumption will be less.

John

 

Of course, the "snappiness" metric is primarily dictated by the speed of the controller and partly by the latency of the NAND for low 4k read operations. The Evo has an MEX controller that is about 100mhz ish faster than the MDX one in the 840 pro. Plus, the cached NAND pretty much equalizes the TLC penalty vs the 840 pro's MLC. The workloads that will separate the Evo from the 840 Pro will arise from heavy multitasking or sustained operation which the regular user rarely sees.

At around 35mb/s of Random 4k Read, the single thread performance of the CPU becomes a factor. Higher values shift the bottleneck further to the CPU rather than the SSD controller.

 

Hello, thanks for the answers.

All of these ssd models are compatible with Asus UX32LN, right?

I mean especially the following models: Samsung 840 EVO, 840 PRO, 850 PRO, SANDISK EXTREME II (250 gb models)

And I also want to confirm that with just a typical 2.5 inch hdd enclosure (I prefer usb 3) (like the one below), I can transfer my files and OS to SSD, and after that I can use my old HDD as external HDD with it. Is expecting high transfer speeds froms such enclosures meaningful, or not (with USB 3)?


Amazon.com: Sabrent Ultra Slim 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 External Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure EC-UK25 (Black): Computers & Accessories

 

That USB2.0 enclosure and many USB3.0 enclosures (without UASP) will be miserable for 'high transfer speeds'. Especially with many small files to transfer and not to mention half or less of the speed of larger sequential files vs. a USB 3.0 w/UASP enclosure and the proper O/S (Win8.1x64 PRO Update 1 highly recommended).


See:
StarTech 2.5in Slim 7mm USB 3.0 SATA III Hard Drive Enclosure w/ UASP at Memory Express


The above enclosure should give the maximum possible transfer speeds on your system.


(Note: I have not used the above, simply using it as an example of what feature to look for... 'UASP' for maximum performance).

 

Very true, in order to get some decent speeds the SATA to USB converter MUST have UASP support.

Here's the one I bought and it gives superb speed!

Startech com 2 5 inch Aluminum USB 3 0 External SATA III SSD HDD Enclosure With | eBay

 

Sadly I own old Samsung 830 (PM830) 128GB that originally came with Dell E6530 ... and I bought 1TB 840 EVO (instead of planned 840 PRO 512GB). It was HUGE mistake. And now I'm planning to buy a 2nd HDD bay for E6530 (to put it back in just for VMs) due to fact that ... my VM starts 5 times longer on EVO than it was starting on old 830 .... what is more,... EVO has RAPID on, and do great (in benchmarks) but it is no-go for serious use. I was so surprised and dissapointed, I hoped that 12GB of quasi-SLC will cover this, but it isn't. Starting takes 5x more, but saving (what is a bit weird) is as speedy (and this is 40GB VM file). Only 290GB is used on this 1TB SSD, and after 2 months it already has 0,62TB Host Writes. TLC compromise for me is to high, latencies are what is noticeable (heavy multitasking). I'm in process of creating some article regarding this. SSD is perfectly fine, no issues, no problems with firmware and RAM is aplenty on Sata 6Gbit. What is even more concerning is fact, that old 80GB X-25M (good old 34nm MLC) is snappier (when it comes to VMs). This is really going in bad direction. Who can should get their hands on last 840 PRO's available.

 

That's why I sold my two 840 EVO 1TBs and got two 512GB 840 PROs instead. In real world performance, the PRO was much better, and cheaper!

 

You may want to look at these links for your VMs and heavy multitasking.
AnandTech's Destroyer 2013. Note: No result for 512GB 850 Pro yet. 850 pro should be between 1TB and 256GB 850 Pro AnandTech | Bench - SSD
TweakTown's Consistency Test. Note: 256GB size class. no 256GB 850 Pro yet. The blue bar shows why you don't want EVO or 840 Pro in a heavy usage scenario. Intel SSD Pro 2500 Series 240GB Encrypted SSD Review - PCMark 8 Consistency Test
You want a high performance SSD. 840 Pro is not it. Samsung 850 Pro, SanDisk Extreme Pro, or SanDisk Extreme II dominate. And SEII 480GB can be bought for about $250USD vs. 512GB 840 Pro $337USD.

EDIT: I wanted to add this. RAPID in a heavy workload is worse than no RAPID http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6478/samsung-850-pro-1tb-ssd-review-the-new-performance-king/index7.html