Need a new mSATA SSD, are the EVO's ok?

I have a plextor M5M 128GB right now, I've given up trying to work with balancing the space between it and my 1TB data drive. Need a new drive 500GB or in excess to replace it. I was looking at the 840EVO; the RAPID functionality really got me interested. TCG integration is also interesting since I'm using Bitlocker, which doesn't seem to recognize the M5M's onboard security.

Are the 840 EVO's alright though? I haven't been keeping up with SSD tech, and I'm seeing posts about a firmware issue on them, though I don't know if that's been fixed or not.

I'm running a Dell Precision M3800 if that makes any difference.

Thanks!

 

I've been using a 1TB EVO mSATA for the past 9 months and it has provided me with no causes for concern. However, I haven't been giving it a hard time and the Total Bytes Written is just under 6TB.

There has been the reported problem of loss of performance for which Samsung released a fix.

If you want more than 500GB in mSATA format then the EVO is the only option and one attraction of having a capacity substantially in excess of your needs is that you can leave part of the drive unallocated ("over-provisioning") which helps sustain good performance.

The Samsung SSD Magician software provides a useful and convenient interface for configuration and monitoring and you can use the migration software for cloning the existing SSD.

John

 

See:
Samsung 840 EVO read speed drops on old-written data in the drive

See:
Read speeds dropping dramatically on older files; benchmarks needed to confirm affected SSDs


According to the links above, it is still not certain if the fix Samsung has issued actually fixes anything. It seems to be working but only time will really tell. This not only affects the EVO line, but also the original Samsung 840 (both TLC drives...).

(Keep in mind that running DiskFresh does the same thing... for a while)

See:
DiskFresh - Refresh Hard Disk Signal



Not to mention that in certain scenarios, the mSATA EVO is reported by Anandtech as not supporting TRIM.

See:
AnandTech | Samsung SSD 840 EVO mSATA (120GB, 250GB, 500GB & 1TB) Review

Just these two flags would have me considering anything other than Samsung products at this time.

 

I'm seeing mixed reviews on TRIM on the EVOs, some say it's effective and actually quite good, and that one review seems to not. Oddly enough I think Anandtech found good TRIM results with the 2.5mm version of the drive.

Ugh, this is sounding like Sandforce again haha (if that tells you how long it's been for me ). Then again, Sandforce seems to have worked out well in the end. I'll squat on it for a bit, Samsung's software, RAPID, and the capacity/price-point is very coaxing.

 

The price is awesome right now for EVO's, I agree. It's because of the issues indicated though...

RAPID? Save your time. Not worth it unless you're doing the same thing over and over - and, that thing/workload is very small and specific...

SandForce did not work out well except as implemented by Intel. And I haven't used those for a long time too now.

 

I've no evidence to think that TRIM isn't working on my EVO mSATA but the normal workload doesn't give it a hard time in the way that Anandtech did.

If you envisage a heavy workload such as writing 1TB/day then the EVO may not be for you (but I don't know what would be). If, like me, your desire is to have plenty of data storage but a modest write workload then I'm sure that the EVO will meet your needs. It won't be a big hassle if you need to run the performance restoration utility every few months. I had noticed only a slightly slow down over about 6 months before that utility appeared.

John

 

1) TRIM does work on the EVOs

2) I have the mSATA 1 TB 840 EVO and the regular 2.5 1TB 840 EVO and only the regular 2.5 seems to have the lost performance issue. sometimes even transferring large files like 10 GB or so for each would be done @ 100 MB/S!!! The mSATA never EVER showed me any signs of lost performance, Don't know how since they're both TLC drives but it has given me the same performance as I bought it since day one. Highly recommended.

 

mmm, I just bit it. Deliberated for a bit, and placed an order for a 500GB 840 EVO just now. Figured I should get a proper program drive; 1TB would be tempting to just use as an all purpose drive and leave my 1TB mechanical drive in the cold haha. we'll see how this goes, thanks for the pointers!