Should I buy this Samsung 840?

Samsung 840 (not Pro) 120GB for £70 ($110)

At the moment I have a Verbatim 64GB running Windows 7, and while bootup/shut down time is fast, the system seems to hang occassionally, like the disk is locking up.

I'm not sure if this is caused by the i3 CPU though, I think I asked before somewhere else about whether an i5 with a 7200RPM should feel more responsive and was told that the i5 shouldn't make too much of a difference, and a decent SSD should be much better, so they thought it was the SSD because it uses a SandForce chip or something (which sucks)

It's the i3-2350m vs i5-2410m

Intel Core i5 2410M vs i3 2350M

I would also like a little more space, and heard that using 50% space on an SSD is better than using an SSD with 90% space being used.

Also, the read speeds are twice as good, but write speeds about half as good as the Verbatim

P.S. I don't think I would benefit from getting the Pro version (and would rather not spend the extra money)

I guess I'm asking... would my system (i3-2350M, 8GB DDR3 RAM, 1GB Radeon 7670M) benefit from using a Samsung 840 over my existing Verbatim drive? Does the controller (NAND?) really make that much of a difference?

Thanks

 

The controller and the nand definitely does make a difference in long term (sustained) use (whether low or high load...).


I still think that you could possibly run into the same issues in the near future with the small 128GB capacity model you are considering though...


The best, ime, is to have all channels of the controller fully/optimally populated, have all the nand chips on each channel properly interleaved and THEN leave at least 30% 'unallocated' space in ADDITION to 25GB Free space on the allocated partition after the O/S, programs and your data has been installed (and not including any free space needed to run any of your tasks either...).


Does it make a difference? Yeah; as you see with your current setup - might as well be running a HDD instead (and save your $$$).

 

thanks for the reply

I mean 64GB is enough really, for the OS and a few games, but I don't keep my music on here (which I would like to)

I could easily leave about 30% of the drive free though, as I put the original 500GB drive in an external enclosure and store my films on there.

I didn't understand your last sentence. Do you mean I might as well run a HDD instead of my current Verbatim, or I might as well get a 7200RPM drive instead of the Samsung?

I just want my system to feel responsive. If I get the Samsung (which clearly seems to be better than the Verbatim) will I still have this effect with an i3? I keep my system clean with no bloat or additional applications loading at startup (other than AV) so it really does come down to hardware

thanks again

 

If you keep the drive under 110GB, you should be fine although to be confortable, I usually try not to fill mine up to more than 100GB. I have never seen any performance change. I did see it stutter like you say when I had it to 117 GB once and didn't know about it.

 

thanks, so you think I would see a big improvement with the Samsung?

 

CPU has nothing to do with lock ups unless its at 100% load, you probably have some other underlying issue. I have had the 512 GB version of the 840 for about 7 months now with no issue. The biggest thing about SSDs is will you be able to deal with the space of such a small one?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Imo, it sound more like you have software issue such as bad driver etc.
It help if you let us know when does it hang and your usual work pattern.

 

I think it is the SATA II Interface issue, as the SSD you have works at this speed. Why dont you try getting a SATA III PCI card and connecting the SSD to this. If this also does not work, you can consider purchasing Intel 520 SSD which I feel is priced well along with performance guaranty.

 

I think I will get one and put my Verbatim in my old laptop

thanks guys

 

In this case I would choose the cheaper but faster Samsung 840 (non-pro TLC).

See the bottom of the page of each of the links for the last graph to get an idea of how each should perform when they reach 'steady state'.

See:
HARDOCP - Iometer & Steady State Testing - Corsair Force GT 240 GB SSD Review

See:
HARDOCP - Iometer & Steady State Testing - Samsung 840 120GB SSD Review


While the M4 is showing a low and flat response vs. queue depth, the Samsung 120GB TLC drive shows the best steady state read/write mixed performance of all low (and a lot of high) capacity SSD's to date.

If this is not an anomaly of the testing procedures (which I doubt it is...), then this specific Samsung is the best low capacity SSD drive to get right now (though I would certainly be wary of the workload it was subject to with it's much more fragile nand...).


Note that I have not tested these small capacity drives myself - and am not recommending either of them - but the information out there greatly favors the Samsung at this point.

My overall opinion of Samsung drives is that they feel 'sluggish' vs. Intel, SanDisk Extreme and/or Crucial SSD's (and I do have an 256GB 840 Pro I use often), but this drive sure seems to counter that trend (if we can believe that single chart in the link above).


(Again, I can't stress it enough: given a 'very light' workload - yeah; I don't trust TLC nand, yet).


Hope this helps.

Good luck.

 

thanks for that. regarding workloads I read that writing 10GB/day it would last 11-12 years compared to 20 years. this isn't a big problem for me. also, I back everything important up, either on Dropbox or my external HDD and second laptop if it's too big, so as long as I can return it to Samsung in the first few years I don't mind

The thing is though, that second link made the 840 look really bad compared to the others in 4k read/write - does that make much of a difference (in regards to the responsiveness of the system and opening apps, files, etc..?

My existing Verbatim feels sluggish, so I don't want the same experience. Would a Sandisk be better?

thanks again

 

Don't believe the '10GB/day' line - how long it lasts has nothing to do with how well it performs after such abuse...

Like I said; to me Samsung SSD's feel sluggish - don't know if that is what is reflected in those graphs though...

The last graph: steady state read/write mixed performance tops the charts - that is why it seems like the best of the small capacity choices right now imo.


The SanDisk Extreme II 240GB or larger would be better...