Samsung SSD 840 Pro (256GB) - Here Comes Big Daddy

The Samsung SSD 840 Pro arrives in our labs with big expectations. Widely acclaimed, we find out if it how it fares against some of the best SSDs we have tested.

Vertically Integrated

With a full-year profit of US$26.4 billion on revenue of US$183.5 billion, there’s no doubt that Samsung Electronics is one of the biggest and most successful IT companies in the world presently. In fact, it won’t be superfluous to say that Samsung is one of, if not the major, driving force behind South Korea’s rapid growth in the past couple of decades.

Today, Samsung Electronics holds a couple of records. It is the world’s largest mobile phone maker, world’s largest television manufacturer (a record held since 2006), world’s largest manufacturer of LCD panels (since 2005), it has the largest marketshare in memory chips, and it is also the world’s second-largest semiconductor chip maker (after Intel).

With its wide and far-reaching business, Samsung is uniquely placed in the storage industry because it is one of the few manufacturers that makes its own memory chips. This means it has unrestricted access to the best chips it makes. And as we all know, the quality of memory chips can make or break a drive.

The Samsung SSD 840 Pro rides into battle on a wave of widespread critical acclaim. It will be interesting to see how it fares in our labs.

The Samsung SSD 840 Pro rides into battle on a wave of widespread critical acclaim. It will be interesting to see how it fares in our labs.

Furthermore, with the its immense resources, Samsung is able to develop its own controller and firmware, thus giving it complete and total control over its drives. Few companies have the ability to do this, even mighty Intel has to rely on a third-party controller for its flagship SSD 520 Series drives. And while OCZ’s new Vector drives have an in-house developed controller and firmware, the memory chips are in fact sourced from IMFT (Intel). Samsung, therefore, one of the few truly vertically integrated SSD manufactuers.

The Samsung SSD 840 Pro is the company’s flagship series of drives and uses a new MDX controller and also Samsung all-new 21nm MLC NAND chips. The MDX controller is Samsung’s fourth-generation SSD controller and boasts three ARM Cortex R4 cores running at 300MHz and is paired with a generous 512MB of DRAM. The amount of DRAM is double that of the older Samsung SSD 830 drives and is more in-line with other high-end drives from competitors these days. The SSD 840 Pro will be offered in three capacities: 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. For this article, we'll be evaluating the 256GB edition.

Here's a closer look at the drive. Note that the drive comes with no accessories.

Usually, we tear open the drives to take a look at the components inside, but the Samsung SSD 840 Pro uses this unusual pentalobe screws that we were unable to find a suitable driver for.

Usually, we tear open the drives to take a look at the components inside, but the Samsung SSD 840 Pro uses this unusual pentalobe screws that we were unable to find a suitable driver for.

As a befits an SSD for its stature and billing, the SSD 840 Pro uses the latest SATA 6Gbps interface for the quickest possible transfers.

As a befits an SSD for its stature and billing, the SSD 840 Pro uses the latest SATA 6Gbps interface for the quickest possible transfers.

The Samsung Magician software lets you optimize your drive, check its status and update its firmware.

The Samsung Magician software lets you optimize your drive, check its status and update its firmware.

Test Setup

The drives were tested on our storage testbed, which has the following system specifications:

  • Intel Core i5-2400 (3.1GHz)
  • MSI Z68A-GD80 (Intel Z68 chipset)
  • 2 x 4GB DDR3-1600 memory
  • MSI GeForce 8600 GTS
  • Windows 7

The list of SSDs tested are as follows:

  • Samsung SSD 840 Pro (240GB)
  • Corsair Neutron GTX (256GB)
  • Intel SSD 520 Series (240GB)
  • OCZ Vector (256GB)
  • SanDisk Extreme (240GB)
  • Transcend SSD720 (240GB)

Since the Samsung SSD 840 Pro has been regarded as one of the fastest drives currently available, we will be comparing it against the fastest drives in our recent Great High-end SSD Shootout. This means it will be going to battle against the likes of Corsair, Intel, OCZ, SanDisk and Transcend. So far, the fastest drive to have been tested in our labs is the mighty Corsair Neutron GTX. Will the Samsung be able to outperform it?

The list of benchmarks used are as follows:

  • AS-SSD benchmark 1.6.4
  • HD Tune Pro
  • CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1
  • PCMark 7
  • PCMark Vantage
  • Iometer (version 2006.07.27)

AS SSD Results

AS SSD is a benchmark that uses non-compressible and completely random data. What this means is that the drives using the SandForce SF-2281 controller cannot compress the data first, which takes away one of the strong advantages of this controller. Therefore this is a useful benchmark because drives that use the SF-2281 controller don't gain an upper hand.

On the Copy Benchmark, Samsung SSD 840 Pro performed admirably and was able to challenge the Corsair and OCZ drives. It was a tad slower on the Program benchmark, but it was on a par with the Corsair and OCZ drives on the ISO and Game workloads and was miles ahead of the other SandForce-powered drives.

On the sequential workload, the Samsung SSD 840 Pro recorded very high read and write speeds. Write speed, in particular, was outstanding as it nearly broke the 500MB/s mark. Performance on the 4k workload was a little underwhelming, but the Samsung drive redeemed itself on the more demanding 4k, 64 threads workload, posting impressive read and write performance. It’s 4k, 64 threads write performance measurement of 391MB/s was a whopping 18% faster than the second-placed OCZ Vector.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 Results

CrystalDiskMark is an easy-to-run and quick utility to use to gauge a drive’s performance. It measures sequential read and write performance and random read and write speeds of random 4KB, 4KB (queue depth 32) and 512KB data.

Performance on CrystalDiskMark was generally impressive. The Samsung SSD 840 Pro recorded the highest sequential read and write speeds and its showing on the 512k workload was admirable too. Performance dipped a little on the 4k workloads - write speed was considerably below par compared to the OCZ and the rest of the SandForce drives. However, it redeemed itself on the more intensive 4k, 32 queue depth workload, posting very competitive read and write speeds.

 

 

HD Tune Pro Results

HD Tune is one of the most popular and widely-used benchmarking tools for measuring the performance of storage drives. The Samsung SSD 840 Pro’s showing on HD Tune Pro was a mixed bag. On one hand, it’s read and write performance was generally good. The drive posted pretty high average speeds and looking at its minimum and maximum attained speeds, we can say that it's very consistent too. On the other hand, however, the drive encountered problems when running HD Tune Pro’s random access benchmarks and failed to generate meaningful results.

Futuremark PCMark 7 Results

PCMark 7 is the latest benchmarking suite from FutureMark that evaluates the performance of Windows 7 machines. It tests a wide range workloads and aspects of the system ranging from computation, image and video manipulation and storage. We’ll be looking solely at the storage test here.

The Samsung SSD 840 Pro’s performance on PCMark 7 was disappointing considering its earlier showings on AS SSD and CrystalDiskMark. The SSD 840 Pro scored an overall score of 2677 PCMarks, well below the rest of the drives. Looking at the breakdown of results, it was clear that the Samsung drive trailed in almost every workload except for one - the "Starting Applications" task, where it managed to achieve the fastest results.

Futuremark PCMark Vantage Results

PCMark Vantage might have been around for quite some time, but it is still a fairly accurate representation of how the drives might be used in real-world scenarios. We are focusing on the hard drive test suite which comprises of tasks such as loading of applications to media creation.

Like the OCZ Vector, the Samsung SSD 840 Pro failed to complete all the workloads in Vantage and hence did not generate an overall score. However, if we were to look at the individual breakdown of results in the various workloads, it is clear that the Samsung’s performance on this benchmark is erratic. It did well in certain tasks such as “Importing Pictures” and “Windows Vista Startup” but performed miserably on others such as "Windows Defender" and "Application Loading".

Iometer Results (Part 1)

Lastly, we put the drives through the rigorous grind of Iometer, with different workloads and I/O queue depths. We have chosen to show results from a queue depth of 1 to 5 as this better represents the workloads a typical consumer might face. The Samsung SSD 840 Pro redeemed itself on Iometer, recording some of the highest IOPS figures we have seen. 64k streaming reads and writes performance were both equally outstanding and so was its performance on the "Web Server" workload, where it was clearly the fastest drive. On the "File Server" workload, it was challenged only by the Corsair Neutron GTX. Overall, the SSD 840 Pro is one of the strongest performing drives we have ever seen on the grueling Iometer benchmark.

 

 

Iometer Results (Part 2)

Finally, we look at the I/O response times for the workloads reported on the previous page. Key to the Samsung SSD 840 Pro's impressive showing on Iometer is because of its ultra-low response times. Looking at the graphs here, it is clear that the SSD 840 Pro consistently recorded the lowest average response times.

Fast but Inconsistent

As we’ve mentioned earlier, Samsung is in a unique position because they are one of the few SSD manufacturers who have complete control over all components of their drives - memory, controller and firmware. In theory, this would give them better control over the quality of their components and result in faster, better performing drives.

In our testing, we found the Samsung SSD 840 Pro to be a fast, but inconsistent drive. Performance on AS SSD and CrystalDiskMark was very good and easily ranks amongst the best, and its Iometer results were the best we’ve seen from any drive yet. Unfortunately, its scores on PCMark 7 was underwhelming and it had difficulties running PCMark Vantage and HD Tune Pro properly, which hints at possible compatibility issues with older programs. Hopefully these issues can be ironed out in the near future by way of firmware updates from Samsung.

Speaking of firmware, there were reports of early Samsung SSD 840 Pro failing and this was traced to a firmware issue. The cause of this problem is the pre-production firmware (DXM02B0Q) that these drives have. Retail drives should have the newer firmware (DXM03B0Q) that solves this problem.

Additionally, much like the OCZ Vector and its brand new Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller, longterm reliability of the Samsung SSD 840 Pro is still unclear given the drive and its MDX controller is still relatively new.

When it works, the Samsung SSD 840 Pro is blisteringly fast, but it is somewhat inconsistent in its performance.

When it works, the Samsung SSD 840 Pro is blisteringly fast, but it is somewhat inconsistent in its performance.

 

As for price, the 256GB variant that we have reviewed comes in at S$399 - the same as the OCZ Vector and quite a bit more than the other drives such as the Corsair Neutron GTX and Intel SSD 520 Series. Compared to the most affordable drive in this review, the SanDisk Extreme, the Samsung costs a whopping S$140 more. Furthermore, the Samsung SSD 840 Pro comes with no accessories, which means users without the right chassis will have to source for their own 2.5-inch bracket for installation.

To sum up, the Samsung SSD 840 Pro is a promising drive that has the potential to offer loads of performance. On benchmarks that it did manage to run properly, it was marginally quicker than even the Corsair Neutron GTX, and its results on Iometer were simply astounding. Unfortunately, it wasn’t able to back up its blistering performance with consistency, as evidenced by its scores on PCMark 7, PCMark Vantage and HD Tune Pro. Drives such as the Corsair Neutron GTX and the rest of the SandForce drives (Intel, Transcend and SanDisk) were more consistent.

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