SSD Drives: Samsung EVO vs. PRO

[midilance]

I'm thinking of upgrading to SSDs and have heard good things about the Samsung drives. I see two models, EVO and PRO. I have a MacPro 3,1 with 16 gigs of ram and am specifically thinking about replacing my boot drive and my samples drive. Any opinions? Is it worth it to spend more for the PRO? Any other comparable drives from another manufacturer?

[HCMarkus]

The Pro uses MLC NAND and Evo TLC NAND. In SSDs with planar NAND technology (2-D), TLC has had some issues, as evidenced by Samsung's questionably successful attempts at fixing the stale memory issue that has plagued its 840 EVO drives. This stated, the 850 series of SSDs uses 3-D NAND which is much more robust, as each memory cell is physically larger. Warranties on both drives are lengthy and endurance ratings high.

You will most likely not go wrong with either, but if you are not price-sensitive, the Pro model is the safest bet. My research causes me to believe these are the best SATA SSDs going at present. Nice you can get up to 2 TB in a single SSD now, too!

Crucial BX100 is a good value drive. Avoid the new, slow BX200.

[mikehalloran]

The EVO costs less and has a 5 year warranty; the Pro has a 10 year warranty.

I have been installing the 850 EVO in older Macs.

If there's a better SSD out there for general use, I haven't found it. I've a 2T in my 2010 iMac.

[bjornln]

850 Pro....
All day every day
and twice on Sundays.
My experience with the 840's has been less than pleasant.


/B

[mikehalloran]

850 Pro....
My experience with the 840's has been less than pleasant.

/B

Yes, did they ever get the firmware right on those?

Fortunately, the 850 has been trouble free.

I also have an 845 EVO, the enterprise version with a capacitor bank to protect against sudden power loss. If you find a bargain on these, you won't go wrong but these are very expensive normally.

850 Pro....
All day every day

On a newer machine, I agree. On my five year old iMac, the EVO is fine.

[daniel.sneed]

+1 on 850Pro. Inside my previous ante-retina MacBookPro. Was just a breeze. Will keep on doing good office job for years, I guess.

[jloeb]

All good stuff above, but are you thinking about two SSDs, one for samples and one for system, or just one to do both jobs (which is eminently possible with SSDs although we don't know how big your sample library is) ?

Because I'd say the standards for those jobs are different. For the system/main drive you want something truly robust. For storing VI libs and streaming them back, you can step down a notch, as the typical use pattern of such a drive is on the order of one write to thousands of reads. Literally any current or recent Samsung or Crucial drive is going to be more than fast enough - and robust enough - for the latter task set.

[HCMarkus]

Don't get an 840 EVO drive though. Stale data issue is bad, especially for read-only applications.

[dewdman42]

I have an 840 EVO and I haven't had any issues but you guys are freaking me out. Aside from scare stories you may have read, do you have actual problematic experience with this drive? They came out with a firmware update that supposedly resolved this issue, and from where I am sitting mine seems to be working fine.

[HCMarkus]

I don't have an 840 EVO. Just reporting results of my browsing. I have seen numerous reports the firmware update did not resolve the problem, but glad yours is working well. I still wouldn't recommend though.

[dewdman42]

well now that the 850 is out I would definitely go with the newer technology for absolutely sure if shopping.

There were two firmware updates for the 840 try to overcome this technology shortcoming. They did a first one that seemed to fix it at first. It essentially did a one time rewrite of all data on the SSD to recharge all the TLC Nand, which has a tendency to discharge itself and become weaker, eventually causing a situation where its hard to read because of the small size. The first firmware update to do this one time rewrite of the entire drive, had an immediate positive improvement, essentially recharging all the physical media with strong charges, but eventually they faded back out again and the problem returned. This would particularly be true of drives with a lot of static data.

Then they came out with a second one that is a more nuclear option, which is that its going to periodically rewrite all the data on the disk from time to time while idle... This will keep the SSD charged and reading well, but the downside is that its going to shorten the life of the drive.

It still amounts to more then 5 years of use out of the drive, I will probably be upgrading to something bigger by then anyway.

The next gen SSD's from Samsung don't have this issue as they are using entirely new technology to store the data..which is why the 850 is a better bet if you don't have one already. But I believe the new firmware should still get good life out of an existing 840. Crossing my fingers here.

[HCMarkus]

Yea, as long as the speeds stay up, you will be fine. http://techreport.com/review/27909/the- ... e-all-dead

[mikehalloran]

Yea, as long as the speeds stay up, you will be fine. http://techreport.com/review/27909/the- ... e-all-dead

I've been enjoying that. Useless in determining real world performance but fun, none the less.

OTOH, this give the impression that the 850 EVO is a pretty good buy.
http://techreport.com/review/29062/sams ... d-reviewed

[kgdrum]

I have the 840 Pro which I use for my boot drive,no problems.

[dewdman42]

Yea, as long as the speeds stay up, you will be fine. http://techreport.com/review/27909/the- ... e-all-dead

Thanks for posting that. Very interesting. And it does make me think that this firmware update on the 840 EVO, while it may cause the drive to function completely normally for a few years..there is some point in the future which will not be pretty, which will come sooner now with the new firmware.

I wonder if there is some way to monitor the health of the drive in this regard without having to wait for it to use up all the reserves and implode. Anyone know?

I still think I have quite a bit of time to use it before worrying about it. i just need to remember to not try to use this drive for any other computer after retiring it. We've always known SSD drives in general are somewhat disposable. The 840EVO, with the update, is even more so... but how do we know when to dispose of it?