Samsung 840's Longevity and Reliability

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I am seriously considering getting a 500GB Samsung 840 (not Pro) being offered at $310 on Adorama.com. My worry is that reviews point to their uncertainty with the longevity and reliability of the drive.

Does anyone have any hard data on this or this just overzealous cautiousness? 3 years warranty's fine with me as I plan to upgrade to a larger, faster, cheaper and better SSD by that time.
 

cwa107


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The Samsung 840 (not Pro) uses cheaper TLC-type NAND memory, which is (by its nature) subject to less write cycles than MLC, which is used in most SSDs. Assuming you trust Samsung's wear-leveling algorithms and further assuming you trust Samsung's reliability claims, then I'm sure it will be fine. Frankly, I wouldn't trust Samsung-branded anything - and that has nothing to do with any loyalties to Apple - but rather previously experience with short-lived Samsung products.

If you want an attractively-priced SSD that uses MLC, I would take a look at the Crucial M4.

Worth reading: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5067/understanding-tlc-nand
 
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The Samsung 840 (not Pro) uses cheaper TLC-type NAND memory, which is (by its nature) subject to less write cycles than MLC, which is used in most SSDs. Assuming you trust Samsung's wear-leveling algorithms and further assuming you trust Samsung's reliability claims, then I'm sure it will be fine. Frankly, I wouldn't trust Samsung-branded anything - and that has nothing to do with any loyalties to Apple - but rather previously experience with short-lived Samsung products.

If you want an attractively-priced SSD that uses MLC, I would take a look at the Crucial M4.

Worth reading: AnandTech - Understanding TLC NAND
Thank you for the reply. My concern with the M4 has to do with their at idle power consumption. I will be using it on a MBPro and find it bothersome that at-idle it consumeds double the power of any Samsung SSD.
 

cwa107


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Thank you for the reply. My concern with the M4 has to do with their at idle power consumption. I will be using it on a MBPro and find it bothersome that at-idle it consumeds double the power of any Samsung SSD.

I think you'll find trade-offs at every price point, but given the reliability concerns and the underwhelming performance of the Samsung 840, it's a pretty good tradeoff. For what it's worth, upgrading from a 7200rpm Hitachi HDD to the M4 resulted in significant real-world power consumption savings.
 
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I think you'll find trade-offs at every price point, but given the reliability concerns and the underwhelming performance of the Samsung 840, it's a pretty good tradeoff. For what it's worth, upgrading from a 7200rpm Hitachi HDD to the M4 resulted in significant real-world power consumption savings.

That's the thing isn't it? Any SSD will be better than any HDD. If you want the top of the line SSD pay a premium of 30%.
 

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