SAMSUNG 830 Series 256GB SSD $299 @Newegg

Nice! SSD's are getting there. I recall buying a 200GB IDE from CompUSA back in the day for $250, and that was cheap.
 
Newegg had a promo code for this drive back on March 14th for $299 as well.
wasteomind said:
This better than a Crucial M4?
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On paper it is a 'better' SSD than the Crucial M4:

- Higher transfer rates ( 520MB/s Reads - 400MB/s Writes ) vs ( 415MB/s Reads - 260MB/s Writes )
- Toggle Nand vs Asynchronous Nand
- Built entirely in-house using Samsung technology and parts (which are regarded as being on par with Intel in this market).

The only knock against the drive is that some users have reported 'permanent' performance degradation when trashing the drive past the point where TRIM and Garbage Collection can't keep up. Some say that this was an issue with the first batch of drives or with an early firmware but I've never read a definitive answer. To be honest I don't know what they mean by 'permanent'. Is it permanent in that formatting the drive won't restore performance? Again I've never read a satisfactory answer on that question.

Also I've heard that in order to update the FW, you are required to install a small FW update application. No big deal but it's a slight inconvenience.

I have two M4s and they are rock solid but I'm need a third SSD for an IB build. Can't decide if I should take a chance with an 830 or go with the sure thing.
 
Thanks for the response. I'm currently trying to learn about and shop for SSDs. Ready to make the change from mechanical HDDs. So please excuse my noobieness.

Are AnandTech reviews well regarded? They seem to have an issue with the idle time drive garbage collection resulting in pretty hefty performance degradation without a trim pass. Powee consumption also seems high compared to the other drives they tested with, but they aren't sure if it had anything to do with it being a high capacity version (512GB vs 240-256GB). Seeing as how I've never owned an SSD is this something I should be concerned with?
 
I have a ton of Amazon GC credit to get all my Chase Freedom rewards last quarter...but unfortunately Amazon would not match the price.
 
Tsaar said:
I have a ton of Amazon GC credit to get all my Chase Freedom rewards last quarter...but unfortunately Amazon would not match the price.
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Margins must be razor thin on this SSD. Don't worry, there will be other deals, and hopefully Amazon will start competing soon. Newegg has been killing it with SSD deals lately. They are on a mission to "force" everyone to have faster and more reliable computers.
 
Is there an advantage of a single Samsung 830 256GB SSD over two Samsung 830 128GB SSD's (or Crucial M4's) in RAID 0? Numerous times I've seen the 128GB drives for $150 or under so they would come out to around as much as a single 256GB SSD. Wouldn't having two 128GB SSD's in RAID 0 trump a single 256GB SSD?

Serious question, not trying to troll or anything. Looking to move in the SSD world here soon so I'm still fresh to it.
 
No advantage unless you are running a file server that's constantly hammered. My wife has a 128GB Crucial M4 while my friend has two Samsung 830 64GB in RAID 0...I can not tell a difference.

SSD is fast regardless.

Just get the largest quality SSD your money can buy.
 
DOOMHAMMA said:
Doesn't RAID 0 prevent garbage collection? Or is that fixed now?
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Still no official TRIM support. Your performance may degrade over time, but it will be a while, and you will get some wicked fast speeds for a good, long time. You can use standard SSD cleansing techniques to refresh them, though, with no permanent side effects.
 
Safety said:
I have two M4s and they are rock solid but I'm need a third SSD for an IB build. Can't decide if I should take a chance with an 830 or go with the sure thing.
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Same here. I have M4s and they've been good so far. Afraid of trying the 830.

How's the Samsung support compared to Crucial? I'm a bit weary of Samsung's support for SSD considering they are such a big company and they recently sold their hard-drive disk division.
 
Have had my Samsung 830 256gb since the first of the year and happy to report zero problems so far.
 
Howie said:
Same here. I have M4s and they've been good so far. Afraid of trying the 830.

How's the Samsung support compared to Crucial? I'm a bit weary of Samsung's support for SSD considering they are such a big company and they recently sold their hard-drive disk division.
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If I'm not mistaken Samsung is the largest manufacturer of OEM ssds. They are supposed to be very reliable.

I don't know how their customer service is though. Never dealt with it personally.
 
I got the m4 256gb drive last week for $304
It's a really nice drive
 
I'm really tempted to pick this up.

I'm replacing my main rig in the next couple weeks and would love to try out an SSD.
 
Soulmetzger said:
I'm really tempted to pick this up.

I'm replacing my main rig in the next couple weeks and would love to try out an SSD.
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If you want to save some cash, pick up the 128GB version. Either way -- go with a SSD for your boot drive...
 
You guys can thank me for the Amazon match.

After badgering their customer service and submitting to the "Lower Price" link. ;)
 
anonuser said:
If you want to save some cash, pick up the 128GB version. Either way -- go with a SSD for your boot drive...
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Any reason besides saving some money to get the 128 version? Is this overkill since this would just get the OS install and maybe some MP games that would really benefit loading times from an SSD?
 
Depends on how many apps and games you want to keep on the SSD. I've got a 128GB Crucial M4 as a boot drive on my wife's system with everything else on the spindle drive. Everything loads faster than when it just had the spindle drive.

I could have gotten away with a 64GB easily, but I like having the larger 128GB there "just in case."

I'm going to have a 128GB for boot in my own system when I build next month, and figure I'll transition to a multiple SSD-only setup when prices come down a far cry from where they are at now sometime in the future be it in a year or 5 years.
 
Soulmetzger said:
Any reason besides saving some money to get the 128 version? Is this overkill since this would just get the OS install and maybe some MP games that would really benefit loading times from an SSD?
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I sit around 100GB used with only the OS, 3 games and all the programs I use normally. I'm starting to lean towards a 256GB drive just for safe measures.
 
exlink said:
I sit around 100GB used with only the OS, 3 games and all the programs I use normally. I'm starting to lean towards a 256GB drive just for safe measures.
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If money isn't an issue go for the larger one and you won't have to worry about space. If it is a consideration, 128GB is more than enough for OS+Programs+A few games

For me, I'd go for the 128GB for a desktop and the 256GB for a laptop.
 
exlink said:
I sit around 100GB used with only the OS, 3 games and all the programs I use normally. I'm starting to lean towards a 256GB drive just for safe measures.
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That's the reason I ultimately went with the 240GB for my main rig. I do a lot of photo and video editing on it, and a good bit of that is in HD now. I also like to rip and convert my bluray collection - both those I own and those I add to the collection from time to time.
With my 80GB Intel drive, even after shrinking the virtual memory to the safe minimum and nixing hybernation, I still felt cramped. Apps I use daily I wanted on my 80GB of course, including the OS, Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium, Pinnacle Studio, and Office. In addition, I wanted to use the SSD for Adobe's scratch disk (this eats up a few geebee's!) and for caching the bluray rips when converting via RipBot 264/DVDFab. This goes MUCH faster when done on my SSD entirely, but it takes up a LOT of space. Forget installing all but maybe one favorite game on it if you have a similar usage pattern to mine.

A 128 would've been a LOT better indeed, and when I had two 80GB Intels in RAID 0 I got my much better, but I'm ready for a single large drive. Now I'll have room to breathe, TRIM, and no worries about RAID array issues. That peace of mind, breathing room, and simplicity are worth it to me.

Now, if he 256GB or 240GB happens to be the better $$/GB deal, then that's close enough it wouldn't matter. Both are probably gonna have the same number of NAND chips installed, just with slightly different capacities, so you'll get the same performance from either drive. If the 256 is on the best sale, get that one.

The nice thing about SSDs today, is that the larger capacities are finally hitting the same price/GB ratio as the smaller drives, or at least a lot closer to it. It's now much more practical to buy an SSD. I know prices should continue to fall over time, but I have no guilt picking up an SSD at $1/GB. They are too fast, reliable, and efficient not to want now.
 
SirKronan said:
That's the reason I ultimately went with the 240GB for my main rig. I do a lot of photo and video editing on it, and a good bit of that is in HD now. I also like to rip and convert my bluray collection - both those I own and those I add to the collection from time to time.
With my 80GB Intel drive, even after shrinking the virtual memory to the safe minimum and nixing hybernation, I still felt cramped. Apps I use daily I wanted on my 80GB of course, including the OS, Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium, Pinnacle Studio, and Office. In addition, I wanted to use the SSD for Adobe's scratch disk (this eats up a few geebee's!) and for caching the bluray rips when converting via RipBot 264/DVDFab. This goes MUCH faster when done on my SSD entirely, but it takes up a LOT of space. Forget installing all but maybe one favorite game on it if you have a similar usage pattern to mine.
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I do a lot of photo editing too and was considering going with another SSD for my scratch disk. But one concern I have is not so much performance but the longevity of the SSD when used as a scratch disk since the program will continually write to the scratch disk which is supposedly not good for SSDs. Have you researched much into this issue?
 
Howie said:
I do a lot of photo editing too and was considering going with another SSD for my scratch disk. But one concern I have is not so much performance but the longevity of the SSD when used as a scratch disk since the program will continually write to the scratch disk which is supposedly not good for SSDs. Have you researched much into this issue?
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I really wouldn't worry about it, but if you still are, get something with 34nm Toggle nand like a Corsair Performance Pro. 34nm nand has greater durability/can handle more write cycles than 2xnm nand...
 
It's always a good idea to go bigger than what you need Soulmetzger. I only have 200GB available on my M3 256GB, due to over-provisioning, and I'm still using way less than half of available space. There aren't too many review sites that do fill testing comparisons, but if you can find some for the 830, you'll see that an SSD that's 25% or even 50% full, will perform better than something that's 75% full.

Edit: Enjoy your new SSD :)
 
Howie said:
I do a lot of photo editing too and was considering going with another SSD for my scratch disk. But one concern I have is not so much performance but the longevity of the SSD when used as a scratch disk since the program will continually write to the scratch disk which is supposedly not good for SSDs. Have you researched much into this issue?
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TRIM, garbage collection, and other advancements in SSDs will help extend the longevity of your device:

The TRIM command is designed to enable the operating system to notify the SSD of which pages of data are now invalid due to erases by the user or operating system itself. During a delete operation the OS will not only mark the sectors as free for new data, but it will also send a TRIM command to the SSD with the associated LBAs to be marked as no longer valid. After that point the SSD knows not to relocate the data from those LBAs during garbage collection. This will result in fewer writes to the flash, reducing write amplification and increasing drive life. Different SSDs will act on the TRIM command somewhat differently so the final performance can also be different between different SSDs.
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Yes, it will work hard, but it still has a MTBF rate much better than any mechanical hard disk should, simply because it has no moving parts and generates much less friction and heat. In addition, some of the stuff I do in Photoshop and Pinnacle Studio is stuff I actually get paid for, so if I can be way more productive, even if the drive dies in 4 years instead of 5 years, I still made up for it during that time with vastly increased productivity over a mechanical disk.

With 24GB of RAM, however, I should be ok, and scratch disk use should be minimal. When it does hit, however, I don't want to notice it. DDR3 is so cheap right now ...

Edit: wow, I need to update my sig ... most of that stuff is WAY different now...
 
I'd love to get one of these for some RAID0 love, but alas! I am broke. Sucks
 
Howie said:
I do a lot of photo editing too and was considering going with another SSD for my scratch disk. But one concern I have is not so much performance but the longevity of the SSD when used as a scratch disk since the program will continually write to the scratch disk which is supposedly not good for SSDs. Have you researched much into this issue?
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Write endurance of the 830 256GB version is rated at 625TB which is 340GB a day over 5 years (or 170GB a day over 10 years). I doubt even as a scratch disk you're writing that much to the drive.
 
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