Samsung 840 EVO 120GB vs Sandisk SDSSDX-120G-G25

[isai95]

Why reviewers say than the Samsung 840 is way better that the SanDisk extreme G25?
In paper the SanDisk looks better. I have two of the SDSSDX-120G-G25 and they are fast and very reliable.

Samsung 840 EVO 120GB: Read 540MB/s, write 410MB/s, IOPS Read 94K, Write 35K $100.00

SanDisk SDSSDX-120G-G25: Read 550MB/s, Write 510MB/s, IOPS: Read 23K, Write 83K $95.00

What is so bad about the SandForce controller in the SanDisk SSD? Even though, the new SanDisk Extreme II comes with the Marvell controller.
Thanks.

 

[ToddW2]

Isn't it obvious on the surface the IOPs are DRASTICALLY different.

I don't care if it can sustain 540MB/s read or 500MB/s write...

Neither of those drives should be considered "very" reliable... after all they are new too!

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Isn't it obvious on the surface the IOPs are DRASTICALLY different.

I don't care if it can sustain 540MB/s read or 500MB/s write...

Exactly. For overall responsiveness and feel IOPS are WAAAAAAY more important than sustained read/writes. Except for a few corner cases I would even argue that sustained read/erite speeds are a pretty useless measure of drive performance.

It's just like with hard drives, how seek times are usually more important than sustained read/write.

Neither of those drives should be considered "very" reliable... after all they are new too!

True, time will tell, but Samsung has a good reputation of making reliable drives, and the calculations I have seen suggest that unless you do a crazy amount of writes per day, a TLC drive like the 840 EVO should still last you long enough that it will be mostly obsolete and you'll want to upgrade long before you run out of write cycles.

The firmware, load balancing and whatnot have become so much better than the early days that not even enterprize users boy SLC drives anymore. They buy MLC, and the consumer space is thus able to shift from MLC to TLC without any real reduction in longevity compared to previous gen models.

I'd definitely consider an 840 EVO if I were shopping for drives today.

 

[isai95]

Isn't it obvious on the surface the IOPs are DRASTICALLY different.

I don't care if it can sustain 540MB/s read or 500MB/s write...

Neither of those drives should be considered "very" reliable... after all they are new too!

I don't care about IOPs. I'm not gamer or run a server. I need to move 50GB to 75GB of video data. I need a drive that can do lots of writing, so sustain transfer is important for me.
Besides, the Samsung 840 EVO 120GB writes IOPs @ 35K vs. the SanDisk SDSSDX-120G-G25 that writes IOPs @ 83K. Even if IOPs were important to me my option still would be better for the SanDisk.

Also my ScanDisk SSDs have been working without a problem for about a year already. I don't know why you say that they are not reliable. But to each its own. I always chose my hard drives based on their sustain transfer rate. Why would I need a CDROM transfer class rate on a hard drive or SSD?

 

[isai95]

Exactly. For overall responsiveness and feel IOPS are WAAAAAAY more important than sustained read/writes. Except for a few corner cases I would even argue that sustained read/erite speeds are a pretty useless measure of drive performance.

It's just like with hard drives, how seek times are usually more important than sustained read/write.



True, time will tell, but Samsung has a good reputation of making reliable drives, and the calculations I have seen suggest that unless you do a crazy amount of writes per day, a TLC drive like the 840 EVO should still last you long enough that it will be mostly obsolete and you'll want to upgrade long before you run out of write cycles.

The firmware, load balancing and whatnot have become so much better than the early days that not even enterprize users boy SLC drives anymore. They buy MLC, and the consumer space is thus able to shift from MLC to TLC without any real reduction in longevity compared to previous gen models.

I'd definitely consider an 840 EVO if I were shopping for drives today.

I have different SSD brands (Super Talent, Samsung and SandDisk) and all work about the same in real world. So far, I have not had any going bad. Perhaps I don't faaak with the machine too much.

 

[Tsumi]

I don't care about IOPs. I'm not gamer or run a server. I need to move 50GB to 75GB of video data. I need a drive that can do lots of writing, so sustain transfer is important for me.
Besides, the Samsung 840 EVO 120GB writes IOPs @ 35K vs. the SanDisk SDSSDX-120G-G25 that writes IPOs @ 83K. Even if IOPs were important to me my option still would be better for the SanDisk.

Also my ScanDisk SSDs have been working without a problem for about a year already. I don't know why you say that they are not reliable. But to each its own. I always chose my hard drives based on their sustain transfer rate. Why would I need a CDROM transfer class rate on a hard drive or SSD?

99% of the time, an SSD is used for OS and program usage, not for constant transferring of large files. Reviewers review for the majority, not the minority. It's the minority's job to seek out what is relevant to their specific needs.

Besides, all the data is there anyways. You just need to sift through the reviews. It's not like the data you need is hard to find.

 

[John**]

I use SanDisk and Intel 520 SSD which comes with the sandforce controller. I have tried this several times in my test lab & trust me I never had any bad experience. Unless you do not have the latest firmwares, sandforce SSDs never put you into trouble.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I don't care about IOPs. I'm not gamer or run a server. I need to move 50GB to 75GB of video data. I need a drive that can do lots of writing, so sustain transfer is important for me.
Besides, the Samsung 840 EVO 120GB writes IOPs @ 35K vs. the SanDisk SDSSDX-120G-G25 that writes IPOs @ 83K. Even if IOPs were important to me my option still would be better for the SanDisk.

Also my ScanDisk SSDs have been working without a problem for about a year already. I don't know why you say that they are not reliable. But to each its own. I always chose my hard drives based on their sustain transfer rate. Why would I need a CDROM transfer class rate on a hard drive or SSD?

In the moving process the sustained transfer will definitely be what to look out for, but if you are working on the videos, editing them and whatnot, your IOPS will be MUCH more important.

Just like with every other component out there, it is going to depend on your specific workload, but in general, what makes a computer feel more responsive is the IOPS, not the sustained transfer speeds.

 

[Liger88]

The difference between the best of the best consumer SSD and the bottom barrel SSD's are becoming extremely difficult to tell the true difference. IOPS matter as much as sustained read/write, very little for the most part. How many times will you be transferring 100GB to really care about 450MBps vs 550MBps? Point exactly.

Manufacturers these days rely on those paper stats to sell and differentiate their product. One of my SSD's has around a .25ms read/write time while the other newer one is half that. Notice no difference whatsoever. Once you hit sub-1ms access times you're going to need to see 100x improvement in order to feel the difference, we are past feeling the difference for the most part.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

The difference between the best of the best consumer SSD and the bottom barrel SSD's are becoming extremely difficult to tell the true difference. IOPS matter as much as sustained read/write, very little for the most part. How many times will you be transferring 100GB to really care about 450MBps vs 550MBps? Point exactly.

Manufacturers these days rely on those paper stats to sell and differentiate their product. One of my SSD's has around a .25ms read/write time while the other newer one is half that. Notice no difference whatsoever. Once you hit sub-1ms access times you're going to need to see 100x improvement in order to feel the difference, we are past feeling the difference for the most part.

I agree. The truth is that the jump from a hard drive to any good brand SSD is going to be HUGE, but upgrading from a slower to a faster SSD will result mainly in academic differences. You simply won't feel the difference much if at all.

IMHO, what matters more than raw performance in SSD's is reliability. (which is a funny thing coming from the guy who has mainly owned OCZ SSD's )

 

[isai95]

Also, of the 3 memories available (SLC, MLC & TLC), MLC is the more suitable for consumers on terms of reliability, performance and price. Sandisk uses MLC and Samsung uses TLC.
Check this out:

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Also, of the 3 memories available (SLC, MLC & TLC), MLC is the more suitable for consumers on terms of reliability, performance and price. Sandisk uses MLC and Samsung uses TLC.
Check this out:

I'd challenge this statement a little bit.

It used to be as follows:
SLC - Expensive, primarily used in Enterprise applications like server caching etc.
MLC - Consumer devices, cheaper, but not suitable for heavy write applications.
TLC - Existed in theory only as a cheaper method of doing things, but was considered not to have enough write cycles for practical use

As drives have become better, with better load distribution and improved write optimization, this has changed a little bit.

Now, noone uses SLC, not even Enterprises. It is too expensive and isn't needed. Enterprises use MLC now, as the improvements have made it acceptable for the applications previously reserved for SLC.

Pro-Sumers may still want MLC if they have workloads with a ton of writes, but for most money is probably wasted here.

TLC is rapidly taking over as the new consumer standard, due to being cheaper, and similarly reliable as previous gen MLC drives.

As a "pro-sumer" who does a healthy, but not excessive amount of writes, I wouldn't hesitate to put a TLC drive in my rig today, and I've built a few systems for friends and family around 128GB Samsung 840 EVO drives. They are awesome, especially when you take the price into account.

I recommend taking a look at Anand's assessment of TLC and write cycles here.

According to his assessment, assuming a write amplification of 3x, and 10GB writes on average per day (which is a huge safety margin for typical workstation use), a 128GB TLC drive ought to last almost 12 years, at which point it almost certainly is obsolete.

Even if you are a pro-sumer power user, and we double that to 20GB per day, a 128GB TLC drive ought to last almost 6 years.

Now, I don't know about you, but my drives usually get upgraded every ~3 years or so anyway, so for my purposes a 128GB TLC drive could sustain ~40GB writes per day, which is a very excessive average amount of writes.

I consider myself somewhat of a power user, and according to Crystaldiskmark, since I installed my OCZ Vertex 4 near the end of July 2012, I have written ~5476GB, so I'm almost exactly at that average 10GB/day mark. A 128GB TLC drive should thus last me almost 12 years.

I think TLC is just fine

Now I should add to this, that everyone's workloads are different. You may do A LOT more writes than I do, if you are constantly writing large video files, but before pre-judging a technology, do the math. Download crystaldiskinfo, find your total write size and divide it by the time you've had the drive installed to find out what your daily average is...