Samsung 840 Pro -- Owners Report

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ToddW2

2[H]4U
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Nov 8, 2004
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Looking for feedback from those who have the 840 PRO, any size :)

I`ll have screenshots, and info for my setup within a few days when the drive arrives :D
I have a 256GB drive coming from AMAZON.

Going to compare/test in Win and OSX.

Currently using Intel 80GB G2 in Win, and Intel 510 120gb in OSX.
Also have Crucial M4s in use in some secondary systems.

I got a new MBAIR that has the 'faster' SSD, and I can tell the responsiveness is faster than my Intels, and Crucial, and the 840 PRO is supposed to be even faster... in all areas, but especially looking forward to the random reads/writes improvement.


Anyone else that has gone from any other SSD to 840 PRO how was your experience ?
 
I had a 512GB on pre-order through Newegg. I heard that Samsung is delaying the 512GB until the end of November. I really needed a new SSD a couple of weeks ago and I can't wait any longer. I just purchased a Corsair Neutron GTX 480GB.

Your Samsung will rock. I love my 256GB 830.
 
I've got a 256 inbound from Newegg. Should be here tomorrow. Probably won't get it installed until the weekend though.
 
Got mine day of. Pre-ordered with Newegg and had chosen overnight delivery.

Anyhow. I am coming from a Intel SSD 520. I had nothing but problems with the 520. Crashes, blue screens the drive was a total POS. So far not a single issue with the 256GB 840 seems fast. Glad I made the switch!
 
davewolfs said:
Got mine day of. Pre-ordered with Newegg and had chosen overnight delivery.

Anyhow. I am coming from a Intel SSD 520. I had nothing but problems with the 520. Crashes, blue screens the drive was a total POS. So far not a single issue with the 256GB 840 seems fast. Glad I made the switch!
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Shenanigans! Intel 520 are urber reliable. They are the fastest and have no issues....I mean, Intel told us it was more reliable then other sandfarce drives. AND if intel says its more reliable it just has to be, I mean looks at their processors, they are the best without challange, so when the big ad in the magazine tells me its more reliable it just has to be. ;)
 
Of course snow is on the way... hope my drive isn't delayed :rolleyes: while out for delivery!!
 
davewolfs said:
So far not a single issue with the 256GB 840 seems fast. Glad I made the switch!
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Eh .. unless its the Pro its not what OP is talking about.

People need to check out Anand and other reviews because in some ways the 840 is a step backward from previous gen (both in performance and the NAND having half the lifespan). Pro is a diff story though.
 
davewolfs said:
So far not a single issue with the 256GB 840 seems fast. Glad I made the switch!
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Eh .. unless its the Pro its not the same thing. People need to check out Anand and other reviews before rushing in because in some ways the regular 840 is a step backward from previous gen. Pro is a diff story though.
 
It is a Pro version and I'm going to assume that the other poster is being funny about how the Intel drives must be more reliable because they say so. They don't even have these drives as authorized hardware for their server grade processors and boards. Perhaps I got a lemon, my X25M ran for years without a hitch.
 
I just now ordered the Samsung 840 Pro, came with Assassins Creed 3 coupon thingy. I hope it's badass because this is my first SSD purchase evar :eek:
 
teletran8 said:
I just now ordered the Samsung 840 Pro, came with Assassins Creed 3 coupon thingy. I hope it's badass because this is my first SSD purchase evar :eek:
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840 Pro is pretty badass, but quite frankly it doesn't matter.

Coming from a HD, you are going to be blown away by even the slowest, least badass SSD on the market.

Once you start getting to the higher performance models, the differences between them are mostly academic.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039310182 said:
840 Pro is pretty badass, but quite frankly it doesn't matter.

Coming from a HD, you are going to be blown away by even the slowest, least badass SSD on the market.

Once you start getting to the higher performance models, the differences between them are mostly academic.
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I figured I waited this long... forget the budget penny pinching holdout mentality! haha
 
JoeComp said:
Now anandtech has had two (out of two) Samsung 840 Pro review samples die. This looks bad for Samsung. Hopefully it is a firmware problem and not a hardware problem (that would require recalling thousands of units).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6328/samsung-ssd-840-pro-256gb-review/8
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Ouch.

I almost ordered an 840 Pro for another system I am building after Samsung's stellar reliability in their 830s.

Hopefully they can fix this issue. That being said, its still early to draw a conclusion based on only 2 data points.
 
I guess I`ll be sticking it in a new (to me) system (win7) before switching over my day-to-day MAC and Win7 desktop based on the issue :mad:
 
Well I just ordered the 840 128g version that came with a free copy of Assassin's Creed III. I guess I better watch my ass and make full backups onto my NAS.
 
miercoles13 said:
Well I just ordered the 840 128g version that came with a free copy of Assassin's Creed III. I guess I better watch my ass and make full backups onto my NAS.
Click to expand...

This is what I do anyway. SSD's are inherently going to be less reliable than traditional hard drives for our uses.

I have a 6 drive FreeNAS system with 2 redundant drives which when I am done installing everything on a new system, I back up an image to.

Then I store all my files on the NAS as well.

If anything ever happens to the SSD, I just have to restore my install backup and keep using my files on my NAS.
 
I better keep my receipts then!! lol! Well I will use it and see how it goes. I went with the 256Gb version, nobody's one incident should be taken as will happen to everyone's 840Pro. I'm sure mine will run superb. :) I will try and post my experience next week when I have it for a few days :)
 
teletran8 said:
nobody's one incident should be taken as will happen to everyone's 840Pro.
Click to expand...

How about two incidents? anandtech's first unit failed, it was returned to Samsung and they sent along a new unit, and that one failed, too.

I'll agree it is not proof that it "will happen to everyone's 840 Pro", but it is persuasive evidence that there is a systematic defect in the 840 Pro that can be repeatably triggered by some of the tests anandtech runs.

Best case scenario is that it is a firmware bug, and Samsung will be able to release an updated firmware. But there was some speculation by Anand that it is the power delivery circuit that is failing.
 
Really hope they can fix it.
Anyways I got my 840 pro 256gb from amazon today. It did not come with the assCreed code. seems samsung has no control over the code, more like amazon does. sigh
 
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JoeComp said:
How about two incidents? anandtech's first unit failed, it was returned to Samsung and they sent along a new unit, and that one failed, too.

I'll agree it is not proof that it "will happen to everyone's 840 Pro", but it is persuasive evidence that there is a systematic defect in the 840 Pro that can be repeatably triggered by some of the tests anandtech runs.

Best case scenario is that it is a firmware bug, and Samsung will be able to release an updated firmware. But there was some speculation by Anand that it is the power delivery circuit that is failing.
Click to expand...

Well a firmware update should be looked into like you just said, good advice bro ;) maybe there is a voltage irregularity if what your saying firmware update can modify this issue u guess, sounds good enough 2 me. :)
 
teletran8 said:
Well a firmware update should be looked into like you just said, good advice bro ;) maybe there is a voltage irregularity if what your saying firmware update can modify this issue u guess, sounds good enough 2 me. :)
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That was not advice. There is no updated firmware from Samsung, and I have no idea whether the problem can be fixed in firmware. I was just saying that a firmware update would be the best case. It is also possible that it is a hardware problem and thousands of SSDs will need to be recalled.
 
Anandtech said the Intel 520 was reliable and it was a POS on my system. Have had the 840 pro for a week no issues. So I assume they just have bad luck just as I did.
 
davewolfs said:
Anandtech said the Intel 520 was reliable and it was a POS on my system. Have had the 840 pro for a week no issues. So I assume they just have bad luck just as I did.
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Nonsense. There is a big difference between a reviewer having no problems with a drive and saying it is high quality (a dubious conclusion from insufficient evidence) and a reviewer having two out of two review samples fail in the same way and concluding there is a problem. Even stronger evidence of a serious issue is that Samsung has not provided an explanation to anandtech for either failure. If it was a simple issue, Samsung would have provided an explanation so anandtech could reassure readers. The obvious conclusion is that either there is a known serious issue that Samsung does not want to talk about, or else Samsung has not yet been able to determine the cause of the problems.
 
JoeComp said:
Nonsense. There is a big difference between a reviewer having no problems with a drive and saying it is high quality (a dubious conclusion from insufficient evidence) and a reviewer having two out of two review samples fail in the same way and concluding there is a problem. Even stronger evidence of a serious issue is that Samsung has not provided an explanation to anandtech for either failure. If it was a simple issue, Samsung would have provided an explanation so anandtech could reassure readers. The obvious conclusion is that either there is a known serious issue that Samsung does not want to talk about, or else Samsung has not yet been able to determine the cause of the problems.
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Let's not forget that the Pro drives have been delayed a few of weeks from their original release date. Maybe Samsung knew there was a problem and thought they had it fixed. The 512GB drives are have been delayed again.
 
I am asking a certain person for a 840 Pro 256 for Christmas. I hope the drive is "fixed" by then if there is a real problem with it. I've never even used an SSD yet but for a few minutes on a friend's computer.
 
we should remind ourselves that good companies have bad products ALL THE TIME. there is a reason no one who is professionally careful buys new untested shit.
 
ToddW2 said:
"Professionally Careful"

Is that a real job title :p
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Hahaha... I wouldn't use one for my workstation. I would never use a "new" product in my workstation. For home use I'm more adventurous. But after owning a Vertex 2, I vowed to never buy another SSD until months after release.
 
At this point I am sticking with 830's. Of my initial order of 4 256GB 840 Pros to play around with 1 was DOA, 1 failed the first week and a third drive is exhibiting bizarre 30-second delays on interleaved writes.
 
mwroobel said:
At this point I am sticking with 830's. Of my initial order of 4 256GB 840 Pros to play around with 1 was DOA, 1 failed the first week and a third drive is exhibiting bizarre 30-second delays on interleaved writes.
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For the one that failed the first week, what was it doing just before it failed, and what were the symptoms of the failure (i.e., completely dead; responds to SMART but nothing else, etc.)?

I'm trying to determine if there is some sort of workload that will kill them in a repeatable way. anandtech has lost two and I guess it was under a similar workload, but unfortunately anandtech does not specify exactly what is the workload that killed them.
 
mwroobel said:
Of my initial order of 4 256GB 840 Pros to play around with 1 was DOA, 1 failed the first week and a third drive is exhibiting bizarre 30-second delays on interleaved writes.
Click to expand...

Ouch. A great company would notice these problems and stop sales until they identify the trouble. Don't keep selling a broken new product
 
JoeComp said:
For the one that failed the first week, what was it doing just before it failed, and what were the symptoms of the failure (i.e., completely dead; responds to SMART but nothing else, etc.)?

I'm trying to determine if there is some sort of workload that will kill them in a repeatable way. anandtech has lost two and I guess it was under a similar workload, but unfortunately anandtech does not specify exactly what is the workload that killed them.
Click to expand...

The one failing now is failing in the same way as the one that died in the first week. During our dvt's (there is a post somewhere here where I laid out our verification tests for new drives, SSD tests are similar but without the gigs of large sequential files. The first drive failed and the next one is following the same progression in that large numbers of interleaved writes copying large numbers of small files (4k, 8k & 16k) deleting them and copying over again and again. With 16 write streams going it worked fine for a few days, then started these 30 second pauses where the drive did not drop, the processes did not fail but it just went to lala land for ~30 (logs show 19-37 second pauses) seconds and then continued. This would happen once or twice, then not again for a few hours, then started happening once an hour, then the drive would eventually not even post.
I wouldn't call 2 drives a reproducible error and with the scarcity of drives out there I don't know that this isn't just an early production snafu, but I am concerned enough to just go back to ordering 830's for now and see how this shakes out. Whether it is bad drives that have to be RMA'd or a more sinister problem in the firmware time will eventually tell.
 
Hoping it's the firmware and an easy fix :D

Either way for now I`ll keep my existing SSDs in place :) Next week I have 2 of the Intel 180gb ones coming so I`ll probably use those before the 840 PRO :mad:
 
Any more updates on this issue? mwroobel how are the remaining 2 drives performing?
 
LOL. I love the new BETA testing programs for SSDs these days. Gotta love it. Early adopters get to pay the hefty price premium AND test it out for these companies, LOLLERS. Been there, done that quite a few times.

Gotten pretty lucky in the past I must say, but I'm not a day-1 buyer on SSDs any more.
 
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