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The Samsung 830 Series 512GB is an impressive solid state drive directed firmly towards the performance enthusiast user. From my point of view it is very refreshing to identify a manufacturer aiming to compete against the profusion of Sandforce 2281 powered drives, saturating the market today.
The included extras are both significant and practical, Symantec's Norton Ghost 15 for instance can help ensure an upgrade scenario is as painfree as possible. Samsung also provide a USB to 2.5 inch SATA converter cable for instantaneous drive mirroring capability. We also really like the chassis design and materials used, as it reflects the premium status.
The performance of the 830 Series 512GB drive is satisfying, scoring almost 520 Mb/s in some of the sequential read tests. In fact, read performance generally was right up at the same level of the leading Sandforce 2281 powered drives. In real world terms you would be hard pressed to acknowledge any performance variables between this drive and the leading Sandforce units. Write performance isn't quite at the same level, although 400 Mb/s should be more than enough for the majority of everyday demands.
This 512GB drive is the flagship model, offering huge storage capacity for demanding enthusiast users. The price in the United Kingdom is around £675 inc vat, which is quite competitive. If this is too rich for your blood, then check out the full range here, just be aware that the 64GB and 128GB models are slightly less imposing when it comes to writing data.
Pros:
- Controller is very good.
- fantastic read performance.
- bundle is loaded.
Cons:
- It is slower than the leading Sandforce 2281 drives.
- 64GB and 128GB models won't be as fast as this.
Kitguru says: A great drive from Samsung and well worth shortlisting.
A complete solution from Samsung, very interesting indeed. strange to see a non sandforce drive today.
Very nice indeed, I like it. Not this size however, 256mb might be good for an upgrade in 2012.
Nice drive, but I still think Sanforce 2281 has the edge in all the performance benchmarking. its a tough one to beat. still good to see competition, drives down prices, right?
Samsung will have a really hard time selling these to consumers, they work well in OEM market, for Dell machines etc, but enthusiasts are slightly more educated and want Sandforce. thats my views on it anyway, based on forums like anandtech and hardocp.
The price isn’t bad,and uncompressed performance is very strong as the test have shown. the issue is that the more affordable drives are slower and Samsung dont seem to be sending samples to review sites (64GB model for instance looks slow as molasses in write test).
I think Samsung are better than any other maker, for the warranty and professionalism of the company. sandforce drives have failed MANY times, remember that.
1st fact: today there is no one type of SATA SSD dominate the market to replace HDD.
2nd fact: current SATA SSD maker more focus on speed rather than reliability, it make many people afraid to invest their money on SSD.
3rd fact: only Intel and Samsung whose making NAND flash, Controller, and Firmware in an integrated way to assure reliability.
4rd fact: Intel has shown weakness in SSD reliability (remember ‘Bad Context 13X Error’), only Samsung who still holding record for reliability almost perfectly.
This is just from my point of view.