Samsung has announced the entry-level SSD '840 EVO' line-up with significantly higher sequential write performance.
Utilising the industry's most compact 10nm-class 128Gb high-performance NAND, Samsung proprietary controller and Turbo Write drive, the Samsung SSD 840 EVO boasts superior performance.
Solid State Drives, or SSDs, are innovative data storage devices that deliver high performance, reliability, and quality by using NAND Flash memory instead of the magnetic disks used in traditional Hard Disk Drives (HDDs). SSDs provide very fast PC booting and application loading speeds and perform exceptionally well in multi-tasking environments - all while consuming less power, emitting very little heat, producing no noise, and offering outstanding stability compared to conventional HDDs.
Compared with the 250GB 840 Series SSD, the highest selling capacity of the 840 lineup, the new 250GB 840 EVO now delivers 520MB/s sequential write speed - making it more than 2 times faster than last generation. In the case of 120GB model, the 840 EVO achieves 410MB/s sequential write speed, which is approximately 3 times as fast as that of the 120GB 840 Series SSD.
For the 1TB 840 EVO SSD, the sequential read/write performance has reached 540MB/s and 520MB/s. Furthermore, both the random read and write performance have achieved the highest level, reaching 98,000 IOPS (Input Output Operations Per Second) and 90,000 IOPS, respectively.
The Samsung SSD 840 EVO introduces two important features for data security: hardware-based AES 256bit Full Disk Encryption (FDE) and PSID. Hardware-based AES Encryption helps safeguard data against attack by encrypting all information on the disk at the hardware level, which means there is no detrimental effect on performance.
Performance
The 840 EVO is fast, very fast! But don't just take my word for it, take a look below for the results of some performance tests (the tests were carried out using Windows 8 Pro, 64-bit version, 16GB RAM
and an Intel Core i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz):
Rapid Mode
RAPID (Real-time Accelerated Processing of I/O Data) Mode is an innovative performance enhancement tool which processes data on the system level by utilizing free DRAM memory as cache. RAPID Mode was designed to increase the overall performance of PC, combining fastest SSD available in the market and the most advanced storage management algorithm in Magician 4.2.
RAPID Mode analyses a user's application and data usage, optimizes the I/O for Samsung SSDs accordingly, and eliminates system performance bottlenecks.
In order to deliver the fastest and the most reliable user experience, RAPID Mode focuses on improving the random performance with low queue depth and small size data. When frequently used data (hot data) is recognized, RAPID Mode can also enhance the sequential performance as well. However, improvement on sequential performance can vary depending on user scenarios.
Final Thoughts
The Samsung SSD 840 EVO line-up is available in five capacities: 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB, as well as the three different kits (see above). For this review we had the 1TB model.
The drive is fast, very fast and work's very well indeed. In fact it is the fastest SSD I have ever tried. There are a number of really great features with the drive too!
RAPID Mode is an interesting addition, and time will tell if it actually brings any benefit, but I certainly like the idea of it.
So I cannot rate this SSD highly enough - it is fantastic! It is the best SSD I have ever tested and now is my main drive!
Prices start from £86.99 for the 120GB SSD all the way up to £509.99 for the 1TB model and should be available from today.