Samsung 840 Pro worth it in SATA II machine?

Sharky II · Oct 11, 2012

Hi,

I understand the limitations of a SATA II bus, with a SATA III drive. However, will there be any improvement with a Samsumg 840 PRO vs an older Samsung 830 (both 128gb) on a Mac Pro (obviously all SATA II)?

Even if you don't have an 840 PRO, can speed differences between drives be noticed/measured, or does the SATA II bus limit the difference between different fast SATA III drives anyway?

As i'll probably upgrade to whatever 2013 Mac Pro is released, i don't mind paying the extra for something that i can take over to a new machine in a year, bit i'm just curious. The price difference could tempt me to just get the 830 if they drop in price any more though, if there'll be no difference in performance on a SATA II machine (which i'll probably be using for another year or so)

Cheers!

ActionableMango · Oct 11, 2012

It's a huge price difference at the moment. The price/performance just wouldn't be right for a Mac Pro.

This is really relevant to me, because I just picked up an 830 (128GB) yesterday for $80.

handheldgames · Oct 11, 2012

If you have an extra slot available and are willing to invest $60 in a controller... This will give you the speed you are looking for: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SSD-Upgrade...620?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e6e198afc

Sharky II said:
Hi,

I understand the limitations of a SATA II bus, with a SATA III drive. However, will there be any improvement with a Samsumg 840 PRO vs an older Samsung 830 (both 128gb) on a Mac Pro (obviously all SATA II)?

Even if you don't have an 840 PRO, can speed differences between drives be noticed/measured, or does the SATA II bus limit the difference between different fast SATA III drives anyway?

As i'll probably upgrade to whatever 2013 Mac Pro is released, i don't mind paying the extra for something that i can take over to a new machine in a year, bit i'm just curious. The price difference could tempt me to just get the 830 if they drop in price any more though, if there'll be no difference in performance on a SATA II machine (which i'll probably be using for another year or so)

Cheers!

paul-n · Oct 17, 2012

The 840 Pro is the best available consumer drive, it is faster in every benchmark compared to the 830, which is also really fast. These perfect values can be measured, but I don't think you can feel the difference, neither on SATA3 nor on SATA2 when using normal applications.
But if you want the fastest go with 840 Pro, and please use the onboard SATA2 controller, all Marvell/JMicron controllers only help with sequential performance, but IO performance sometimes is slower with such controllers.

theSeb · Oct 17, 2012

Sharky II said:
Hi,

I understand the limitations of a SATA II bus, with a SATA III drive. However, will there be any improvement with a Samsumg 840 PRO vs an older Samsung 830 (both 128gb) on a Mac Pro (obviously all SATA II)?

Even if you don't have an 840 PRO, can speed differences between drives be noticed/measured, or does the SATA II bus limit the difference between different fast SATA III drives anyway?

As i'll probably upgrade to whatever 2013 Mac Pro is released, i don't mind paying the extra for something that i can take over to a new machine in a year, bit i'm just curious. The price difference could tempt me to just get the 830 if they drop in price any more though, if there'll be no difference in performance on a SATA II machine (which i'll probably be using for another year or so)

Cheers!

It really depends on what you're doing, but most people will not see the difference between between a REALLY FAST SSD and one that falls in the middle of the benchmarks. Don't forget that to actually show any differences between SSDs the benchmarks are incredibly intensive. They are normally the equivalent of user operations recorded over a couple of days and then played back via an automated tool. So what somebody would do over hours or days now happens over minutes and hammers the drive. It's not a realistic use scenario, but it's a way to see which SSD is "faster".

lixuelai · Oct 17, 2012

For SATA2 your performance is capped so the best you can do is pick the most reliable one and the 830 has been out longer with a proven track record vs the 840 which just came out.

derbothaus · Oct 17, 2012

I'd do 830 on SATA2 as well. So much cheaper at less than a buck a gig. Even randoms wont really be felt especially if you are using a multi SSD/HDD setup.

Sharky II · Oct 18, 2012

Thanks guys

UK prices for a 128GB 830 fluctuate between £75-85, the 840 PRO is £115... so it's not the HUGE difference in price it may be in the USA, but i'll still probably take the cheaper option.

Cheers!

dyn · Oct 21, 2012

The price difference is much bigger than the difference in performance. The 840 Pro is only a tad bit quicker than an ordinary 830. So the only advantage to the 840/840 Pro is that it makes the 830 cheaper

c23roo · Oct 26, 2012

What would I need to drop the 830 in my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1? I have seen that there is a drive sled so it will fit in one of the HD enclosures. Is there a sled specific to the 1,1 that I need to find?

Also, can I use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to copy my current boot drive to the SSD and then be all set to go? Tried to find this elsewhere but can't seem to find nice dumbed down instructions specific to this machine.

Amrives · Jan 5, 2013

I am getting 206.6 MB/s write and 268.4 read with my 840 pro in a SATA II MacBook aluminum unibody. My crucial m4 does not get as high of write speeds but the read is similar. I prefer my 840 pro in my 2012 i7 Mac Mini since I can achieve full speeds.

hfg · Jan 5, 2013

I am running a pair of OWC 240GB SATA-II SSDs as a RAID-0 in my 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 computer. They are mounted on a dual bracket in the spare optical bay and connect to the two motherboard SATA ports with added cables.

The performance is almost on par with a Crucial M4 mounted to a Velocity Solo x2 PCIe card. The best overall performance I have reached was with a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro mounted to the Velocity Solo x2 card, but at much greater cost.

Here is the RAID-0 Disk Speed Test results with the SATA-II drive pair vs. the 840 Pro PCIe:

-howard

.

Phrygian · Jan 5, 2013

the pci slot sounds nice, and yes im sure its faster.

That said, you will experience a huge jump in performance even if you use an SSD in your normal Sata II sled. It like to think of it as a future investment if nothing else.

SDAVE · Jan 5, 2013

I don't think it's worth it, unless as stated above you get the PCIe adapter.

Honestly, find a good deal on an Intel 320 or something (it's an older SSD that's SATAII) and pop it in and forget about it. SATAII is good enough in real world tests.

paulrbeers · Jan 5, 2013

c23roo said:
What would I need to drop the 830 in my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1? I have seen that there is a drive sled so it will fit in one of the HD enclosures. Is there a sled specific to the 1,1 that I need to find?

Also, can I use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to copy my current boot drive to the SSD and then be all set to go? Tried to find this elsewhere but can't seem to find nice dumbed down instructions specific to this machine.

1. Search for Icy Dock. I pay about $15 on Amazon for them.
2. Yes, but I use SuperDuper! to each his own though.

hfg · Jan 5, 2013

Smaller capacity SATA-II SSDs are dropping in price quickly. Putting a pair of these in RAID-0 will be significantly faster and will double the storage size of the small SSD. The pair of small SSDs will be cheaper than a single SSD of equivalent size (ie. get 2 ea. 128GB instead of a 256GB SSD).

Of course ... keep a good backup strategy in place as well.

Phrygian · Jan 5, 2013

hfg said:
Smaller capacity SATA-II SSDs are dropping in price quickly. Putting a pair of these in RAID-0 will be significantly faster and will double the storage size of the small SSD. The pair of small SSDs will be cheaper than a single SSD of equivalent size (ie. get 2 ea. 128GB instead of a 256GB SSD).

Of course ... keep a good backup strategy in place as well.

i haven't seen any price differences on amazon, can you link some good deals on sata II ssds?

in fact larger capacity intel 330s are cheaper than smaller capacity 320s....

i paid around $190 for a crucial m4 256g sata 6g six months or so ago.

alphaod · Jan 5, 2013

I recently upgraded to the 840 Pro and used the Velocity Solo X2 adapters. Performance is terrific and I highly recommend this combination for anyone looking to get a SSD for their Mac Pro.

hfg · Jan 5, 2013

Phrygian said:
i haven't seen any price differences on amazon, can you link some good deals on sata II ssds?

in fact larger capacity intel 330s are cheaper than smaller capacity 320s....

i paid around $190 for a crucial m4 256g sata 6g six months or so ago.

The deals I have seem have been direst email "specials" from Newegg, Amazon, Tiger, CompUSA, etc. I think they are trying to dump the small capacity 64 & 128 GB drives in favor of the 256 & 512GB sizes. These emails have been flooding in since before Christmas.

flyingmanatee · Jan 7, 2014

Late to this thread but google is still returning it in results.

I just nabbed an Samsung 840 evo 750 for $400 for my aging 2008 Mac Pro. It still has legs in it and $19 for Newer Technology AdaptaDrive 2.5" to 3.5" Drive Converter Bracket.

I added USB 3.0 and Radeon 6970 last year.

Samsung 840 Pro worth it in SATA II machine?

macrumors 6502a

macrumors G3

macrumors 68000

macrumors regular

macrumors 604

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 601

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 68030

macrumors regular

macrumors newbie

macrumors 68040

Attachments

macrumors regular

macrumors 68040

macrumors 68040

macrumors 68040

macrumors regular

macrumors Core

macrumors 68040

macrumors member

Our Staff