Samsung 840 Pro 512 SSD vs Crucial M500 480GB SSD

[peejack]

Hi guys sorry for another thread on SSD.

Just really torn between these two drives for my new MBP:

Samsung 840 Pro 512 SSD vs Crucial M500 480GB SSD

I have set up a vote on these but any additional comments as to why you recommend either would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[johnnnw]

You've named probably the top two drives on the market right now. So either way you will be happy.

Personally I'd go with the 840 Pro because it has been tested over some time now. The M500 is new and you never know what problems may arise. It could be none, and judging by Crucial products in the past that might be the case but still, I'd go with the tested reliable one. 840.

 

[peejack]

Thanks I must say im leaning towards the Samsung. I understand from the Samsung you don't need to worry about enabling TRIM either as it has it's own built in garbage collector?

They speeds are faster on the Samsung and im after reliability and seems the Samsung has a good record from what I see?

 

[johnnnw]

Thanks I must say im leaning towards the Samsung. I understand from the Samsung you don't need to worry about enabling TRIM either as it has it's own built in garbage collector?

They speeds are faster on the Samsung and im after reliability and seems the Samsung has a good record from what I see?

Oh yes, the Samsung will be faster. Especially the write. It will probably be significantly more. Whether this will help in real world use.. who knows. But who doesn't like a good stat!

Samsung SSD's have a fabulous reliability record.

Keep a backup anyways of course, but paired with a 5 year warranty you can't go wrong with the 840 Pro.

 

[peejack]

Oh yes, the Samsung will be faster. Especially the write. It will probably be significantly more. Whether this will help in real world use.. who knows. But who doesn't like a good stat!

Samsung SSD's have a fabulous reliability record.

Keep a backup anyways of course, but paired with a 5 year warranty you can't go wrong with the 840 Pro.

Yes you're right, who really notices the tiny speed increases, im not that bothered I just want to go for the most reliable best solution drive out of these two.

 

[johnnnw]

Yes you're right, who really notices the tiny speed increases, im not that bothered I just want to go for the most reliable best solution drive out of these two.

Well considering the M500 reliability is untested as it's brand new, I only see one option man

 

[peejack]

Well considering the M500 reliability is untested as it's brand new, I only see one option man

True.

 

[Orlandoech]

Both have proven reliability, but the Samsung is faster.

Both good drives, but I like the Samsung better. See my sig for SSD help.

 

[peejack]

Both have proven reliability, but the Samsung is faster.

Both good drives, but I like the Samsung better. See my sig for SSD help.

Am I right in saying I don't need to worry about enabling trim as the 840 pro has a built in garbage collector.

 

[mentaluproar]

Everything has garbage collection now. TRIM may cause a performance hit depending on the firmware and controller though, but nothing too bad. In general, it's best to turn it on.

Some people have had problems with Groth's TRIM enabler recently, myself included, although I'm running a Corsair Neutron GTX so it might just be a wonky drive. I forced a TRIM in single-user mode and I'm fine now though.

 

[Mike Boreham]

I have no experience of Samsung, but I have two Crucial M500 (actually the 960 Gb model), one in each MBP....a 17 inch early 2011, and a 17 inch mid 2010.

Both have been heavily used for a couple of months without TRIM, and with absolutely no problems.

I chose Crucial because I really wanted 960 Gb, and the price seemed very good at around £470, compared to £370 ish for the Samsung 512 Gb.

I should add that the 960s replaced Crucial M4 512 Gb which had been in both machines for a year or two also without problems.

 

[alex0002]

Am I right in saying I don't need to worry about enabling trim as the 840 pro has a built in garbage collector.

TRIM and garbage collection are different things, although they both help work toward the same goal of never running out of free NAND pages. In most cases they work well together. The TRIM command simply informs the SSD that there are logical blocks that have been deleted in the OS. Then the SSD firmware can clean the NAND pages associated with those logical blocks.

TRIM has some other benefits too, such as a reduction in write amplification.

With garbage collection (and no TRIM), the only way the SSD finds out about deleted logical blocks, is when the OS decides to write to those same logical blocks again. This happens more often as the drive gets full. If the OS asks to write to more blocks than there are free NAND pages, then the performance suffers.

If I was going to choose a drive to run without TRIM, I'd pick one with more generous over-provisioning than the Samsung 840 Pro.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6489/playing-with-op

The 840 Pro has about 7% NAND capacity set aside as spare area, while others such as Crucial M500 have 14.5%.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6614/microncrucial-announces-m500-ssd-line-of-ssds

That is not to say the Samsung 840 Pro is a bad drive - it's a very good one, but it wouldn't be my first choice to run in a no-TRIM environment.

Everything has garbage collection now. TRIM may cause a performance hit depending on the firmware and controller though, but nothing too bad. In general, it's best to turn it on.

Some people have had problems with Groth's TRIM enabler recently, myself included, although I'm running a Corsair Neutron GTX so it might just be a wonky drive. I forced a TRIM in single-user mode and I'm fine now though.

True, every modern SSD has garbage collection. TRIM should improve the performance over time in most cases, but it seems that some drives using Sandforce controllers have problems with TRIM and for those, it might be better not to use it.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6107/corsair-force-series-gs-240gb-review

However I believe the Corsair Neutron GTX uses the LAMD controller, so that shouldn't be a problem in your case.

 

[MacRumoren]

If I was going to choose a drive to run without TRIM, I'd pick one with more generous over-provisioning than the Samsung 840 Pro..

If I'm using SSD as external storage in USB 3.0 enclosure, there would be no TRIM, so does the above "over-provisioning" rule still apply to this type of environment?

 

[KeegM480]

Hi guys sorry for another thread on SSD.

Just really torn between these two drives for my new MBP:

Samsung 840 Pro 512 SSD vs Crucial M500 480GB SSD

I have set up a vote on these but any additional comments as to why you recommend either would be appreciated.

Thanks.

I actually have a thread comparing the Samsung's, some people said don't forget about the M500 but to be honest just go with whatever saves some money

 

[alphaod]

I picked the Samsung 840 Pro because that's what I use, but otherwise I think both are great choices; I would go with whatever is cheaper.

 

[nabwong]

Would you consider a sandisk extreme ii 480gb? I got it for $360 from adorama last week and newegg ran the same sale price last month. So it'll probably come down again.