Samsung 8XX Pro next model?

[opinio]

I know the Evo has come out, but I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on when the 840 Pro is due for replacement? It's a good drive but has been around for almost a year now (from memory?).

I am looking to replace an OCZ Agility III 240GB in a 2011 2.0GHz quad mini that is still cranking along just fine after two years running 24/7. But still, it is probably half the speed of the 840 Pro in real life application.

Any thoughts on when and how Samsung might release an update based on previous releases or insider knowledge?

Thanks.

 

[blanka]

Why bother... The Pro maxes out the bandwidth of the 600MB Sata bus, so you could only increase some performance in small block read/write in theory.
The EVO is like a Fusion drive between a tiny Samsung 840pro and an old 840. It works out pretty well, but if you write a 10Gb MKV to it, it will drop to 200MB/s just like with the old 840. Putting the same approach to a real 840pro would be weird.

 

[Giuly]

Why bother... The Pro maxes out the bandwidth of the 600MB Sata bus, so you could only increase some performance in small block read/write in theory.
The EVO is like a Fusion drive between a tiny Samsung 840pro and an old 840. It works out pretty well, but if you write a 10Gb MKV to it, it will drop to 200MB/s just like with the old 840. Putting the same approach to a real 840pro would be weird.

It does however exist, called the SanDisk Extreme II: It fuses an SLC cache with an MLC SSD.

 

[opinio]

Why bother... The Pro maxes out the bandwidth of the 600MB Sata bus, so you could only increase some performance in small block read/write in theory.
The EVO is like a Fusion drive between a tiny Samsung 840pro and an old 840. It works out pretty well, but if you write a 10Gb MKV to it, it will drop to 200MB/s just like with the old 840. Putting the same approach to a real 840pro would be weird.

Why bother.. Mostly because I don't want to buy the 840 pro and find they release an 850 pro a few weeks later. Just because the bandwidth is close to being saturated doesn't mean that technology gains cannot be made.

 

[MJL]

Why not a small (64 -128Gb) but real good SSD (SLC?) and do a fusion with a cheap large (slow?) SSD?

 

[opinio]

Why not a small (64 -128Gb) but real good SSD (SLC?) and do a fusion with a cheap large (slow?) SSD?

Small SSDs (even the good ones like the 128GB 840 Pro) are not so fast. 256GB (or 240/250 etc) or larger are normally fast.

 

[MJL]

Small SSDs (even the good ones like the 128GB 840 Pro) are not so fast. 256GB (or 240/250 etc) or larger are normally fast.

I'm more concerned with the expected life and the repeated writes of small blocks. The older drives had 10 000 writes life expectancy (SLC can go to 100 000) but some of the new ones only make 1000. If you can do big blocks only (as with using it in fusion) then the life expectancy of the large SSD becomes a rather moot point.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

I'm more concerned with the expected life and the repeated writes of small blocks. The older drives had 10 000 writes life expectancy (SLC can go to 100 000) but some of the new ones only make 1000.

Most reservations regarding TLC SSDs are obviously unfounded. If you write a data block 1000 times, the SSD writes them in different memory cells, not 1000 times in the same memory cells.

From:
http://us.hardware.info/reviews/417...-with-final-conclusion-final-update-20-6-2013

“Our previous calculations of the lifespan of TLC-based SSDs were clearly off the mark. We made the erroneous assumption that static data remains in the same location on an SSD. We had put 160 GB of static data on the SSDs. Considering how much data was written to the SSDs in two and a half months, the static data was moved by the controller to other memory cells at regular intervals in order to keep an even load on all cells within the SSDs.”

and

“With an average lifespan of 75 years for the TLC memory chips, consumers have absolutely nothing to worry about. It doesn't mean the SSD will actually last 75 years, but the number of available write cycles will not be the bottleneck. That means we will amend our conclusion from a couple months ago. A Samsung 840 SSD with TLC memory is just as reliable as SSDs with MLC memory, and the type of memory should not be a reason to choose one SSD over another.”

 

[Giuly]

Those are of course aggregated between all drives, but I don't think that TLC would work that well for me. Your milage may vary.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Thread necromancy... Ahrem...

Is there any major gains to obtain by waiting for the next generation of Samsung SSDs? I will be putting it in a SATA3 machine, so I am curious if it is worth the wait, now that manufacturers seem to shift towards PCIe. Both the Pro and the EVO has been getting major price cuts recently, so I assume another one is right around the corner, but that may still mean several months of waiting.