Samsung T3 or 850 Pro?

[AppleHater]

I'm thinking of adding an external SSD solution to my 2015 27inch retina iMac for my photo editing (Lightroom) and video editing (Final Cut Pro X) need. My editing hobby need can be satisfied by an external 1TB SSD since my projects are not that big each time.

I'm considering Samsung T3 and 850 Pro with around $400 budget. Which would be a faster and more reliable option to take? With my photo library, random access speed is important. Also, specifically, I'm curious to learn how T3 compares to 850 Pro connected with SATA to USB3 converter.

 

[drummer5645]

I recently installed the T3 on 21.5 Imac. It was reasonably easy and the T3 doesn't have some Samsung software download requirements its predecessor had. Using a usb 3 slot I get 371/425 write/read consistently. From what I discovered in my search, the T3 is stand alone and is slightly more expensive that a 850 plus enclosure cost. I am at 250g. Much brighter folks can comment on more benefits of either.

 

[Dubadai]

I would get whatever you believe will be cheaper. With a drive as fast as the 850 Pro I think the issue will be finding a good enclosure for it that won't keep it back or cause troubles.

If you're in the states, check out OWC's enclosures.

Also, the PRO drives have a 10 year warranty, which is nice!

 

[roadkill401]

I have an 2014 RiMac that has a 512gb SSD. I was looking at how the price of SSD has fallen and you can get a Mushkin 480 for about $130 and the 1tb for $280.

I am wondering along the lines of is it really worth it to buy a more expensive 850 PRO with the 10 year warranty considering that likely in 2-3 years it will be functionally obsolete small capacity. The cost of drives have fallen so much and new tech with higher density chips are coming to replace what is now the top end. Will it cost less to simply replace compared to the cost of shipping + your time and replacement turn around time if it fails in 3+ years from now?

 

[Fishrrman]

T-3 is a very nice setup "ready to go", with proven performance...

 

[AppleHater]

Yeah, I like the convenience of the T3. Having said that, I don't have anyone with 850 Pro connected with SATA to USB adapter, and I'm really curious about the real world performance of SSD connected with the adapter because it's supposedly a better silicon right?

 

[campyguy]

Offering this as IMHO. If you're not using an OS start up drive the Pro is a waste of money - compare the 850 EVO to the T3. We've got about 20 Pro, 100 EVO, and maybe 10 T3 drives in use. The Pro is a fantastic OS boot/OS drive - it runs circles around all of our SSDs except for the PCIe drives that came in my/our Macs. The Pro and EVO drives are about identical in read/write speed performance for storage/scratch drive use, on both OS X and Windows platforms.

If you're looking at the Pro, for cost, and being prepared to pay that amount for a premium SSD, I'd offer getting a RAID 0-capable dual bay enclosure and buying two smaller 850 EVO drives - we use older SilverStone DS322 units - as use for scratch disks.

IMHO, skip the Pro and T3 options and focus on the EVO plus an enclosure. In 5 years, we'll have access to faster drives at a lower cost. Look, I love the Pro SSD and own several of them - but just not as a storage-only drive. Cheers!

 

[AppleHater]

Offering this as IMHO. If you're not using an OS start up drive the Pro is a waste of money - compare the 850 EVO to the T3. We've got about 20 Pro, 100 EVO, and maybe 10 T3 drives in use. The Pro is a fantastic OS boot/OS drive - it runs circles around all of our SSDs except for the PCIe drives that came in my/our Macs. The Pro and EVO drives are about identical in read/write speed performance for storage/scratch drive use, on both OS X and Windows platforms.

If you're looking at the Pro, for cost, and being prepared to pay that amount for a premium SSD, I'd offer getting a RAID 0-capable dual bay enclosure and buying two smaller 850 EVO drives - we use older SilverStone DS322 units - as use for scratch disks.

IMHO, skip the Pro and T3 options and focus on the EVO plus an enclosure. In 5 years, we'll have access to faster drives at a lower cost. Look, I love the Pro SSD and own several of them - but just not as a storage-only drive. Cheers!

Thanks for the idea. Btw when you compare, 850 SSD is connected through SATA to USB adapter right? I'm wondering what the performance penalty for using the adapter.

 

[campyguy]

Thanks for the idea. Btw when you compare, 850 SSD is connected through SATA to USB adapter right? I'm wondering what the performance penalty for using the adapter.

Yes and yes, we test with one of those adapters that one plugs bare drives for integrity first and then install the drive(s) in USB 3 enclosures. Some of our drives are installed in TB2 enclosures, but I'm not alluding to TB2 in this thread - TB2 is pretty zippy in RAID 0 but IMHO impractical for most storage needs that we have and it's a bit too costly IMHO.

Also, one of my employees uses two T3 drives - she likes the small size of them - and mounts both in either USB 3 port on her rMBP. She made a RAID 0 "array" out of the two drives for video work, and it frickin' flies! Just another thought if you are still considering options...

 

[AppleHater]

RAID 0 with 2 T3s is not something I've considered but interesting. Hmm. 2 T3 0.5TBs with RAID 0 may do better than a 1TB T3.

 

[drummer5645]

You know if its a hobby +, I wonder what is the benefit other than warranty. I use my T3 as a boot drive. My start time from tone to sign in page on 21 Imac 2013 is 18 sec. My app opening on FF is near instant, Photos maybe a sec, etc. Again it is simple to install and velcro'ed on support looks like it belongs there. The evo's warranty is not something to miss though

 

[h9826790]

TBH, I will go for the Evo (or any cheap reliable brand / model SSD). If you have plenty of USB port, 2 (or even more )smaller SSD in RAID 0 will increase performance, but may be more expensive as well.

The SSD war just start, IMO, there is no need to go for something has 5+ years warranty. By that time, a multi TB SSD is the same cost as the low capacity model now. Just go for something as cheap as possible, use it until it die (should takes 10+ years to kill a 850 Evo), and then buy another one.

My 840 Evo was a well known problematic TLC SSD. I choose that because that's the cheapest 1T model by that time. And it's 2+ years now. The SSD still works well. And TBH, I don't care about it any more. If it die (I really can't see that at this moment), I will go to buy a 2T 850 Evo straight away.

I use my 840 Evo for Photoshop, FCPX (anything up to 4K 3 layer, around 10 special effects). The Evo can handle that well via a SATA 2 port. Yes, just SATA 2, I have a SATA 3 PCIe card, but TBH, can't feel anyn difference in real world. So I remove that and install another GPU which is much more useful in FCPX.

Anyway, all I want to point out is that no need to go for more expensive SSD if no specific reason. Just pick the cheapest one, and then you are good to go.

For small files read / write, the SSD can't even saturate the SATA 2 bandwidth, USB 3.0 sure is good enough. And basically any SATA convertor won't hold you back. However, for benchmark, which is about the max sequential read / write, that will be hugely affected by sub quality enclosure.

OWC produce good enclosure, but they are over price in general, because you pay much more for the very last bit of extra performance that almost can't be utilise in real world.

Another issue about using SSD via USB is lack of TRIM. So, to compensate this, you may consider only use 80% of the SSD, leave the remaining 20% never used AND never partitioned. So the OS can't see it, which means the SSD controller can use them as over provision. Otherwise, after you write the very 1st TB data into the SSD, the writing performance may be affected due to lack of TRIM (GC can't clear the cell because the controller don't know which cell is containing unless (deleted) data from the OS).