The Samsung 830 Series SSD Club

[dr emulator (madmax)]

ok so this is the place to share stories about this amazing piece of kit

whether you absolutely adore this drive ,or detest it with the fire of a thousand suns ,i want to hear about it

what problems you've had ,if you managed to figure them out ,or if your just stuck

and crucially what speeds your getting from the likes of crystal mark , the included Samsung SSD Magician's speed test or any other ssd speed testing software

if you are reading this forum as a guest you can add your 5 cents by signing up here it'll only take a few minutes

! First please take a minute or so to read the rules before posting ( lest ye be banned )



so here's my tell on the Samsung 256GB 830 Series SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Solid State Drive

so i've been planning on getting an ssd for a while ,but stories of bad controllers (namely sandforce)had put me off ,

then i heard about the new samsung 830 series with it's 3-core MCX controller ,so i thought i'd get one ,

now when they first came out they were very expensive about £350 or 547.99 US$ ,so i thought i'll wait a while before ordering one ,then after about a month they went down to £339 or 530.77 US$ ,

so i waited another month and they went down again to £300 or 469.71 US$ so i bought one ,(they are currently selling in the uk for £219.99 or 344.43 US$ )

as i already had win 7 i thought i'd try it (i previously had a western digital caviar black reported to be 6 gb/s ),

all i can say is wow ,once you experience the speed difference of a samsung black you never want to go back (to a mechanical drive that is )

everything loads up so much faster ,emulators work faster ,Pcsx2 to name but one of many ,google maps loads faster (after pre caching)

now all i need is for my isp to stop capping my speeds after i download over 3 gbs

so anyway enough waffle

[manofthem]

Sub'd

I have no complaints about my 830 256gb! It may not be the fastest drive out of the box, as most reviews point out, but it's been a great drive for me thus far.

I bought mine in March for $300 from Fry's, and I'm looking to grab another one potentially for some RaID 0 love, since they are much cheaper now.

I'm not home right now, but over the weekend I'll post up some benches with speeds and all that goodness.

Edit: this drive is in sale at Newegg for $250 shipped with promo code "EMCNEHE29", part #MZ-7PC256D (comes with the software Norton Ghost and SSD Magician Software and desktop install kit)

[dr emulator (madmax)]

wow things are so much cheaper abroad

i'll post some speed tests later with connection to the different ports ,as i'm not getting high speeds at the mo
(i'm using the marvel controller at the mo),
but to be honest i really don't give a xxxx as it's miles better than my old hd

[manofthem]

Here are a couple of my benches:

3/11/12 a week after I received the drive and installed




5/26/12 today after 2.5 months of use and what-not




It's been good, I assume that the increase in some numbers results from some tweaks. I notice that the 4k-64thrd write speed went down, not sure why...lame.



Edit:

Re-ran the AS-SSD today with slightly different numbers

[FreedomEclipse]

OOO!!! count me in! i just pulled the trigger on an 830 for my HP DM1. fingers crossed that my bios recognises it as OEM bios's have been known to be fussy with certain SSDs

:EDIT:

Time is GMT here mind you, but im definitely in




If the SSD doesnt work. I will most likely try swap it for a Crucial M4 or keep it and put it in my pc for games

[v12dock]

I am always temped to get one

[manofthem]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

OOO!!! count me in! i just pulled the trigger on an 830 for my HP DM1. fingers crossed that my bios recognises it as OEM bios's have been known to be fussy with certain SSDs

:EDIT:

Time is GMT here mind you, but im definitely in

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n...se/order-1.jpg


If the SSD doesnt work. I will most likely try swap it for a Crucial M4 or keep it and put it in my pc for games

So how long do you have to wait since it's on back order? That's a real bummer. I did read that the 830 is great for laptops due to their low wattage, thus longer battery life....

I too am awaiting mine, maybe here by Friday. I ordered a second one over the weekend, so I get to try to figure out some raid 0 action. Hopefully it'll be worth it, but I anticipate it not really be worth the money and hassle.

[FreedomEclipse]

Originally Posted by manofthem

So how long do you have to wait since it's on back order? That's a real bummer. I did read that the 830 is great for laptops due to their low wattage, thus longer battery life....

I too am awaiting mine, maybe here by Friday. I ordered a second one over the weekend, so I get to try to figure out some raid 0 action. Hopefully it'll be worth it, but I anticipate it not really be worth the money and hassle.

They are getting 127 in on friday. hopefully my order will be among them as i know there was a huge scramble to order these drives the moment the deal went up on HotDealsUK. so if lucky i should have by monday

[manofthem]

So I received my new Samsung 830 256GB today from Newegg, and I thought I would take a few pics (from my phone that is) and post them here, just for giggles.

Unboxing basically:

Newegg of course


The box in its glory



The drive itself in all its glory



And the contents



So I'll try to get it in raid0 this weekend and reinstall Windows. Hopefully it won't be too much work. If all goes well, I'll post back some benches of it.

[FreedomEclipse]

Mines still back ordered

[dr emulator (madmax)]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

Mines still back ordered

£154.94 well i hope ya get it soon

daam that's cheap

[FreedomEclipse]

I just realised i should have censored my post code on that screenshot! ah well.... I know some of you live around london too - If i see you on my turf then there will be trouble!!!

[manofthem]

So I got my 2 830's setup today, installed Windows, and messed around just a bit. I haven't done that many things, other than turn off defrag and indexing I think. Anyway, took a few pics of the process and thought I'd share them with the club.

Here are the babies:




And here's Raphael guarding them


So after the installation, here are the bench results. I'm not sure yet if they are comparable to what they should be, but time will tell.



So I need to keep messing around and see what these drives can do.

[mlee49]

I have two of these bad boys, one 128GB in my wife's lappy and one 256GB as my main drive.

I've been supremely happy coming from a 1st Gen non-sandforce ssd.

Does anyone like the Samsung Magician software that came with it? I personally like it, nice way to have tweaks available.

[manofthem]

Originally Posted by mlee49

I have two of these bad boys, one 128GB in my wife's lappy and one 256GB as my main drive.

I've been supremely happy coming from a 1st Gen non-sandforce ssd.

Does anyone like the Samsung Magician software that came with it? I personally like it, nice way to have tweaks available.


http://img.techpowerup.org/120602/Capture012325.jpg

The Samsung magician software isn't that bad, though it doesn't really work with raid 0: it won't recognize the drives at all, though it will run certain "tunings" like turning off defrag, index, prefetch... It is nice to have all the options grouped into one though.

[FreedomEclipse]

Unfortunately I got to the end of my rag waiting for Novatech to get new stock in. Its now mid week and their stock status remains from anything like '149 in tommorrow' to ''150 in tommorrow' or '175' in tommorrow' - I even spoke with them via live chat last week and asked about newstock since their status keeps changing, and i was told they would have some on friday or saturday. Friday and Saturday have gone - Either they didnt get enough to forfill my order or they never got any at all.

According to a few members on hotukdeals, when they asked about the stock in livechat, the staff gave them an ETA but even they themselves couldnt 100% confirm that stock would be in that day when they were put on the spot.

AMAZON who ran with a lower price of £139 has pulled the offer leaving only its merchants who keep the price around £220 after saying they were out of stock and would notify when they get an ETA since last week.

I have no confidence in novatech getting stock in this week since amazon cant either so i cancelled my order and went with a 240GB Sandisk Extreme for a few quid more.

Ive been patiently waiting for Novatech, but I really want an SSD. If amazon dispatch later today, I could have it by tommorrow or friday so at least i got something to play with over the weekend.


I wont be joining this club.

[AthlonX2]

you know TRIM is broken on the Sandisk Extreme right?

[FreedomEclipse]

Originally Posted by AthlonX2

you know TRIM is broken on the Sandisk Extreme right?

new sandisk Extreme firmware fixes TRIM

Extreme SSD Firmware Release notes

[AthlonX2]

SSDReview should be the last place you go for reviews

[FreedomEclipse]

Originally Posted by AthlonX2

SSDReview should be the last place you go for reviews

Never read it for the reviews. just the post reguarding the new firmware update. Ive read reviews elsewhere though.

Either it ships with the new firmware or i can just manually update it. eitherway there is a fix and broken trim aint gonna be a problem.

the only problem here is if the Sata controller on my DM1 can get the full speed out of it.

[erixx]

+1 in the club with a sammy 830!

I like Samsung more and more... cameras, tv's, sdd... and their final touch, care, software, manuals, and looks, more European than Asian, as even Asus cannot get a proper one-corporate look through their productlines and make applications that look as and ARE reliable.

I also like the ninja...

I do not like Norton, it sits everywhere in your system... I migrated my windows with a simple freeware application.

[FreedomEclipse]

Originally Posted by erixx

I migrated my windows with a simple freeware application.

Free Acronis for WD users?

[erixx]

gimme a sec...

OK, as I just installed it for a one time use and uninstalled it, I was not 100% sure of it's name. Found it in my downloads folder.... It is Eseus Todo Back Up that unadvertisedly includes a disk clone option, it is just click, click, click, done.

Link http://download.cnet.com/Easeus-Todo...-10964460.html

[FreedomEclipse]

Ive used Easeus to recover files from a wiped hard drive, but ive not used them to clone drives. I much prefer Acronis, and theres a free version of the program for WD hard drive owners and it also clones in a matter of clicks.

[manofthem]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

Unfortunately.......
I wont be joining this club.

You will be missed.

I hope the new drive works well for you. I didn't know about the trim issue, but as long as the fw takes care of it, then it's all good. Maybe next time an 830 will work out.