Samsung 840 Series SSD: Cost-Efficient Performance

Name: Samsung 840 Series 250GB SSD
Brand: Samsung

by Seth Colaner — Tuesday, February 12, 2013, 01:13 AM EDT

Summary and Conclusion

Page 8: Summary and Conclusion

Performance Summary: The 250GB Samsung 840 Series SSD offers somewhat unbalanced performance; on the one hand, it bested our bank of SSDs in many of our read tests, but on the other hand, it came in dead last in too many write tests. For most traditional consumer/client applications, read performance is the most critical watermark. However, those looking for strong write throughput, as with video editing for example, might want to keep this in mind.

Samsung 840 Series SSD (250GB)

The 840 series comes in a slim chassis with a very tidy PCB, and Samsung’s included Magician software is an excellent value add. The mounting kit and SATA-to-USB adapter are nice touches to the whole package, too. There are certainly SSDs available that offer better consistency in terms of performance, not to mention a healthier balance between read and write speeds, but the Samsung 840 Series SSD does offer solid value. At a price of $189.99 and and a formatted capacity of 232.88GB, this SSD costs about $0.82 per gigabyte. That’s not necessarily the absolute best value we’ve seen thus far, but it’s close.

Depending on your storage requirements, a 250GB Samsung 840 SSD could be the only drive you need, and if you’re looking to save some cash on a build or when upgrading a notebook, slapping in one of these babies could be a great way to do so. You’d get overall strong performance and obviate the need for a second storage drive, all for well under two hundred bucks.

Like its predecessor, the Samsung 830 Series, the 840 had high-performing read and lower-performing write speeds, which tells us that this is an area Samsung needs to work on. The Samsung MDX controller inside these drives has promise, but the third-party controllers other SSD OEMs are using might be a more robust alternative right now.

If you’re looking around the high end of the market for an SSD, keep moving. However, the 250GB Samsung 840 is a pretty good drive that offers a great value for your dollar if you're interested in something a bit more cost-effective.