SSD, Samsung worth the extra money?

[essential]

Upgrading my fathers computer to an SSD. He's coming from a traditional HDD, so anything is going to be a massive upgrade. Narrowed it down to:

Crucial MX100 256GB = $109.99
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB = $169.99
Samsung 850 Pro 256GB = $184.99

The Crucial seems to get great reviews, and is the obvious value choice even though rated slower, and I've read the Samsung 840 Pro is pretty much the best SSD ever, and the 850 Pro has great reviews as well, but hasn't been out long enough to really know. Reliability is a big factor, and I guess I relate Samsung with reliability which is why I'm considering those. Whatever I chose will likely be in the machine for quite a while, so any benefit to going with either of the Samsung drives, or is the Crucial plenty and save the extra cash?

 

[fleshconsumed]

You won't see any difference in real use. Benchmarks? Sure. In real life there will be very little noticeable difference if any. If that was me, I'd go for Crucial. If you don't mind spending a little extra, you can go for the Samsung. My recommendation would be MX100. Especially since it's your farther, so he's even less likely to notice any perceived difference between MX100 and Samsung.

 

[ensign_lee]

You should roll with the Samsung EVO, IMO. Best bang for buck in terms of speed, price, reliability.

 

[Dannar26]

Crucial MX drives can be had for crazy cheap with the right deals. Samsung is always overpriced, and as stated above, you're not likely to notice the difference.

::hits the "save file" button:: CURSE THIS EXTRA .000001 SECOND DELAY! SHOULD HAVE SPENT 200 MORE DOLLARS ON AN EQUIVQLENT SAMSUNG DRIVE! Said no one ever.

 

[Elixer]

MX100 has been rock solid so far... I would go with Crucial again if I had the choice between Sammy & Crucial.

 

[Cerb]

You won't notice a bit of difference, Crucial makes quality stuff, and have pretty good end-user support, should you ever need it. The price is all that's wrong with Samsung's drives, but you're getting every bit as good of an SSD with the Crucial, unless all you want is bragging rights from benchmarks.

 

[essential]

Thanks for the replies. Placed an order for the 256GB mx100.

 

[Coup27]

This was not even a fair comparison. You have compared Crucial's mainstream drive against Samsung's high end drives. The Samsung equivalent to the MX100 is the 840 EVO and the price would have been a lot closer to your MX prices.

 

[Deders]

Either one would be a fantastic first first SSD for someone.

 

[dn7309]

Just get the cheapest SSD you can find from a reputable manufacture.

I got a Samsung 840 (non pro) as my boot drives and windows along with all of my apps boot and load instantly.

 

[Essence_of_War]

This was not even a fair comparison. You have compared Crucial's mainstream drive against Samsung's high end drives. The Samsung equivalent to the MX100 is the 840 EVO and the price would have been a lot closer to your MX prices.

Closer. Not close enough to the premium for the Evo over the MX100, unless OP's dad hates his data and wants to run RAPID all of the time.

 

[Coup27]

Closer. Not close enough to the premium for the Evo over the MX100, unless OP's dad hates his data and wants to run RAPID all of the time.

RAPID does have it's benefits in certain workloads but for the average Joe it doesn't do anything you can easily notice. I ran it for a while but after my latest format I won't be putting it back on.

On the matter of price, assuming we're comparing US dollar's and according to Amazon.com, the difference between the two is $10 and for that you get Samsung's Magician which makes secure erasing and firmware updating easier. The other features are semi-useful, but not a must.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

RAPID does have it's benefits in certain workloads but for the average Joe it doesn't do anything you can easily notice. I ran it for a while but after my latest format I won't be putting it back on.

On the matter of price, assuming we're comparing US dollar's and according to Amazon.com, the difference between the two is $10 and for that you get Samsung's Magician which makes secure erasing and firmware updating easier. The other features are semi-useful, but not a must.

This is an ongoing point of discussion. I have both the 840 Pro and the MX100. Without the caching, there's little difference, but Crucial is more aggressively priced.

Some, like me, will argue that the caching opens up the bottleneck further, determined by the workstation-user's patterns. Others say it is "an illusion," only shows incredible benchmarks and so on. I think one could argue in between, with the element that the caching makes more efficient use of "time" as the accumulated usage-time from boot-up increases.

Let's assume that the RAM-caching IS a benefit. You then have a choice. You can pay less for the MX100 and get more flexible block-level caching after spending $30 on a program like Primo-Cache. Or you can spend more up-front and get a Sammy drive with Magician and RAPID.

Or you could subscribe to the notion that RAM-caching isn't "real," abjure using RAPID or buying Primo or Super-Cache, but you'd spend a little bit more on the Sammy drive. Samsung is going to give you Magician whether you like it or not.

 

[Soulkeeper]

I'd throw the M550 into that list as well.
Personally i'd choose it over the MX100, and don't see the justification for the samsung 850/840 prices. The samsungs are the fastest drives out right now, so that's the "tax" you're paying going that route.

It's ultimately a personal choice.

 

[DaveSimmons]

It was a mistake to compare the MX to the Pro drives instead of the basic / EVO ones, but both Crucial and Samsung EVO are good choices.

 

[tweakboy]

Get what best fits your budget.

in real world you will not tell a difference.. Your benchmark has to be your game. PLay all your games and if none crashed, then your set..gl

 

[Coup27]

It was a mistake to compare the MX to the Pro drives instead of the basic / EVO ones

Amazing how many people have overlooked this and continue to do so even after my posts.

 

[Cerb]

Amazing how many people have overlooked this and continue to do so even after my posts.

Samsung has 'high end' SSDs because they are good at marketing, more than any usefulness of the drives over 'mainstream' ones. It's not being overlooked, but intentionally ignored. The MX100 is also cheaper than the Evo.

 

[Coup27]

Your post doesn't make sense. On one hand you are saying there is little value in the Pro drives over the EVO but then on the other that the EVO is being intentionally ignored?

The main differentiator between the Pro and the EVO's are endurance and speed, with one being MLC and one being TLC. Whether this is useful to you comes purely down to the user. If you believe the Pro's are just marketing hype over the EVO's then that is yet another reason to use the EVO in the price comparison which started this thread.

When I looked into the prices I found a $10 difference in favour of the MX100. Nowhere near the $60-$80 differences in the OP.

 

[ronbo613]

I am considering a replacement for the Samsung 830 SSD in my system, the MX 100 and Samsung EVO look like the best deal to me. There is nothing wrong with the Samsung 830, it's worked great without any problems, but I'm at the point where I need a bit more space than the 128G the 830 provides.

Both the MX100 and EVO look like a good deal. It would be nice to have one of the Samsung PROs, but having owned a few SSDs now, the difference in speed between the different models is barely noticeable, if at all, in real world use, it's more about problem free operation, reliablilty and durability at this point.

Being a satisfied Samsung SSD owner, my first inclination is to go with the EVO, but the MX100 sure looks like a great deal.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If I were to purchase a Samsung SSD (unlikely, given the prices), then I would get the 850 Pro, for the 3D V-NAND, and the *10-year* warranty. It would be like the last storage device I might need to buy, for quite some years.

 

[aigomorla]

::hits the "save file" button:: CURSE THIS EXTRA .000001 SECOND DELAY! SHOULD HAVE SPENT 200 MORE DOLLARS ON AN EQUIVQLENT SAMSUNG DRIVE! Said no one ever.

over the spam of 1000x it turns into
.0001 second delay!! OMG.. thats a eternity!
(sarcasm)

 

[BonzaiDuck]

over the spam of 1000x it turns into
.0001 second delay!! OMG.. thats a eternity!
(sarcasm)

It's only worth splitting hairs to assess the significance of different cost components. I KNOW the Pro is "better" than the Evo, but when you take net-present-values and future-values of cost increments, well -- we may be talking about some small difference in longevity as a return to the initial present value up-front of the outlay. OR -- as I think you are saying -- performance. If you can't translate the performance into dollars, this becomes "cost-effectiveness analysis" and you can still make comparisons.

So . . . . YEAHHHH!! Thousandths of near-nothing, IMO.

Like I said before, the biggest drawback for spending LESS and buying the Crucial (either one as someone pointed out) -- is the "software." If you don't believe the RAM-caching with RAPID is a benefit, then it's about "belief." If you DO believe it, you can spend $30 on Primo-Cache or $80 or Super-Cache (which is no better).

The Crucials don't discourage my beliefs, and we're talking about a couple Mexican dinners.

And that reminds me: I was going to fry up my stone-ground, hand-made tortillas into taco-shells today . . . . So -- Bah!-- I'm gone!

 

[ronbo613]

If I were to purchase a Samsung SSD (unlikely, given the prices), then I would get the 850 Pro, for the 3D V-NAND, and the *10-year* warranty. It would be like the last storage device I might need to buy, for quite some years.

I love ten year warranties, especially on something there is a good possibility I will still own(and the company backing the warranty is still around) ten years from now, but I gotta believe that the main program drive of my computer is not going to be in service for ten years. Will there even be desktop computers in ten years? How about an operating system, Linux aside, to run them? Today's SSDs are the floppy discs of 2024.

Now a ten year warranty on a pickup truck....

 

[MongGrel]

I love the EVO's, first SSD's I'd bought to be honest and have a couple 100's from last year in RAID0 running the OS.

I do not use Magician or RAPID on em I guess.

I'm on a bit of a non standard setup these days I guess as it's an older board.

*edit* the tortilla thing sounds good, the grill just got hot and making some things out there myself.

:thumbsup::thumbsup: