Conclusion, Pricing, and Final Thoughts

Conclusion:

PROS:

  • Class leading IOPS Scaling and overall IOPS performance.
  • Very good write speeds with non-compressible data.
  • Competitive cost/GB, especially in higher capacities (see below).

CONS:

  • 3-year warranty is good, but beaten by the Intel 520’s 5-year rating.
  • Possible high power consumption figures reported with the 512GB model.

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Pricing and Availability:

First lets get a current snapshot of the competition as it stands right now:

OCZ Octane:

  • 128G @ $170 ($1.33 / GB)
  • 256G @ $400 ($1.56 / GB)
  • 512G @ $850 ($1.66 / GB)

Intel 520 Series:

  • 60G   @ $100 ($1.67 / GB)
  • 120G @ $184 ($1.53 / GB)
  • 180G @ $275 ($1.53 / GB)
  • 240G @ $350 ($1.46 / GB)
  • 480G @ $800 ($1.67 / GB)

OCZ Vertex 3 (close performer to Intel 520):

  • 60G   @ $99   ($1.65 / GB)
  • 90G   @ $150 ($1.67 / GB)
  • 120G @ $170 ($1.42 / GB)
  • 240G @ $310 ($1.29 / GB)
  • 480G @ $770 ($1.60 / GB)

* a few models have rebates going, making them even cheaper.

Samsung 830 Series current street pricing (Newegg):

  • 64G   @ $105 ($1.64 / GB)
  • 128G @ $170 ($1.33 / GB)
  • 256G @ $380 ($1.48 / GB)
  • 512G @ $710 ($1.39 / GB)

Note that various rebates impact the above prices. I have listed the current Newegg prices, without rebates.

Take a look at that 512GB 830 Series price point. For a premium capacity, it’s nearly the same cost/GB as the *smaller* models of the competing SSDs!

Warranty:

All 830 Series models are covered by a standard 3-year warranty.

* Firmware *:

Samsung hardware tends to be reliable enough that folks hear about the bugfix firmware update before they hear about the bugs that it fixed. Nevertheless, Samsung released the CXM02B1Q firmware update back in January. This update addressed a possible hang issue when waking a system from a standby / hibernate state. After some digging, it appears this issue affected relatively few users with obscure hardware configurations. While this update was not advertised as a performance changer, I re-ran all tests prior to publishing and this article contains those most recent test results.

Final Thoughts:

We tested the 64, 128, and 256GB capacities of the Samsung SSD 830 Series, and all were an absolute breath of fresh air. Reads and writes were great, and IOPS performance was nothing short of outstanding. The Samsung engineering team is to be congratulated for a product line that is likely to become the new standard for others to aspire to reach.

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Yup, Editor’s Choice. They deserve it.

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