The SSD 840 Pro comes in a small black box. While there aren't a lot of details on the front, the back of the box lists many of the drive's features as well as its specifications. Inside, you'll find the SSD, warranty statement, installation guide, software and manual CD and a couple of "Samsung SSD Activated" stickers for your computer's case.

Physical Features:

Like Samsung's previous SSDs, the SSD 840 Pro is very well constructed. The drive's outer casing is made entirely out of aluminum and is very strong and lightweight. The SSD 840 Pro also shares the same black and orange color scheme as the more mainstream-oriented SSD 840. In fact, the only real way to tell the two drives apart is to flip them over and look at the label on the bottom.

Like the SSD 840, the SSD 840 Pro uses Samsung's S4LN021X01-8030 controller chip. Developed entirely in house, this proprietary, triple-core MDX controller excels at multi-tasking. Based on an ARM Cortex R4 (300MHz) controller, its three CPU cores can execute multiple instructions such as reading data, writing data and optimization.

For the 512GB version of the SSD 840 Pro, Samsung used their own 64GB 21nm K9PHGY8U7A-CCK0 Toggle Mode MLC NAND flash chip. Looking at the pictures above, you can see that there are eight of these chips on the top of the PCB. The drive also has a single 512MB K4P4G324EB-FGC2 DDR2 memory chip that is used for caching.