Samsung SSD 830 Series 128GB Solid State Drive

Like many other manufacturers, Samsung has set its sights on the growing solid-state drive (SSD) market. This past fall, the company launched its SSD 830 Series. Designed and built completely in-house, the SSD 830 is powered by Samsung's own triple-core MCX controller and features a SATA 6GB/s interface as well as wear-leveling and garbage collection algorithms for sustained performance and reliability. The 830 Series also packs 256MB of on-board cache and uses Samsung's 20nm-class Toggle DDR NAND flash memory to deliver up to 520MB/s read and 400MB/s write speeds.

The 830 Series is available by itself or as part of a user-friendly installation kit. For this review, Samsung sent us the 128GB desktop installation kit (MZ-7PC128D/AM). The 128GB version of the SSD 830 is capable of delivering up to 520 MB/s sequential read and 320 MB/s sequential write speeds as well as up to 30,000 random read and 80,000 random write IOPS.

The 830 Series comes in an eye catching, silver box. Along with a picture of the drive, the front advertises many of its key features including its 128GB capacity, SATA 6Gbps interface and bundled software. The back of the box provides a bit more information regarding its features, specifications and box contents.

The desktop installation kit that Samsung sent us for this review includes a number of accessories. Along with the SSD 830 you'll find a 3.5-inch bracket with screws, SATA data and power cables, quick user manual, a download code for Batman: Arkham Asylum and a couple of CD's containing Samsung's SSD Magician software and Norton Ghost 15.0.

Physical Features:

Like many of Samsung's other products, the 830 Series is very well constructed. The top of the outer casing is made out of lightweight, black plastic which is covered almost entirely by a dark, brushed metal panel with the Samsung logo on it. The bottom of the SSD 830 isn't nearly as flashy. The casing is made out of metal. However, instead of brushed metal, Samsung opted for a matte finish.

The SSD 830 is the first drive to use Samsung's S4LJ204X01-Y040 controller chip. Developed entirely in house, this proprietary, triple-core MCX controller excels at multi-tasking. Based on an ARM9 controller, its three CPU cores can execute multiple instructions such as reading data, writing data and optimization.

For the 128GB version of the SSD 830, Samsung used their own 32GB 25nm K9PFGY8U7A-HCK0 Toggle DDR NAND flash chip. Looking at the pictures above, you can see that there are four of these chips on the top of the PCB. The drive also has a single 256MB K4T2G314QF-MCF7 DDR2 memory chip that is used for caching.

The test system used in this review was an HP 8200 Elite. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3250312AS 250GB SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX580 512MB PCIe graphics card and an Intel 82579-LM gigabit network card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.

To test the performance of the 830 Series, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1, HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46, AS SSD, HD Tune Pro 4.61 and Iometer. For comparison, I've also included test results from the Plextor PX-256M3S, Patriot Pyro SE, Plextor PX-256M2P, Kingston HyperX, OCZ Vertex 3 and OCZ Agility 3.

Like the PX-256M2P, the PX-256M3S is based on Marvel's 88SS9174 controller chip. While not as popular as some of the newer SandForce controllers, the 88SS9174 does have one major advantage in that it performs equally well with both incompressible (0%) and compressible (100%) data.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1:

First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.

Samsung SSD 830 128GB

Plextor PX-256M3S

According to Samsung, the 128GB version of the SSD 830 is capable of reading at 520MB/s and writing at 320MB/s. While the drive performed well, it came up a bit short of these numbers in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read and write speed tests.

HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:

Next, I used HD Tach to test the SSD 830's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.

Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the SSD 830 had average read and write speeds of 392.3 MB/s and 270.7 MB/s respectively, as well as a burst speed of 363.9 MB/s.

ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:

I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the SSD 830's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.

Samsung SSD 830 128GB

Plextor PX-256M3S

When tested with ATTO, the SSD 830's read speeds topped out at 547 MB/s and its write speeds at nearly 322 MB/s.

AS SSD:

AS SSD is a relatively new benchmark designed specifically for solid state drives. The application contains five synthetic tests used to determine the sequential and random read and write performance of a drive.

AS SSD also includes a copy benchmark. This test copies an ISO (two large files), program (many small files) and game (small and large files), returning the speed and duration of each.

HD Tune Pro 4.61:

Next, I ran a series of tests using HD Tune Pro. This hard disk utility measures a drive's performance by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its access time, burst rate and CPU usage. For this review, I'm also going to use it to benchmark the SSD 830's random read and write speeds, random access times and the number of operations per second.

Samsung SSD 830 128GB - HD Tune Read Benchmark

Plextor PX-256M3S - HD Tune Read Benchmark

Samsung SSD 830 128GB - HD Tune Write Benchmark

Plextor PX-256M3S - HD Tune Write Benchmark

The 830 Series performed fairly well when benchmarked with HD Tune. The drive had average read and write speeds of 494.2 MB/s and 326.6 MB/s, respectively, as well as a burst rate of 328 MB/s when reading. 

Samsung SSD 830 128GB - HD Tune Random Access Read

Plextor PX-256M3S - HD Tune Random Access Read

Samsung SSD 830 128GB - HD Tune Random Access Write

Plextor PX-256M3S - HD Tune Random Access Write

The SSD 830 didn't disappoint when doing random reads and writes. When reading 4KB blocks, the drive reached 14605 IOPS and had an average speed of 57.052 MB/s. The SSD 830 was even faster when writing, reaching 16050 IOPS with an average speed of 62.698 MB/s.

Iometer:

Lastly, I ran a series of tests using Iometer. This tool can be configured to benchmark a number of things. In this case, I used it to measure the SSD 830's read and write speeds and the number of operations per second. The tests were run using random bytes and a queue depth of 3.

The SSD 830's performance was very similar to what we saw in our other tests. The drive was able to read at 523.08 MB/s and write at 307.48 MB/s which wasn't enough to top the Patriot Pyro SE and Kingston HyperX when reading and writing highly compressible, repeating data. However, the SSD 830 was faster than both drives when writing incompressible, random data.

The SSD 830 performed fairly well when doing random reads and writes. In our tests, the drive was able to write at 125.35 MB/s and read at 105.42 MB/s. This wasn't enough to top the SandForce-based drives when doing random writes. However, the SSD 830 was about 50 MB/s faster than the Kingston HyperX and OCZ Vertex 3 when reading random data.

According to Samsung, the 128GB SSD 830 is capable of 80,000 IOPS when reading and 30,000 IOPS when writing 4K blocks. In our tests, the drive reached 26,987 random read IOPS and 30,604 random write IOPS. Increasing the queue depth had very little impact on the SSD 830's random write performance. However, with the queue depth set to 32, the drive was able to reach 67,871 random read IOPS.

TRIM Performance:

While SSDs offer many benefits, there are some downsides to using flash memory. One of the biggest issues people run into is performance degradation. Over time, an SSD will run out of fresh blocks and will have to write over data the file system has marked as deleted. This procedure is very complicated and can slow an SSD's write speeds considerably.

To fix this problem, most manufacturers have added TRIM support to their SSDs. The TRIM command allows an operating system, such as Windows 7, to tell an SSD which data blocks are no longer in use. Using this information, the drive pro-actively erases these blocks and adds them to the free block pool.

To test the SSD 830's TRIM function, I first put the drive in a "dirty" state. I used Iometer to fill the entire drive and then ran a random write test for 30 minutes. This had very little effect on the SSD 830's read speed. However, its average writing speed dropped to 253.0 MB/s.

Samsung SSD 830 - Dirty

To see how well the SSD 830 could recover,  I let the computer sit for a few hours and then reran the test. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the drive's average writing speed had increased to 276.5 MB/s.

Samsung SSD 830 - After Trim

Lastly, I used Samsung's SSD Magician software to perform a secure erase of the SSD 830. With the drive wiped clean, its average writing speed jumped up to 282.1 MB/s.

Samsung SSD 830 - Secure Erase

Final Thoughts:

Samsung's 830 Series is a worthy alternative to the myriad of "SandForce Driven" SSDs on the market today. Instead of using off the shelf components, Samsung has designed and built everything, including the MCX controller, Toggle Mode NAND flash and DDR2 SDRAM cache, entirely in house. The end result is an attractive, ultra-slim drive with good, all around performance. In our sequential read and write tests, the 128GB version of the SSD 830 was able to read at speeds as high as 547 MB/s and write at speeds in excess of 320 MB/s. The drive's performance wasn't nearly as impressive when doing random writes. However, it performed equally well with compressible and incompressible data and was able to sustain these speeds, even after intensive use. The 830 Series also ships with an excellent software bundle and is available by itself or as part of a user-friendly installation kit.

The 830 Series is available now in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities. Prices on Amazon.com currently range from $123 up to $800, with the 128GB desktop installation kit reviewed here going for about $200. You can save about $15 by buying the standalone drive. However, if you're truly on a budget, the Plextor PX-128M3S may be a better choice as it can be picked up for around $160. 

Highs:

• Available in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities
• Excellent read speeds
• Performs equally well with compressible and incompressible data
• Consistent speeds, even after intensive usage
• Good looking, ultra-slim design
• SATA 6Gb/s interface
• Toggle NAND flash
• 256MB DDR2 SDRAM cache
• Supports TRIM, SMART, garbage collection and wear leveling
• Software bundle includes SSD Magician, Norton Ghost and Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Available as part of a notebook or desktop installation kit
• Reasonably priced
• 3 year warranty

Lows:

• Slower than other drives when doing random writes