Pro vs Evo 250GB

[mazty]

No doubt this has been done before, the age old Samsung Evo vs Pro, but with recent prices having dropped, I was wondering just how much the difference is worth.

I'm well aware that in benchmarks the Pro smokes the Evo, and you get a few GB more, but the issue is the Evo can be picked up for £99.99 now, whereas the Pro is sitting around the £140 mark.

As I'm looking to get an SSD around the 250GB mark, which would you go for? Have experience with either or both?

[Funkstar]

the general consensus is that you won't actually notice any difference between any of the quality high speed SSDs in real world usage. The percentage difference is pretty small, and that translates to increases of only fractions of a second in loading apps or booting etc.

I think I would just go for the Evo.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Crucial M500 240GB is around £82:

http://www.ebuyer.com/497430-crucial...-ct240m500ssd1

This is a MLC drive with added data redundancy(RAIN) built in. The EVO is not worth paying nearly 25% more for.

[mazty]

The Crucial M500 240GB is around £82:

http://www.ebuyer.com/497430-crucial...-ct240m500ssd1

This is a MLC drive with added data redundancy(RAIN) built in. The EVO is not worth paying nearly 25% more for.

Even with the 100% increase in write speed? Is it something the average user would never notice?

[nniitt]

none of you catches the point. pro and evo use different NAND, hence, different performance (not noticeable during daily use, agreed!), Most importantly, these two different NANDs have different life span.

[mazty]

none of you catches the point. pro and evo use different NAND, hence, different performance (not noticeable during daily use, agreed!), Most importantly, these two different NANDs have different life span.

Ah okay - what kind of lifespan difference are we talking? Also it's worth noting that I'll only be using the SSD for the OS and quickstart up programs like chrome, VLC, itunes etc, but will not be storing data such as films, games, music etc on it.

[nniitt]

Ah okay - what kind of lifespan difference are we talking? Also it's worth noting that I'll only be using the SSD for the OS and quickstart up programs like chrome, VLC, itunes etc, but will not be storing data such as films, games, music etc on it.

Lifespan means numbers or times of write/erase process P/E cycles. Ok, it;s your SSD, you can do whatever you want to do with it. You didn't mention how you would use it, so I have to remind you regarding the lifespan issue. Please make sure your questions are clear next time. Using the SSD for the OS and quickstart up programs like chrome, VLC, itunes, then only thing you need to do is to find one with MLC at reasonable price and good after-sale. That's all.

[kalniel]

Ah okay - what kind of lifespan difference are we talking?

The Hexus thread surveying usage suggests most Hexus users write about 2.3TB/year to their SSDs. Given the endurance test ongoing at TechReport, the TLC drive is expected to be working 100% until about 3000TB of host writes, which would be 1300 years of typical usage for us. The MLC drives are lasting so well we can't predict lifespan yet, however if you need a drive to work for more than 1300 years then I'd recommend MLC (eg PRO) over TLC (eg EVO).

[peterb]

Please make sure your questions are clear next time. Using the SSD for the OS and quickstart up programs like chrome, VLC, itunes, then only thing you need to do is to find one with MLC at reasonable price and good after-sale. That's all.

The OP's question was quite clear - however, your replies, and replies in other threads are not. You are throwing out assertions without supplying any evidence (either personal experience, or authoritative reviews to support them, or a track history here of helpful comments).

We welcome input to the community, but considered and supported replies are the most use to people asking technical questions.

[herulach]

Based on my limited (and completely unscientific) comparisons between quite a slow (60GB kingston V300) and quite a fast (240gb 840 EVO) you won't notice a difference. Obviously the 240GB has allowed me to have programs on there, but startup times etc are basically the same. If I understand the specs correctly, its really the 4K read/writes that have the biggest impact on 'snappiness' not max data transfer speeds, there tends to be less of a difference between drives on this anyway.

[nniitt]

For system disk, you should go for MLC, for general storage go for TLC. How do I arrive at this conclusion? I tried every popular SSD in the market.
Don't trust those benchmarks. For this particular SSD, you need to pay attention to the speed after disable SLC Cache,that is the actual speed a TLC NAND would get.

[ik9000]

I use the Pro and have just ordered a 2nd one. Very happy with it, and MLC NAND too. I also have an EVO sat in its box waiting. And both Samsung beast all over the Crucial M500 in the anandtech bench tests. Every single one the Samsung dwarfs the Crucial.

Now whether you will actually notice that difference in speed I can't say. But I can say that if using a notebook you want the Samsung as the idle power draw of the M500 is significantly higher according to Anandtech with obvious battery life implications.

I can also say they are wayyyyyyyy faster than my old OCZ Vertex 2. Noticeably. But that might be cos the Vertex is now getting rather full.

TLC nand in the EVO should be fine for most users. Anandtech went to great lengths a while back to break down how long it ought to last, and compare it to standard usage patterns it would far outlast the system it was intended to go in. We should, so far as I understand their conclusion, all be on those holographic storage cells Hexus were reporting on recently before the TLC gives up the ghost for a typical user.

A few users have posted on a thread on here grumbling about the Evo in certain uses. It seemed quite a niche complaint.

I will use the 2xPro for main drives and will be using the EVO for a periodic clone back-up of my OS drive until I get something cheaper. It will save me the hassle in future of having to reinstall the entire system from scratch when something goes catastrophically wrong. Most recently courtesy of (SFAIK) a buggy firefox add-in that broke my machine. Dang it. Now I just need to get an eSata enclosure... or a sataIII hot-swap 2.5" front drive bay and a PCIe card... hmm shopping sprees. This is what happens when decent new cpus don't come out. I end up tinkering on the smaller things...

[DanceswithUnix]

The Crucial M500 240GB is around £82:

http://www.ebuyer.com/497430-crucial...-ct240m500ssd1

This is a MLC drive with added data redundancy(RAIN) built in. The EVO is not worth paying nearly 25% more for.

RAIN is just a chipkill protection, I thought Samsung were confident that their FEC had enough redundancy to cover that in other ways?

For system disk, you should go for MLC, for general storage go for TLC. How do I arrive at this conclusion? I tried every popular SSD in the market.
Don't trust those benchmarks. For this particular SSD, you need to pay attention to the speed after disable SLC Cache,that is the actual speed a TLC NAND would get.

I find that odd, I get the occasional time when the SSD helps but for everyday usage I find little difference in performance over a spinning disc (game levels do load maybe half a second faster, no big deal). The few SSDs I have used tried have all felt the same.

If you are ram starved then SSD would make more difference, perhaps your PC needs more RAM.

[mazty]

The Hexus thread surveying usage suggests most Hexus users write about 2.3TB/year to their SSDs. Given the endurance test ongoing at TechReport, the TLC drive is expected to be working 100% until about 3000TB of host writes, which would be 1300 years of typical usage for us. The MLC drives are lasting so well we can't predict lifespan yet, however if you need a drive to work for more than 1300 years then I'd recommend MLC (eg PRO) over TLC (eg EVO).

Cheers for the info, I think if that's the case than the EVO will certainly suffice!

[kalniel]

For system disk, you should go for MLC, for general storage go for TLC. How do I arrive at this conclusion? I tried every popular SSD in the market.

So what are the exact figures you got from your own testing? Must have been quite a task to try every popular SSD in the market!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

RAIN is just a chipkill protection, I thought Samsung were confident that their FEC had enough redundancy to cover that in other ways?

Which still makes the M500 a more reliable drive than the 840 EVO. RAIN is a feature taken from the Crucial/Micron commerical SSDs.

Have people forgotten,we have gone through this before?? The Intel drives were usually much slower than many competing drives,but in terms of reliability were very good. If price is not a concern they still are the best AFAIK looking at the published data on failures.

Samsung is like Corsair,they caught the market with products using expensive parts,and then quietly use the cheapest stuff they can get away with,while trading on the goodwill of their earlier products.

There is NO excuse for a TLC drive to be more expensive than a MLC drive AT ALL,outside padding the bottom line of Samsung.

The drive speed differences are not really that noticeable. I have an ancient OCZ Vertex 60GB and a much faster Kingston 3K 120GB. I couldn't tell the difference between the two,on both an AMD system,and my SB based system using SATA3!!

My mates with various earlier and later generation SSDs say EXACTLY the same and they use SATA3 too.

The only way you can tell the difference is through using benchmark tools,ie,E-PEEN.

The M500 is cheaper than the 840 EVO. I think people are getting rather warm feelings about the Samsung brand now,and I recommended the 830 myself quite a few times.

To summarise the M500 is cheaper,it has more data redundancy features built in,and even uses a more expensive kind of NAND to boot.

The cheapest 840 EVO 250GB is £99:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/sams...amazon-1851881

The cheapest M500 240GB is £82:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/cruc...ebuyer-1854634

Why the heck would I spend 21% more for the 840 EVO??

To do what with?? Windows will load 1 second quicker or something??

I get the Samsung glow on me??

The buzz of high CrystalDiskMark scores??

If the drives were EXACTLY the same price,there might even be an argument that the Samsung offers a bit more storage.

However,not with the massive price premium.

Once the M550 replaces the M500 at its current(or a slightly higher price) and the M500 is discontinued,the storage advantage of the EVO will be gone.

Edit!!

Even look at the larger capacity drives.

The Crucial M500 480GB is faster than the 240GB version and costs £170:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-CT48...ial+m500+480gb

The Samsung EVO 500GB costs £203:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-500G...ords=evo+500gb

That is still another 20% premium.

It gets closer at the highest capacities:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-960G...ial+M500+960GB
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Basi...ywords=evo+1tb

That is still a £40 premium.

The Samsung TLC drives are just overpriced IMHO.

I would rather put the money saved into something else in my PC.