Conclusion

Announcement: Despite the circumstance that the rating of a product is based on as many objective facts as possible there are factors which can have an influence on a rating after publication. Every autor may perceive data differently over time whereas one possible reason for example is a deeper background knowledge or understanding of certain processes. Certain unforseen market conditions as well as changes have the potential to render a descision made at a certain point in time obsolete.

With the PM830, Samsung has got a 128 Gigabyte SSD in its portfolio that can easily keep up with the competition that uses SandForce controllers these days. In our tests we measured 38'000 IOPS reagarding random reads of 4k blocks and 33'000 IOPS concerning random writes of 4k blocks. Therefore Samsungs PM830 128 Gigabyte is quite often able to outperform other 120 Gigabyte SSDs. 

Concerning sequential throughput rates, especially the read operations are at a competitive level. In this case the drive is able to reach 539 Megabyte per second. At this point the PM830 is able to keep up with todays fastest drives. On the other hand there is the sequential write performance. In our tests this drive reached almost 281 Megabyte per second which is quite a bit less than what the SandForce SF-2281 based competition offers.

Additionally we want to point out that Samsungs PM830 does not make use of compression algorithms. In other words this means that is doesn't matter if the PM830 writes or reads compressible or incompressible data. Actions are always performed at the same speed. Therefore even highly compressed data such as video files - which is incompressible for a SSD controller - will be written with 281 Megabyte per second or read with 539 Megabyte per second.
Another good reason for the PM830 concerns the reliability of Samsung drives. Looking at this point Samsung as well as Intel perform in a different leage compare to other SSD manufacturers. Regarding Samsung SSDs you wont find anything like the blue screen issues we know from SF-2281 based products furthermore the RMA percentages are lower too.

Last but not least there is the price. A 256 Gigabyte model costs about CHF 200.- (est. EUR 167.-) these days. If you take a comparable SSD from a competitor you'd have to pay quite a bit more, which makes the PM830 extremely good value for money.

The Samsung PM830 128 Gigabyte SSD receives good four out of five stars. Reasons for this can be found quite quickly: enormeously high random read perforamnce, easy to install, no performance surprises when writing/reading incompressible data and a very competitive price.

• Samsung PM830 128 Gigabyte at Brack Electronics AG kaufen
• Samsung PM830 128 Gigabyte at Digitec kaufen
• Samsung PM830 128 Gigabyte at Steg Electronics