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 PM840, Samsung has got a 256 Gigabyte SSD in its portfolio that can easily keep up with the competition these days. In fact there are quite a few disciplines where the PM840 is even cabable of raising the bar. During our tests we measured 100'000 IOPS reagarding random reads of 4k blocks and 72'000 IOPS concerning random writes. Therefore when it comes to random reads Samsung's PM840 with 256 Gigabyte capacity is capable of outperforming all other drives that use one single controller. 

Concerning sequential throughput rates, one can also see some really impressive numbers. In this case the drive is able to reach 560 Megabyte per second when it comes to sequential read. For sequential write you will see 540 Megabyte per second. These numbers are really high and in case of the sequential reads the PM840 outperforms every other SSD which has one single controller again.

Additionally we want to point out that Samsungs PM840 does not make use of compression algorithms. In other words this means that is doesn't matter if the PM840 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 controllers - will be written with 540 Megabyte per second or read with 560 Megabyte per second.
Another good reason for the PM840 concerns the reliability of Samsung drives. Looking at this point Samsung does an excellent job since RMA rates are below 0.5 percent. Another plus point is the compatibility of the PM840. With some SandForce based drives you can see issues with MacBook's or Mac's but with the PM840 you will have not problems upgrading your Apple computer with a really quick drive.

The Samsung PM840 256 Gigabyte SSD receives very good five out of five stars.

MSRP 64 GB: CHF 111.- (est. EUR 92.50)

MSRP 128 GB: CHF 169.- (est. EUR 141.-)

MSRP 256 GB: CHF 295.- (est. EUR 246.-)

MSRP 512 GB: CHF 650.- (est. EUR 542.-)

Page 1 - Introduction / Specs	Page 7 - Random read KByte/s
Page 2 - Impressions	Page 8 - Sequential writeIOPS
Page 3 - How do we test?	Page 9 - Sequential readIOPS
Page 4 - Sequential write KByte/s	Page 10 - Random writeIOPS
Page 5 - Sequential read KByte/s	Page 11 - Random readIOPS
Page 6 - Random write KByte/s	Page 12 - Conclusion

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Authors: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch,