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 SSD in its portfolio which offers a performance pattern that is most reasonable for desktop users. Considering that 80 percent are read and 20 percent are write operations in a desktop scenario it makes sense to have much more random as well as sequential read performance. A closer look at the random read performance of 4 Kilobyte blocks reveals that the PM830 is able to read almost 78'000 of these blocks per second. In the leage of single-controller-SSD with a 2.5 inch formfactor this is the fastest we've ever measured. The random write performance of 4 Kilobyte blocks still is very good and tops out at 39'000 IOPS. At this point there are drives that perform better.

Concerning sequential throughput rates, especially the read operations are at a competitive level. In this case the drive is able to reach 534 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 322 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 322 Megabyte per second or read with 534 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 400.- (est. EUR 333.-) 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.

Despite the fact that the PM830s sequential performance lies behind what the high-end competition offers this drive gets five 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 bei Brack Electronics AG kaufen
• Samsung PM830 bei Digitec kaufen
• Samsung PM830 bei Steg Electronics