I agree with the other reviewers that this drive is good. Before committing to an SSD, I read many reviews about the reliability, installation & benefits of them. Some reviews indicate problems with SSD internal controllers. Samsung use their own controller & reviewers comment positively regarding their reliability. That clinched the choice for me, as my PC is used for crunching huge amounts of data & is running for long periods most of the time. Reliability is more important than super-high speed for my work, but a fairly quick drive would be highly beneficial. The Samsung seemed to be a good compromise.
My PC was built in July 2012, & runs an AMD 6-core 3.3Ghz processor on a Gigabyte 970A-UD3 motherboard with 8GB of RAM. I knew my old SATA2 HDD would give up within weeks, but I fitted it anyway to benchmark the new base unit. Windows Experience index scored it @ 5.7 on Windows7 with the SATA2 drive installed.
When the HDD stopped working, I fitted the 128GB 830 SSD. I knew that my board supported SATA3 & AHCI, so I set it up & fitted the SSD. Setting to AHCI doesn't affect the performance of the SATA2 standard HDD that is also fitted to my PC. I have always kept my C drive clean,i.e. I only have Windows loaded onto it: all of my files are stored on other HDD's. In reality, a 64GB drive would have done just as well, but 128GB gives a fair bit of headroom for Windows8 when it comes out. I used an OCZ OCZACSSDBRKT2 3.5/2.5 inch SSD Adaptor Bracket to house the drive: it's around £7 or £8 from Amazon & is a perfect match for the Samsung. It fits a standard bay for drives that use screw fixings & comes complete with screws.
My copy of Windows7 is an upgrade from Vista 32 bit, so after formatting, Vista had to be loaded first. I have to state that there were problems with the installation: 4 times the installation 'hung' at the very end & would not finish the install (reviewers of other SSD's have also encountered this problem). The Vista disc was in pristine condition & had never failed to load 1st time on every other re-install that I had carried out on my previous PC, plus the single re-install on my present one when the old HDD was fitted.
I tried using a different Vista disc & the same thing happened twice. Then it installed properly & booted up. After the usual download corruption problems with Vista SP1 were sorted out, I re-run the Experience index & the SSD came out at 5.9. Not a great difference from my SATA2 HDD (5.7), & that was after I tuned the new drive with the Magician software. However, opening files & programmes seemed a lot quicker, so I was pleased. I then loaded Windows 7 without any more problems.
The Samsung Magician software is a nice little package that allows you to tune the SSD; benchmark your drive & cancel the Windows defragmenter. If you need to defragment your standard drives, leave the Magician tick-box option for this feature disabled.
When you use the Windows defragmenter for your standard HDD, ensure that you don't select the SSD for defragmenting as the Magician software has a special application that cleans it up. Also, make sure that you disable the Windows scheduler, otherwise the defragmenter will automatically attempt to defragment the SSD, which is not recommended.
Next, I downloaded all of the minor updates for Windows7 & completed the installation & tuning. My old HDD rated at 5.7 on Windows7,& the SSD rated at 7.9. This suggests that the SSD works much better with Windows 7 than with Vista. The Samsung spec for this drive is as follows, with my own PC's performance indicated in parentheses:
Sequential Max read = 520MB/S (500MB/S)
Sequential Max write = 320MB/S (300MB/S)
Random (IOPS)Max read = 80,000 (52,000)
Random (IOPS)Max write= 30,000 (21,000)
The only limiting factor now seems to be in the design of the programmes: some newer ones open quickly, but older ones are creaking a bit.
It is worth disconnecting all of your other internal drives before the SSD is installed: this allows you to take a system image of the SSD by itself after the installation is complete, which is very useful if you need to reinstall later. You can then reconnect your HDD's & run your PC as normal.
It seems that the SSD performs much better on Windows7 than it does on Vista. Also, although the manual indicates that it works with XP, I would take that with a pinch of salt, as I tried to load XP when Vista spat it's dummy out & XP setup didn't even see the drive! So, in summary, it IS a beauty, but it can be a pig to load your platform onto. I believe the drive isn't responsible for this, but Microsoft & some of the hardware manufacturers need to devote some resources into running PC's with these drives.
Addendum Oct 31 2012.
I have just loaded Windows 8 onto my PC & can report that the experience index now shows the drive performance has risen to 8.1 out of a possible 9.9 marks. FYI, the PC now boots from the end of the motherboard self-test to login in 6.2 seconds, compared with 80+ seconds on Windows 7. All applications open immediately from either the new UI start menu or the original menu, which is still usable.
The Samsung performance figures for W8 are as follows:-
Sequential max read = (530MB/Sec)
Sequential max write = (285MB/Sec)
Random (IOPS) max read = (55000)
Random (IOPS) max write= (29000)
A slight increase in figures, with the exception of Sequential Write, but a massive increase in observable performance.
However, the Samsung Magician (version 3.1) isn't fully compatible yet (SEE 'VERSION 4'), & trim doesn't function properly. I have reported this to Samsung & they have informed me that they know about the issue, but their original advice of running the Magician in Windows XP/Vista/7 compatibility mode does not solve the problem unless you have carried out a clean install, which involves W8 setup wiping your existing files & most of your programmes. If you do this, version 3.2 will install in compatibility mode & work. They have since told me that using the Windows 8 trim function works with the drive, but it does not, unless you have (predictably) carried out a clean install, when it works very well. I have discussed this problem with Microsoft, who are happy to throw it back at Samsung! Maybe Microsoft have launched W8 with quite a few bugs.
Don't let this put you off, as I would expect fixes from Samsung & Microsoft to be forthcoming for these issues, although I don't know when this will be. In the meantime, there is a way of getting Magician to work without wiping your files & programmes: BEFORE you upgrade to W8, download Magician 3.2 (3.1 comes as standard) on your existing W7 platform & you can use the Samsung optimisation function. Even allowing for these snags, it has to be stated that the performance of this drive with Windows 8 is absolutely incredible & is worth the hassle.
January 2013.
Since writing this review, I am running two versions of W8: one is on the SATA3 SSD & the other on a SATA2 HDD (the HDD programme is very basic, & the SSD programme has all of my software on it). There is no comparison. The old SATA2 HDD is painfully slow running by a massive margin. Even my new 3TB SATA3 storage HDD is pathetic by comparison. There is no way I could live with an operating system on a rotating HDD for any length of time now. I look forward to the day when affordable SSD's of 2TB & more are available.
VERSION 4
Around 17th of March 2013, Samsung released version 4 of their Magician optimisation software. This works perfectly with Windows 8 & has effectively eliminated the problems encountered with versions 3.1 & 3.2. One new feature of version 4 is that it allows you to select 'performance', 'capacity' or 'reliability' for your SSD. It automatically optimises Windows 8 for your selected option without having to carry out any manual tweaking: very well though-out idea.
I bought a SSD 840 Pro this year (2013) & the old 830 equals it's performance. As the 830 is still available & is £30-£40 cheaper than the latest drive I bought another one for my third Windows platform. Having the Samsung drives means that transferring data between drives is a breeze: there is a download that allows data migration & copying to be accomplished without any hassle. Anyone wanting more than one SSD would be well advised to consider any of the Samsung units.
| Brand | Samsung |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 10 x 7 x 0.7 cm; 62 Grams |
| Item model number | MZ-7PC256B/WW |
| Manufacturer | Samsung |
| Series | MZ-7PC256B/WW |
| Form Factor | 2.5-inch |
| Hard Drive Size | 256 GB |
| Hard Disk Description | Solid State Drive |
| Hard Drive Interface | Serial ATA-600 |
| Hardware Platform | PC |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Item Weight | 62 g |
| Guaranteed software updates until | unknown |
