Samsung 840 EVO 250GB Solid State Drive

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Spad, Jun 3, 2014.

  1. Spad

    Spad MajorGeek

    :hyper

    My sons got me a Samsung 840 EVO SSD for my birthday . . . and it ROCKS! (That's right . . . I be the Dad . . . :major). Never used an SSD before and been wanting to try one out but I couldn't justify the expense at this time.

    I was able to clone my existing HDD to the SSD with no trouble. The speed of this thing is amazing all by itself, but Samsung has a RAPID (Real-time Accelerated Processing of I/O Data) setting in its provided software that allows the use of up to one gigabyte of system RAM to use as a high-speed cache. This seems to more than double the sequential read and write of the SSD. I'm astonished! So far, so good.

    On to my question . . . I've been putting various OS folders on my old HDD (all the Library files; Documents, Videos, Pictures, Downloads, etc.) but I was wondering if anyone could suggest any other files that would be wise to move from the SSD to my regular platter drive? I've researched this issue, and there is so much contradictory information out there I'm not sure how to proceed . . . so I came home to MG to ask :)

    Thanks
     

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    Last edited: Jun 3, 2014
  2. Spad

    Spad MajorGeek

    I think I answered at least one of my own questions - It's apparently not wise to move the AppData folder to another drive besides the OS drive. I can't really think of any other caches or folders that would make sense to move.

    I've moved I.E. temp files, all my document Libraries, and put a good few of my most used utility programs on my HDD. This seems to be taking some of the pressure off the SDD. I've had it installed and running since May 27th and have only written .17 TB to it. I intend to keep the games I am currently playing on the SSD. Though, from the testing I've seen done on this drive, longevity doesn't seem to be an issue with this model.

    Ran another performance test on the drive after a reboot, and the Random Write (IOPS) results are insane! Top is the SSD of course, and I ran a comparison test on the 500GB Seagate Barracuda drive that had been my OS drive. SSD FTW!
     

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    Last edited: Jun 5, 2014
  3. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

    I have this drive. Very nice and speedy.

    Its a shame that it is TLC, but the warranty is long enough to make that a non-issue.
     
  4. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

  5. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

    Its ridiculous how much performance that Rapid module gives:

    [​IMG]
     
  6. Spad

    Spad MajorGeek

    I know, right? I was a bit dubious at first, but the performance boost seems real enough, based on the before and after performance of my computer.

    I'm a new Samsung SSD fan. :drool
     
  7. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

    The only problem is, for laptops, its actually a bad thing because it puts stress on the CPU, which in turn causes more battery drain.
     
  8. Spad

    Spad MajorGeek

    Hmmm . . . apparently the 840 EVO (the whole 840 series, I think) has been discovered to have a bug that causes a loss of performance when reading old data - with "old" being defined as static data over a month in existence.

    I've not noticed any loss of performance on mine. A Performance benchmark test does indicated the drive is not performing as well as it did when I first set it up, but the difference is slight. Samsung has acknowledged the issue and is supposed to be testing a firmware upgrade they have scheduled for release on Oct 15th. Scuttlebutt leans toward the bug being a problem with the TRIM wear-leveling algorithms (which sort of makes sense, not to mention being kinda hard to say three times really fast . . . ).

    Some have said using DiskFresh is a temporary fix, or a secure erase and reinstallation of the drive image. As my SSD is still performing far faster then a platter drive I don't see the point. I'll wait to see what develops with the firmware fix.

    My only real concern is whether or not this bug and/or fix will have an impact on the drives longevity. Not too worried about it, as I've had my drive in operation since the first of June and have only written 0.40 TB to it. Even if the life of the drive is halved, at this rate it will still outlast this computer (and probably me).
     
  9. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest


    Just Evo. I don't think it will affect drive longevity as long as you don't do something silly like defrag (as was some people's solution).
     
  10. DOA

    DOA MG's Loki

    Gratzz on the new toy!
    Any program that loads fully into RAM can be moved to a HDD and will only suffer a longer loading time, running speed will not change.
    Common wisdom says disable SuperFetch; test for yourself. I have SuperFetch enabled as I do see a difference. With my normal use the SSD will get replaced before the guarantee is off even with SuperFetch enabled.
     
  11. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

    Spad is talking about a firmware bug that drops performance to ~ 30MB/s for older files that haven't moved recently. It only affects Evos as far as I know.
     
  12. DOA

    DOA MG's Loki

    Good to know, old is more than a month from what I read and yes, only EVO's.

    BTW Spad, check C:\Windows\Prefetch in a few days and make sure the files there are not being updated. It's an easy check to see if Windows saw the SSD and configured itself correctly.
     
  13. theefool

    theefool Geekified

    I just wanted to say that moving the %appdata% is a non-issue. We re-direct that folder to a network folder with zero issues.

    On topic:

    The EVO performance bug will be fixed Oct 15th or so. A new firmware update will be available around that time.
     
  14. theefool

    theefool Geekified

  15. Spad

    Spad MajorGeek

    Quite a few people suggested that on most of the forums I read. Using DiskFresh would be as bad I think. I just don't see the point in taking action before the fix comes out . . . especially a defrag. I've not noticed any real-world slowdowns with the drive yet. Just the Performance benchmark test indicates a slowdown. I'm going to wait to see what the fix requires. If I need to secure erase the drive and reload Windows from an image, I'm all set to go with that. Odds are the fix will not be destructive.

    Yes, good advice and I've been checking that off and on since I installed the drive. The software that comes with it made configuring the system for the drive pretty much hands-free . . . but I'm not a trusting soul when it comes to most software :-D

    Good to know. Most anecdotal information I found when researching the issue indicated it could cause issues with program function so I was hesitant to try it. I'm not as concerned with it as I was, as I use the computer on a regular basis and have not even written half a TB yet to the drive. The AppData folder can't be writing all that much to the drive.
     
  16. Spad

    Spad MajorGeek

    Well, Samsung pushed out the firmware update, in the form of a "Performance Restoration" tool available on their website. I tried updating the firmware via the Magician software, but it just kept telling me I had the most updated version (I did not).

    It ran without issue, and was a non destructive fix. I noticed a .015 TB increase in bytes written to the drive, which is less than I expected. Total time was less than an hour . . . I have the 250GD model and have 67GB of used space. I don't know exactly how much time as I was unable to watch it and thus don't know exactly when it completed. I did some performance tests on the drive, and it appears it is responding better.

    Whether or not this fix works in the long run remains to be seen, but I have no real qualms about that.
     
  17. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

    I can't complain.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Sequential writes are still a little low, but its better.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 18, 2014
  18. DOA

    DOA MG's Loki

    I have this drive raided on the laptop and it works well, out of curiosity I ran Magician on my desktop. Any idea what the .... after the results means?
     

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  19. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

    Read is at 792 megs a second. Slow for RAID 0 imo.
    Write is at ~ a terabyte per second.

    Assuming that is the scale. It doesn't specify, probably because its not for your drives.

    That could be kilobytes ;)
     
  20. theefool

    theefool Geekified

    Where do you think the %temp% folder is located? The appdata folder is written to quite a bit. Like browsing and reading majorgeeks, gets written to this folder.

    Anyway, the previous statement about the appdata folder was mostly that it can be moved with out issue.

    I currently keep my home computer appdata folder on my SSD.

    I'm currently looking to either get a samsung 850 pro for my new SSD or go for Intel 730 series. This is after my new video cards come in.

    In the end, I'm happy that you got into the modern computer using SSDs, they are awesome!
     
  21. Spad

    Spad MajorGeek

    I assumed it's located on the C: drive? I could be wrong, I guess . . . :confused

    It may indeed be written to quite a bit, but that doesn't appear to translate into heavy write usage on my SSD, so I'm not too worried about moving the folder at this time. I've had this SSD in operation since May 27th, and I still haven't reached a half a TB of writes to the drive. Also, I'd imagine a good percentage of what I have written to the drive can be ascribed to the initial set-up of windows on it. If my writes continue at this speed, I'll average about a TB of writes each year. At that rate the drive will easily outlast this computer.

    They are indeed awesome . . . Loving the boot times and how responsive even programs are. Never going back to a platter drive as the OS drive again. Especially as the prices for the SSD's are dropping so fast.
     
  22. theefool

    theefool Geekified

    That wasn't supposed to be an attack on what you stated.

    Anyway, the %temp% folder is located at c:\users\%username%\appdata\local\temp. This gets written to when opening email, attachments, running installers, updates.

    C:\users\%username%\appdata\roaming is for everything else, like web browsing etc.

    But again, I haven't moved mine either.
     
  23. Spad

    Spad MajorGeek

    I didn't take it as such.

    I use my computer pretty much every day. Apparantly my usage habits don't result in very much write activity in the AppData folder. I'm tempted to move it and see how much that slows down what write activity I have. It would be interesting to try and compare what activities result in more writes then others. It is good to know the folders can be moved without issue, in the event I ever need to.

    I can see where it would be a bigger issue with a computer in a multi-user environment. At work we have multiple user workstations and I can see writes to an SSD adding up pretty quick.
     
  24. theefool

    theefool Geekified

    Well, hopefully at work you have a SAN that can cope with that. We currently use a Tintri, which is vmware aware at the vm level.

    I believe they are now hyper-v aware also. Awesome product, btw.
     
  25. Imandy Mann

    Imandy Mann MajorGeekolicious

    ie temp files Content.ie5 have been relocatable for a long time in Internet Options - General tab - Browsing history - Settings -Move folder. I keep a shortcut to mine so to get mp3's or videos or jpgs after surfing. Not playing in you guy's league with hardware just assuming these can be moved anywhere.
     

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