Samsung TLC 840, MLC 840 Pro SSDs Available - Assassin's Creed Bundle
Posted on November 7, 2012
We've been covering SSDs pretty heavily of late. Our recent "How Are SSDs Made?" post is probably one of the most interesting, in-depth industry looks we've done in a while; additionally, our earlier review of Kingston's HyperX 3K SSD marked the start of our SSD coverage and kicked off the exploration of this still-growing technology.
Samsung's making a dash for the TLC (triple-level NAND) product launches, though, which we've previously heard should drive the cost of mainstream consumer SSDs down considerably. As of today, the new Samsung 840 and 840 Pro SSDs will be officially available through major retailers, with the 840 Pro being bundled with a free copy of Assassin's Creed 3, by Ubisoft.
The drives will also ship with migration assistance software.
Samsung 840 and Samsung 840 Pro SSD Specs
| 840 Pro SSD | 840 SSD | |
| Storage | 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, 512GB | 120GB, 250GB, 500GB |
| Form Factor | 2.5" | 2.5" |
| Interface | SATA III | SATA III |
| Controller | 3-core MDX controller (300MHz) | 3-core MDX controller (300MHz) |
| Flash Memory | 2y-nm class DDR2 multi-level NAND (400 Mb/s) | 2y-nm class DDR2 triple-level NAND (400 Mb/s) |
| Warranty | 5 years. | 3 years. |
| Power Consumption | 0.15W | 0.15W |
| Price | 64GB: $100 128GB: $150 256GB: $270 512GB: $600 | 120GB: $130 250GB: $200 500GB: $400 |
Of course, everything performance- and endurance-related on SSDs is almost entirely dominated by the controller, which is why Samsung is pushing its "better together" attitude (similar to Intel's motherboard / SSD / CPU approach). As Samsung makes every component of their SSDs in-house -- something most companies will gladly stay away from -- Samsung has better oversight and control as to what goes into their SSDs. They manufacture the NAND, the controller, program the firmware, and assemble the drive all internally. As for how much of a real-world difference this makes, we'll really have to see in the benchmarks once we've reviewed the drive.
Samsung's 3-core MDX controller (successor to the MCX) hosts three ARM Cortex R4 cores (operating frequency 300MHz), which should help juggle multitasking when performing multiple simultaneous read/write operations. The MDX also offers AES-256 hardware encryption, for those looking for business-class security.
Internally, the new MDX-based Samsung 840 SSDs has 512MB of LPDDR2 1066MHz memory, increasing memory bandwidth of the previous generation Samsung SSDs by around thirty-percent.
The power consumption of the new SSDs is probably the most notable (other than the TLC non-Pro option): The new 840 Pro series notes a power consumption of 0.15W, making it perfect for ultraslim PCs and other HTPC/notebook options.
Samsung boasts a 100,000 IOPS data rate, which is quite impressive, though we haven't personally benchmarked them yet.
If you're unsure of what any of the above terminology means, be sure to check our "understanding SSD specs" guide.
Let us know if you have further questions below.
- Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke.