Meet the 6Gbps Samsung SSD 830: The Consumer PM830
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 17, 2011 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Samsung
- pm830
- Samsung SSD 830
Last week Samsung announced its PM830, its first SSD with support for 6Gbps SATA. Although the PM830 is shipping to OEMs today, it won't be available directly to consumers. Now meet the consumer version: the Samsung SSD 830.
Samsung is particularly proud of the SSD 830's brushed metal enclosure, unique to the consumer version and absent from the PM830.
Architecturally the SSD 830 is no different than the OEM version. It still has an updated Samsung controller with two ARM cores, a 6Gbps SATA interface and Samsung's own Toggle NAND. Also like the PM830 the SSD 830 supports full drive AES-256 encryption, putting it in the ranks of Intel's SSD 320 and the SandForce drives.
Although the PM830 is only available in 128, 256 and 512GB sizes, the SSD 830 will include a 64GB version as well. Pricing is TBD.
The 830 will be available in three different configurations: a standalone drive, a notebook upgrade kit and a desktop upgrade kit. The notebook upgrade kit comes with a USB to SATA adapter cable, while the desktop upgrade kit comes with a 3.5" adapter. Both upgrade kits come with a full copy of Norton Ghost.
The SSD 830 won't be available until October, which gives Samsung more time to fine tune its firmware. This is the reason that Samsung isn't disclosing performance specs for the 830 as they will likely change by the time the drive ships. Don't expect it to be any slower than the 500/350MB/s read/writes of the PM830. The question is how much faster will it be?
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iwod - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - link
Hopefully this mean Apple will finally get a half decent SSD Controller.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - link
Personally I wish these guys would include better 3.5" adapters. I've gone through a few of them now; these mini-sleds are generally incompatible with high-end cases that use drive trays, both because of the shape and because the SSD doesn't line up with the edge of the tray like a real HDD does.Something like the SilverStone SDP09 would be much more appropriate; it's basically a drive caddy for 2.5" drives that's built to the dimensions of a 3.5" HDD. Which means it fits drive trays perfectly and lines up with hot-swap backplanes.
jwilliams4200 - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - link
There is no purely mechanical bracket that can adapt a 2.5" drive to a 3.5" form-factor with the SATA connectors in the precise location of a 3.5" drive. It is impossible.The reason it is impossible is simple. The location of the SATA port, as an offset from the edge of the drive, is the same for both 2.5" and 3.5" drives.
That means that there are two possibilities to make a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter that lines up the SATA connectors:
1) Leave off the tapped screw holes on the side where the SATA connector resides. This allows the SATA connector to line up since the 2.5" drive will be flush (i.e., same location as a 3.5" drive edge), but it will be lacking some of the mounting holes that a 3.5" drive has. I've never seen a bracket that takes this approach.
2) Use a cable or a circuit board to route the SATA and power connections from the 2.5" drive to the proper location for a 3.5" drive. Some Icy-Dock models take this approach.
cbass64 - Thursday, August 18, 2011 - link
I just use ICY Dock SSD kits...you can put anything with a SATA connector in there and it fits like a regular 3.5" HDD. I've used SSD's, mobile drives, MSATA drives with interposers. They are life savers at work when we swap out dozens of SSDs at a time.imaheadcase - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - link
BF3 comes out in October, and lots of new hardware comes out to match for it. OH YAH!rruscio - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - link
It worked for a while, and then my machine started to BSOD at boot. Tried the drive in other mobo, and BSOD. RMA'd the drive, tech reported "no issues". I asked for a replacement anyhow, which has been fine ever since.My suspicion, and I haven't checked, was a firmware rev improved things. Samsung's firmware updates are difficult to accomplish.
Me, I'll stick to Intel for a while. RMA's are a PITA.
rr
Beenthere - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - link
If Samsung can deliver what no one else has so far in consumer SSDs - fast, reliable, compatibility issue free SSDs at a fair price, then I'm in. I'll let others do the beta testing on these drives however. Even Intel's 320 series has a firmware Bug that they hope to fix in a few weeks, so no current consumer level SSD supplier has been immune to SSD issues.dijuremo - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - link
From the photograph it looks like it is a 7mm model, that fact itself will give it an edge over offerings from other vendors (Is Intel the only other vendor that has a 7mm model at the moment?). We tend to use Lenovo laptops and all their 12" models and S models seem to only take the 7mm parts, which makes it hard to go with other vendors.I hope OCZ would listen and start doing something to go from 9mm to 7mm, but that may take time...
gramboh - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - link
Excited to see Anand's review on one of these units once they hit the market. Was leaning toward an Intel 510, but this looks like a good option for those scared off by the SF2281 issues (however big or small they might be).DanNeely - Thursday, August 18, 2011 - link
I'm more worried about the equivalent issues in the SF1200 actually. I want a 256GB class SSD; and competition has driven the 1st gen sandforce drives as much as $100 less than the current ones. $300 is a much more palatable pricepoint for me than $400; especially since the performance difference between the two is mostly unnoticeable in userland.