Samsung SSD 830 Review (256GB)

In mid-August Samsung announced their SSD 830, the updated follow-up to the 470 SSD. Samsung's 470 and now 830 SSDs are becoming a bit of a rarity; both SSDs are built entirely in house with Samsung components. The Samsung 830 features a 3-core MCX controller, 2x nm Toggle MLC NAND, 256MB SDRAM cache and firmware, all made by Samsung. Heck, at this point we wouldn't be surprised if Samsung owned a bauxite mine in Australia to harvest the raw materials needed for the aluminum case. Whatever the case, the new SATA 6Gb/s drive delivers sequential reads of 520 MB/s, writes of 400 MB/s and 4K random read IOPS of 80,000.
The fact that Samsung controls all of the components within the SSD 830 is a point that can't be overstated. In practical terms, this means that since Samsung designs and produces all of the components and software, the drives should carry some of the best reliability and compatibility in the industry. In the event there's a problem, Samsung can respond by creating a revised firmware with only internal resources, rather than having to interface with a handful of component suppliers.
All the proprietary Samsung goodies are hidden away in what's easily the best looking SSD on the market. While you may only see the 830 for a few minutes before installing it, the drive is just plain sexy. The black aluminum body evokes thoughts of a high-end sports car, a comparison Samsung is surely happy to accept.
Samsung sells the 830 in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities. Each is available in a basic kit, in a notebook kit with 2.5mm spacer and SATA to USB cable, or in a desktop kit with 3.5" mounting bracket and SATA data and power cables. All of the kits include a full version Norton Ghost 15 for cloning an old drive and/or setting up backup routines for the SSD 830, and Samsung Magician a suite of tools to manage the SSD.

Samsung SSD 830 Specs

• Capacities
  • 64GB (MZ-7PC064B)
  • 128GB (MZ-7PC128B)
  • 256GB (MZ-7PC256B)
  • 512GB (MZ-7PC512B)
• Samsung 3-core MCX controller
• Samsung 2x nm Toggle DDR NAND Flash memory
• Samsung 256MB DDR2 SDRAM cache memory
• SATA 6Gb/s interface
• 520MB/s read speeds, 400 MB/s writes
• Magician software for SSD management
• Black-tone, brushed metal design
• 2.5" 7mm form factor

Design and Build
Samsung doesn't skimp when it comes to designing products, even if it is an SSD that will be hidden for most of its life. The SSD 830 has a very attractive black brushed metal top with the Samsung logo presented front and center. Even the orange 256GB capacity ID is shown off better than some companies display their logo.

The bottom half of the drive is an alloy design, with grooves in the side, for looks more than cooling in this case. The bottom itself contains the drive sticker showing important information such as drive model number and serial number.
One thing that people might not notice right off the bat is the slim 7mm drive height of the Samsung SSD 830, which is more for compatibility these days now that many notebooks are switching to the slimmer drive bay. With hard drives even making this switch, it isn't hard to see why SSD manufacturers might want to drop some height and weight too, since inside most drive cases is a lot of empty space.

The front of the Samsung SSD sports an industry standard SATA and power interface, with no visible service pins or other features.

Samsung offers both desktop and notebook installation kits for the SSD 830, with the desktop version including a 2.5-inch to 3.5-inch adapter tray and requisite cables. The notebook kit offers a SATA to USB adapter cable to work with data migration software as well as a 2.5mm height mounting spacer for notebooks that require a 9.5mm drive height.
Disassembly
The Samsung SSD 830 isn't designed to be taken apart easily or without likely causing damage. The slim profile and design don't allow for normal securing features such as screws, making Samsung opt for internal clip attachments protruding from the top cover of the SSD. After being fully assembled, all bets are off as to opening the case without damaging these plastic clips. Since there are no serviceable parts inside, consider it  "warranty void if opened" to avoid causing possible damage to your stylish SSD.

With some fingernail finesse and help of an old credit card, we were able to carefully open the SSD 830 to take a peak inside. The internal design is very simple, with a single thermal pad on the bottom metal cover used to draw heat away from components mounted to the top of the circuit board. Unlike the previous SSD 470, the circuit board in the 830 isn't designed to be dual-purpose, fitting both 1.8 and 2.5-inch bodies. This time around the circuit board takes up the surface area inside the 2.5-inch case.


The Samsung SSD 830 has all primary components made in-house. Powering the SSD is a Samsung S4LJ204X01-Y040 controller, with 256MB of on-board cache provided by a Samsung K4T2G314QF-MCF7 chip, and 265GB of NAND storage from eight 32GB Samsung 25nm K9PFGY8U7A-HCK0 pieces.


Synthetic Benchmarks
Samsung is using an updated controller in the SSD 830, supporting SATA 6.0Gb/s speeds versus the slower SATA 3.0Gb/s interface found in the older SSD 470. Samsung doesn’t put any of this faster connection to waste on SSD 830.

Samsung quotes peak sequential read speed of 520MB/s and a write speed of 400MB/s. To put these claims to the test we measured its straight-line performance with our 2MB sequential IOMeter benchmark.

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