Samsung SSD 750 EVO v 850 EVO / Ubuntu

[David Paste]

For the average user (web, email, music, movies, etc), is there going to be any difference between these two drives? I googled and saw pages containing answers, but they all merged into one mass of numbers which frankly I didn't fully understand.

Simple answers would be most appreciated.

Any other brand worth looking at?

(It'll be replacing a 5200 rpm drive in a new-to-me laptop running Ubuntu for the shed, currently is is a bit creaky, am I barking up the wrong tree to assume an SSD will improve the snappiness of the user interface?)

Thank you in advance.

[Clive George]

I think the simple answer is that the 850 will last longer. I saw 3 year vs 5 year warranty mentioned somewhere - that'll be based on the amount of data which can be written before the thing give sup.

It probably will. You could always run top and see how long it spends in CPU wait - if it's waiting for the hard disk, SSD will improve things.

I've got a pair of 850 EVOs in this laptop - seem to work. We made a database server run rather more quickly with a pair at work too, though that wasn't intended for long term use. I'd get another if I needed one.

[Tim Watts]

I would not touch Samsung EVO with a bargepole.

There, simple :)

Why:

OK - that was the 840, but they took so long to address the problem, I would not trust them.

Also, I don't yet trust Triple Level Cells which is what Samsung are pushing.

Yes:

PLEXTOR PX-512M6 (mSATA format) have been solid in my daily use laptop for 3 years now.

SanDisk SDSSDXP1 (SATA) has been solid in my home router for 2-3 years.

Essentially, Sandisk or Plextor. You won't find massive capacities yet, because they are sticking to MLC (2 level cells) which are reliable tech.

[Andy Burns]

I've been happy so far with a Samsung 850 Pro, I think that's 3 bit MLC, I'm not aware of any other drive that comes with a 10 year warranty.

[alan_m]

Shouldn't the warranty just be treated as marketing hype with the manufacturers knowing that the majority of users will move onto another better computer/disk well within that timespan. Furthermore a 10 year warranty does not mean that the device will last that long. The manufacturer has just factored into the selling price the cost of a like for like replacement which after a few years will be the models at the very bottom of their current range.

[alan_m]

When I replaced a traditional hard disk in my 5 year old laptop with a SSD I noticed a faster start up but for day to day use no overall difference in speed.

[Andy Burns]

Of course a warranty is no substitute for backups.

SSDs have a wear-rate and drive manufacturers do seem to assign warranties to devices in relation to their lifespan (note reducing warranty length on SATA drives in recent years).

[Bod]

Hmm! that hasn't been my experience. I've changed several laptops to SSDs and *everything* is much snappier.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Kingston here. Cheap unit. Just Works.

If it does 5 years its better than any hard drive...

Booting is now down to under ten seconds power-to-login-prompt.

Firefox loads in a second, not ten.

But the graphics aren't any faster.

[Peter Johnson]

I put an SSD into a netbook and am surprised at the difference it made.

[Adrian Caspersz]

What (numerical) model laptop, CPU, Graphics, RAM?

Standard Ubuntu's Unity Interface can be a bit heavy especially if you have a poor graphics chipset or are missing a crucial driver.

Try a lighter distribution/interface. i.e. Mint/MATE, Xubuntu/XFCE, Lubuntu/LXDE etc...

Linux might be screaming under the hood but if the interface is like wading through nonaccelerated graphical mud, adding an SSD won't be a comprehensive fix. Sure it might boot faster. But ....

There are some laptops with junk chipsets that are only good for running certain versions of windows, as that's all the effort the manufacturers have done.

[alan_m]

That's OK as long as every manufacturer uses the same method of testing so that the figures from one manufacturer can be compared directly with another's.

[The Natural Philosopher]

They are all good enough for personal use. Unless you are running a data centre, don't worry.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Faster booting, faster program load and, if memory is short faster access to swap if that's on the SSD (although if you want to wear out an SSD, using it for swap is one of the best ways).

Add more RAM FIRST to fix sluggish machines.

[Huge]

I won't be buying anything else (*) made by Samsung. And I don't even have a Note 7.

(* We have a 65" curved Samsung TV. The software is utter shit.)

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , alan_m escribió:

They can't, that's the problem. This is where objective benchmarks like AS-SSD and online reviews are useful.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Dunno. Bought a new laptop and changed to an SSD. Which totally transformed the start up time.

Decided to do the same with an older smaller and more basic one I use for car stuff, and it made little or no difference.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I take it you haven't tried Panasonic yet then...

[Weatherlawyer]

Linux has a prefetch problem I have no real idea about but I think it screws with the boot up when stray emf bursts occur.

Sequential prefetching is a well established technique for improving I/O performance. Prefetching algorithm ... challenged by many unexpected problems.

To meet the new demands ... safe, flexible, simple, scalable yet efficient is desired. He demonstrates how it handles ... common read ahead issues to help readers building both theoretical and practical views of sequential prefetching.

For me that is atmospherics in which case, hopefully, a direct writing capability will minimise any lost boots and bridge software problems.

Or should do. But you will of course be using the archive tool regularly to store folders on your second spare?

sounds more florid than useful. What I read was from StackOverload and beyond my paygrade.

[Weatherlawyer]

We are in for a blast of ferrets any time now so try not to lose any boot records by deleting replaced files after an update.