I got the 250GB Samsung EVO 840 for a client who wanted to upgrade their older computer's hard drive for better performance. Their old hard drive was a 250GB 7200 RPM WD Blue series drive which was over half empty. The older Dell Optiplex computer only has SATA II interfaces.
The Optiplex uses caddies for the 3.5 inch drives. I got a
SABRENT 3.5 to 2.5-Inch drive bay adapter
which is supposed to work well with screwless caddies. The Optiplex caddy had to be modified to remove a piece of plastic to work with the adapter's centered placement of the 2.5 inch drive. FYI.
Except for the above, installation was effortless. Closing the existing hard drive to the SSD using an
Apricorn USB to IDE/PATA/SATA Drive Adapter
was very easy. When we could boot the system we installed the Samsung utility and upgraded the firmware. Easy and no problems.
The performance difference was stunning. The system booted in seconds and applications loaded almost as fast. The client was thrilled and felt it was like having a new computer at a fraction of the cost and hassle.
I found the utility for the drive very useful as it could give an assessment of the drive life and helped with some performance tuning so we could get the most out of the drive. Nicely done giving the impression of a professional tool rather than an engineering afterthought.
I'm giving the EVO 5 stars. It provides a great product in a great package with excellent supporting software. My only concern is one I have for all SSD drives and that is longevity. With Samsung utility addresses this issue well.
Hope this helps someone!
UPDATE: May 12, 2014
I recently purchased another EVO for installation in an older Dell laptop. It has only SATA II but got a great performance boost!
However, some settings of the Intel SATA interface (iastor - aka Intel Matrix Storage) do not play nice with the Samsung (or a number of other SSD drives). I checked for newer drivers and the Intel driver upgrade tool said I had the latest.
The symptoms are occasional hangs (maybe once or twice a day) for around a minute and log entries reporting:
The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.
If you get these symptoms with your SSD and are comfortable with using the registry editor... WARNING: You can destroy your Windows installation editing the registry of your don't know what you are doing!!!
That said... This issue can be addressed as follows in Windows 7:
Go to the registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters\Port0
Your port number may be different. In my laptop's Samsung EVO was connected to Port0.
Next export the Port0 sub-hive (or whatever port number you are working with) to restore things in case of a mistake.
Inside there you'll find 3 DWORD keys: LPM, LPMDSTATE and DIPM. All three default to a value of 1. Change all 3 to a value of 0. Then restart your computer.
This worked for me and I hope this saves someone time if they run into this issue.
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This Item  SAMSUNG 250GB 2.5" 840 EVO SATAIII SSD |  | |  | |  | |
| Price | $95.00 | -25% $189.99 List: $254.99 | -12% $74.83 List: $84.99 | $66.99 | $103.95 | -47% $79.99 List: $149.99 |
| Delivery | Get it as soon as Thursday, May 16 | Get it as soon as Thursday, May 16 | Get it as soon as Thursday, May 16 | Get it as soon as Friday, May 17 | — | Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 21 |
| Customer Ratings | ||||||
| Easy to install | ||||||
| For gaming | ||||||
| Storage Capacity | ||||||
| Value for money | ||||||
| Easy to use | ||||||
| Sold By | Tech Finds Today | Amazon.com | Amazon.com | March03 | kooldeal68 | Amazon.com |
| storage capacity | 250 GB | 2 TB | 500 GB | 250 GB | 1 TB | 1 TB |
| hardware interface | usb | sata 6 0 gb | sata 6 0 gb | sata 6 0 gb, sata 3 0 gb, sata 1 5 gb | sata 6 0 gb | solid state drive |
| compatible devices | Desktop | Laptop, PC | Laptop, PC | Desktop, Laptop | Laptop | Laptop, Desktop |
| form factor | 2.5-inch | 2.5-inch | 2.5-inch | 2.5-inch | 2.5-inch | M.2 2280 |
| write speed | 97000 megabits per second | 530 | 530 | 530 | 530 | 4200 megabits per second |
| read speed | 540 megabytes per second | 560 megabytes per second | 560 megabytes per second | 560 megabytes per second | 560 megabytes per second | 5000 megabytes per second |
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Fast SATA Drive - Perfect For an OS Boot Drive
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Fast, Fast, Fast, Excellent Software to clone disk! all is perfect!
1. Delivery very fast.2. Its a lot lighter and thinner than my old Sand Disk 120Gb.3. I connect to my PC, put the disc and run the magician software. choose clone disk, adn select my C drive And hit copy and took 14 minutes to clone entirely disk! my sank disk is full!4. Open case, connect my new samsung, left the older drive in same place.5. Turn on my pc, and enter boot. Change boot drive to my new samsung. and save and exit.6. Restart, and yes! enter to windows and work exactly like my old disk, i verfied thath all is in order and go to my pc and format my old Sand Disk.7. Run Magician software, update auto in first run, active rapid mode and restart.8. Run cystal disk mark and results:11121 Mb-6498 Mb in Seq6878Mb-6265Mb in 512K383.3Mb-372.4Mb in 4K300Mb 356.7Mb 4k Qd32The drive feel faster than my sand disk, the write speeds are very superior, 530Mb vs 130Mb without rapid mode.I try to upload an image of my crystalmarkGoog, very good drive. excellent Samsung!
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Dany Zema
Il miglior upgrade che ho mai fatto
Reviewed in Italy on July 27, 2017Color: FT156Verified Purchase
Dany Zema
Reviewed in Italy on July 27, 2017
Dapprima con i vecchi HDD ogni anno dovevo formattare perchè ci metteva minuti ad avviare il desktop, potevo bere un bicchier d'acqua e fare altro che nel frattempo ancora doveva caricare. Con questo Samsung 840 EVO da 250GB in 25 secondi sono già pronto ad usare i miei programmi.
La velocità di lettura e di avvio dei programmi è istantanea!
Al giorno d'oggi il sistema operativo e le principali applicazioni vanno assolutamente installate su un SSD, e questo modello è stato il mio primo successo, se si riesce a trovarlo ad un prezzo minore dei 150 è un buon acquisto. Dopo 3 anni Hard Disk Sentinel mi dà prestazioni al 100% e Stato di salute al 95%, consumo dovuto probabilmente al fatto che ho sempre almeno un browser aperto nel pc (Firefox è molto avido di risorse e di continue riscritture nella cache), con questo andamento l'SSD durerà 60 anni! Le prestazioni sono ancora ottime e non ho mai formattato (allego foto dei risultati di Magician).
Il prodotto è arrivato insieme ad un altro acquisto nel solito ottimo imballaggio di Amazon in pochi giorni (abito in sud Italia), la confezione piccola ma funzionale contiene SSD, manuale e certificato di Garanzia, purtroppo senza nessun accessorio infatti manca un cavo SATA, magari di Samsung sarebbe stato un plus. Ottima la Garanzia fino a 3 anni.
Negli anni sono stati risolti i bug software che facevano rallentare la velocità di lettura di questi SSD diminuendo le prestazioni (cosa difficilmente verificabile nell'utilizzo medio giornaliero ma tramite software di bench o su Magician).
Ottima la dotazione software di Samsung con il suo Magician (ora arrivato alla versione 5.0.0 per questo prodotto), che offre le sue ottimizzazioni per migliorare le prestazioni senza intevenire manualmente sul S.O., in 3 anni ho visto almeno 2 aggiornamenti del firmware del disco. Sul sito del produttore è presente anche Samsung Data Migration che permette il clone del vostro S.O. per essere subito operativi, anche se io ho voluto provarlo installando Windows 7 da zero ed i primi avvii erano entusiasmanti, in meno di 20 secondi era già avviato, incredibile se si pensa che gira su una piattaforma socket 775 che supporta solo il SATA2 ed un vecchio processore quad core!
PRO:
- ottime prestazioni, ormai superate dai nuovi SSD installabili tramite PCI, ma ottimo per vecchie configurazioni essendo retrocompatibile con SATA2 e SATA1;
- Buon rapporto qualità/prezzo oggi non si trova più a quel prezzo;
- Nessun rumore, consumi e temperature basse;
- Estetica curata, ottimo anche come disco portatile;
- Nessun problema con urti e vibrazioni, gli SSD non soffrono di tale problema, solo un naturale consumo delle celle che comunque durano decenni con utilizzo casalingo.
CONTRO
- Assenza di un cavo SATA;
- Velocità nella media rispetto ad altri prodotti della stessa fascia e usciti successivamente;
E' stato un ottimo acquisto per me, lo consiglio a patto che lo troviate ad un buon prezzo, comunque tiene anche il valore per una rivendita successiva! Acquistate senza paura!
Images in this review
Gabe
Excellent performance upgrading to SSD as boot drive
Reviewed in Canada on November 1, 2014Color: FT156Verified Purchase
LightPro
Der Hammer Booster für ältere (und auch neuere) PC/MAC Systeme
Reviewed in Germany on October 28, 2015Color: FT156Verified Purchase
Eric Todasco
Excellent Product. Purchased a 500gb version for my PS4 ...
Reviewed in Canada on September 13, 2014Color: FT156Verified Purchase
