Samsung 840 series SSD revealed with 21nm NAND

Samsung showed off its 840 series solid state disks at the Samsung SSD Global Summit in Seoul, South Korea. The new disk will start shipping within a couple weeks in standard and Pro editions, these disks will have 21nm NAND flash memory and a new MDX controller based on the same MCX chip that's used by the 830 series, which uses 27nm NAND.

The 840 Pro series sticks to 2-bit-per-cell MLC NAND flash memory, while the standard model adopts the 3-bit-per-cell TLC NAND flash memory. TLC is somewhat slower and has lower endurance than MLC, but it promises cheaper cost, and while Samsung didn't reveal details, they claimed that the 840 with TLC has higher endurance than many competitors' MLC based SSDs.

Here's an overview of the Samsung 840 series performance, courtesy of AnandTech.

Samsung SSD 840 Pro vs 840 vs 830
	Samsung SSD 830 (256,512GB)	Samsung SSD 840 (500GB)	Samsung SSD 840 Pro (256,512GB)
Controller	Samsung MCX	Samsung MDX	Samsung MDX
NAND	27nm Toggle-Mode 1.1 MLC	21nm Toggle-Mode 2.0 TLC	21nm Toggle-Mode MLC
Sequential Read	520MB/s	540MB/s	540MB/s
Sequential Write	400MB/s	330MB/s	450MB/s
Random Read	80K IOPS	98K IOPS	100K IOPS
Random Write	36K IOPS	70K IOPS	78K IOPS

Pricing of the Samsung SSD 840 series is $109.99, $199.99, $449.99 for the 120GB, 250GB and 500GB models, respectively, while the Samsung SSD 840 Pro series has MSRPs of $99.99, $149.99, $269.99 and $599.99, for the 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB models, respectively.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced its new lineup of high-performance SSDs designed for use in personal computers. The new series supporting SATA 6.0 gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) interface comes in two tracks; one for general computing purposes and another, an advanced lineup dubbed ‘PRO’ for serious users.

The Samsung SSD Global Summit held at the Shilla hotel in Seoul, Korea, was attended by approximately 70 tech media and power bloggers across the globe for a first-hand experience of the new series. The full-day program provided sessions covering an in-depth look at the technology, features and capabilities of the new storage devices.

As part of the pre-launch event, following the summit, editors will be invited to release product reviews offering consumers with proof points and information regarding the usability and performance levels of the new series in daily user environments.

Samsung’s tiered offering for professional and general user environments provides consumers a broader choice of SSDs to best suit their personal requirements.

The unrivaled performance of Samsung’s SSDs lies in its MDX controller, which delivers superior performance, high reliability and sustainability that are among the product’s proprietary features. The premium class 840 PRO provides 100,000 input/ output per second (IOPS) for random read and 90,000 IOPS for random write*. Benchmark test** on the overall system performance unveiled a three-fold advancement when applying the 840 PRO in place of a conventional hard disk drive.

Mr. UnSoo Kim, vice president of Memory brand product marketing team, Samsung Electronics, said, “Introduction of Samsung’s 840 SSD series delivers considerable levels of advancements to the notebook user environment. As a technology pioneer, Samsung continues to raise the level of performance of SSDs and contribute to the growing global pool of users enjoying the conveniences of high-performance SSDs.”

The new 840 series will be available globally from mid October through retail channels.