The Samsung 840 Pro 256GB is the fastest consumer SSD around, and its 7mm thickness makes it compatible with thin-and-light laptops. It also comes with a five-year warranty. Buying advice: Samsung 840 Pro.
It's always easy to write about the best - in this case, the Samsung 840 Pro with its proprietary MDX controller. Samsung also manufactures the toggle-mode MLC memory found in the 840 Pro, and judging from the results of our tests, the company knows what to do with it. See also: Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256GB review: the fastest SSD currently around and Samsung SSD 840 250GB review: affordable and fast?
The Samsung 840 Pro is the best SSD we have tested recently in terms of overall combined reading and writing. It also placed first in three of our four individual read and write tests. See all storage reviews.
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB review: test results
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Samsung's model 840 Pro is the fastest 240GB SSD we've tested.
By the numbers, the 840 Pro wrote our 10GB mix of files and folders at 417.7 MBps, and it read them at 419.8 MBps. It wrote our single large 10GB file at a whopping 665.3 MBps, and read the file back at 482.9 MBps.
That's an average read speed of 450.8 MBps, an average write speed of 541.5 MBps, and 496.2 MBps combined reading and writing. Impressive results; only OCZ's Vector could hang with it.
The 256GB 840 Pro we tested sells for around £189, or 74p per gigabyte, which is more than the average, but a decent price for this level of performance. Samsung includes an installation guide and a CD containing its Magician toolkit software. Magician does benchmarking, and it enables the TRIM command if you're still using Windows XP (that operating system doesn't support TRIM natively). The drive is warrantied for five years.
