Samsung SSD 830 256GB review

OEM reliability arrives for consumer-class drives

By Phil Iwaniuk
published

TechRadar Verdict

A really strong consumer-level effort from Samsung, though the SSD 830 isn't the quickest drive around.

Pros

  • +

    Reliability emphasised

  • +

    Great incompressible writes

  • +

    Sleek design

Cons

  • -

    Down on performance vs competitors

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Samsung has taken the unprecedented move with its Samsung SSD 830 256GB of using its own individually created firmware, DRAM and NAND. Does that give it the edge?

Samsung has been overshadowed a bit by the likes of Corsair, OCZ and Kingston in the high performance SSD market.

The latter companies opted for the Sandforce controller in their drives and have hit perpetually impressive sequential read/write performance levels with each new generation, which makes them the go-to guys for enthusiast storage.

It's not like Samsung is a newcomer to the market though; far from it. Its OEM dealings with industry giant Apple contribute to a 26% market share in SSDs across consumer and OEM sectors.

The Korean powerhouse was also heavily involved in the early days of the SSD, providing reference designs which other manufacturers built their drives around.

The arrival of this consumer drive, the Samsung SSD 830, makes a lot of sense when you consider Samsung's know-how and quiet but significant involvement in the market.

Phil Iwaniuk
Phil Iwaniuk
Contributor

Ad creative by day, wandering mystic of 90s gaming folklore by moonlight, freelance contributor Phil started writing about games during the late Byzantine Empire era. Since then he’s picked up bylines for The Guardian, Rolling Stone, IGN, USA Today, Eurogamer, PC Gamer, VG247, Edge, Gazetta Dello Sport, Computerbild, Rock Paper Shotgun, Official PlayStation Magazine, Official Xbox Magaine, CVG, Games Master, TrustedReviews, Green Man Gaming, and a few others but he doesn’t want to bore you with too many. Won a GMA once.