Samsung 840 Pro vs Crucial MX100 - re Reliability?

I use 256 Gb Samsung 840 Pro SSDs for both my C: and D: drives. I also use a 128 GB Samsung 830 SSD via a Seagate USB 3.0 adapter as an external backup drive ( I manually copy certain important directories and files to this drive). I use the Samsung SSDs because I perceive them to be most reliable drives available and over the past three or four years they have certainly proven themselves on two separate computers with similar hardware.

The 128 GB drive I use for external backup is too small and I want to buy a 512 GB drive for this purpose. A Samsung 512 GB 840 Pro is $290 but a Crucial MX100 512 GB drive is $80 cheaper at $210. Although the Samsung specs are better I don't perceive the difference to be at all consequential, especially for a USB connected backup drive. So, what am I gaining by spending $80 more on the Samsung drive? Is my perception that the Samsung drive is a "better" piece of machinery accurate? In a heart beat I would spend the extra $80 if that will buy me something (like reliability) but is that indeed the case?

Both will be the same in daily usage. Crucial support is probably the best on the SSD market. I have 512GB MX100 and no issues since I got it. I also haven't heard about any issues related to these drives on the forums etc.
Samsung will be slightly faster in benchmarks but as I said, you won't see the difference.

Just curious, why not spend <$100 on a 2TB HDD for your backup drive? Especially if you are using it in a USB enclosure, any speed benefit you would get from a SSD are completely negated.

A 2TB drive will also allow you to easily keep days, weeks, and even months worth of backups.

Mpegger said:

Just curious, why not spend <$100 on a 2TB HDD for your backup drive? Especially if you are using it in a USB enclosure, any speed benefit you would get from a SSD are completely negated.

A 2TB drive will also allow you to easily keep days, weeks, and even months worth of backups.

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Great point here... Backing up on an SSD via USB3 really defeats the purpose of the SSD. Both an SSD and HDD could saturate that bandwidth so you will hardly notice a difference in speed and have tons more space.

Unless you're planning on powering up the SSD regularly they're not really designed for long-term storage. After about a year or so unplugged the data will begin to fade. Better off using a HDD if you're only going to be running the driver for infrequent backups, and ideally a tape drive.

Mpegger said:

Just curious, why not spend <$100 on a 2TB HDD for your backup drive? Especially if you are using it in a USB enclosure, any speed benefit you would get from a SSD are completely negated.

A 2TB drive will also allow you to easily keep days, weeks, and even months worth of backups.

Click to expand...

Good question and one I did consider. Two reasons.

First, an SSD uses almost no electrical load. Therefore I can power it by simply plugging it into the USB port. I might be wrong but I think a 3.5" HDD (except for the external 2.5" devices) require too much current to be supported by an USB port.

I have used HDDs for this purpose in the past in the form of both Seagate and WD 2.5" 1 Tb external drives. When saving a 32 Gb tree structured directory with probably a 100 or more sub-directories and probably thousands of files, the HDDs just take substantially longer. I still use the WD drive because of its hardware encryption when I have to leave home with it.

I actually switched from the Seagate & WD external drives to the 128 GB SSD for my weekly or so backups when I realized it was not being used and the removable USB 3.0 adapter on the Seagate external drive plugs directly into it. Now I am spoiled by the speed and I am willing to buy a larger SSD but I still don't want to waste $80 or so.

EarthDog said:

Great point here... Backing up on an SSD via USB3 really defeats the purpose of the SSD. Both an SSD and HDD could saturate that bandwidth so you will hardly notice a difference in speed and have tons more space.

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I am not sure I agree the HDD will even come close to saturating the USB 3.0 bandwidth although the SSD almost certainly does.

I just did a weekly backup and this is exactly why I am willing spend the extra money on a SSD vs. an HDD as suggested above.

Using a Seagate 2.5" 1 Tb Backup Plus connected via a USB 3.0 port, it took over 50 minutes to backup a 33 Gb tree structured directory containing just under 41,000 items. Transfer rate was 11 Mb/sec or so. The exact same folder took under 14 minutes to back up to a Samsung 830 Series SSD, again using the USB 3.0 port (actually used the same Seagate USB/SATA adapter). The transfer rate using the SSD was about 36 MB/sec.

Copying the same folder from one internal 256 Gb Samsung 840 Pro to the other took under two minutes at a transfer rate of well over 200 MB/sec.

The Samsung 512 Gb 840 Pro is now down to $270 so I think I am going to order one of them.