Data Backup Digest

The Crucial M500 and Samsung 840 Pro are two of the best solid state drives available on the market at the moment. Both are great drives and you’ll likely not go wrong wither either of them. This article will compare their specifications through a series of benchmark tests; see how they rank up and which one will give you the best bang for your buck.
SSDBoss put the two drives head to head in a battle of the stats. Firstly, let’s take a look at the Samsung 840 Pro. Their tests showed that the drive had a 4K random read speed of 331.34 MB/s and a 4K random write speed of 130.58 MB/s. The 4K random read access was is 1.91 milliseconds and the 4K random write access time was 0.8 milliseconds. It took the drive 7.8 seconds to boot up on Windows 7 and consumes 2 Watts of power.
Of course, we now need to see how this ranks up against the Crucial M500. This drive has a 4K random read speed of 122.69 MB/s and a 4K random write speed of 59.86 MB/s. The 4K random read access time was 4.18 milliseconds and the 4K random write access time was 2.04 milliseconds. It took the drive 12.6 seconds to boot up on Windows 7 and consumes 1.98 Watts of power.
Comparing the read and write performance, along with how well it performs in real world benchmarks, SSDBoss awarded the title of victor to the Samsung 840 Pro.
That’s how the drives perform under benchmark testing, but let’s have a look at the actual specifications of the drive. The 840 Pro comes in a 256 MB capacity, while the M500 offers significantly more at 960 GB. The former costs $455 while the latter costs $600. If you’re looking for bang for buck when it comes to storage, the M500 offers 1.6 GB per dollar compared to the 840 Pro’s 1.13 GB per dollar (that’s 40% more capacity per dollar).
However, if capacity isn’t a major concern and you are more focussed on performance then the 840 Pro comes up trumps. SSDBoss’ testing showed that there was a higher mean time between failures (around 30% higher), lower 4K random read access times (2.6x lower times) and significantly faster AS SSD ISO copy (more than 60% faster).
The M500 is the newer drive and its reliability is less tested at the moment. Samsung have a good track record when it comes to drive reliability and they come with a 5 year warranty. In a time where a lot of drive manufacturers are lowering their warranty years, this is a decent offering from Samsung.
Ultimately, the Samsung 840 Pro pips the Crucial M500 to the post when it comes to performance. Whether or not you’d notice the difference in real life use is debatable, but the benchmark figures are superior. However, if you are looking for a drive that offers superior storage then the Crucial M500 would be the better offering. At the end of the day, however, both are great, reliable drives and you’d do well to choose either.