Gadgetory

welcome to my unboxing and first look perhaps a little belated but better late than never as i like to say all the time because that's something that i always say the samsung 840 SSD so this is different from the 840 pro and we actually have a slightly unique sort of mix of 840 and 840 pro so if you've already seen our 840 pro unboxing you'll know that that's the one that has beast performance basically as good as it gets in the market it also is in a slightly larger capacities so it's 128 256 and 512 vs 120 250 and 500 gigs for the 840 it also comes in a slightly different package although both versions are available for both different drives so this one right here our 840 pro is the bare drive version that just comes with the data migration software and the drive itself are 840 is the version that comes with the desktop and laptop installation kit included so in this case you have to slice all the way through the sticker in order for the box to come apart and I r we go good work Linus and the drives look pretty darn near identical on the top the only way to tell the difference between an 840 and an 840 pro is the fact that there's no pro here also the fact that it comes in a different capacity it's a state of 36 gigabit per second drive it uses Samsung's latest controller designed by Samsung and it has oh cool oh okay so they've got a two millimeter clip here that allows you to go from a seven millimeter drive to a nine millimeter drive depending on what the requirements are for your particular notebook that's really handy in a desktop it makes no difference whatsoever but it's a it's really good to have for for a notebook because yeah if you have the slightly the wrong drive it just won't fit and that'll be a bit of a problem alright so software wise I was talking about their controller right you know what we never did go through this so it's using their three core mdx controller designed by samsung for samsung just like everything else in this drive so the main advantage for samsung is the fact that the controller the firmware the flash the ram every single thing in here is designed and manufactured by samsung no one else does this not intel well not crucial nobody else does this for example crucial is using a third-party controller chip set so they're writing firmware for it they're manufacturing their own flash of RAM but they missed that one key component and then Intel is using sandforce controllers so just totally totally using I mean their own firmware for it but totally using someone else's stuff whereas Samsung doesn't do that it uses toggle ddr2 NAND flash memory this is TLC memory more on that in a moment ddr2 sdram cache memory AES 256-bit encryption is built into the drive it comes with their magician software which is basically SSD performance optimization so manual trim benchmark testing secure erase and firmware updates as well as their data migration software the 840 also has a three year warranty compared to the five year warranty on the 840 pro it is to sign more for a consumer work cycle then like a prosumer a professional work cycle so the a40 is the perfect drive for someone like your gamer friend or your mom or whoever else where it's more of a mainstream customer it's less expensive but they're not expecting that customer to be writing you know 5 10 gigs of data to the drive every single day because like all SSD drives the 840 and the 840 pro have a limited number of write cycles and TLC flash compared to NLC so two-bit purcell flash vs 3 bit purcell flash is inherently less durable so it's not going to last as long so if it's someone who's using their SSD as you know a scratch disk or something for working on very large video or photo files then that's going to be a bit of a problem for something like a non pro level drive hence the branding a 40 refers to the generation of product so you've got the 840 and the 840 pro for more like a pro user or someone who's more of a heavy user so let's have a look at what else is included with the 840 we've got a thing that has a thing inside there's your manual and software download believe us from the Samsung website if you sort of care about that sort of thing new stickers samsung SSD activated that kind of neat stickers i like stickers warranty statement summary for the 840 in the 840 pro there's a bracket so that's a two and a half inch to three and a half inch brackets made of minam so it's going to be lightweight if you're installing it in a desktop they've also got all the screws that you might need in order to go ahead and do that their installation a SATA cable is included no way oh this is awesome these are handy this is one of those USB two here we go USB to SATA adapters so instead of having see this this is the kind of thing i like kingston had a kid they had a desktop upgra notebook upgrade kit where they included an actual two half-inch drive enclosure with the thing it was inside the SSD box I was like really a whole two and a half inch driving less not very convenient because you actually have to take the thing put it in the thing screw it into the thing close it up and could plug that into like the wall and then plug that into them like really these are awesome though this is kind of like seagates goflex goflex external external drives right where the whole thing is data and power all through USB and then it plugs into the back of the SSD just like this so there's your state of three interface there's your SATA interface on the back there you just go like that you can run the drive back up or a drive migration tool that is provided by Samsung and then you do your swap so you actually leave the drive in the notebook you plug in this one you run everything then you swap them and you're good to go so I think that pretty much covers it don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos