Samsung Event Blogger Barcelona 2011 - 830 Series Launch

Last weekend saw David and me heading to Barcelona to meet Samsung’s SSD engineers. Let’s see what they had to share with us.

A couple of weeks ago, David and myself were privileged enough to be invited by SAMSUNG’s SSD division to go meet some of their engineers in sunny Barcelona. With the prospect of an all-expense paid trip courtesy of Samsung’s marketing team, it was an offer we simply couldn’t refuse. The aim of the event was for Samsung to demonstrate their upcoming SATA 3.0 SSD 830 series to all the European IT journalists invited and to get a taste of what we can expect from their product.

A short introduction to the SAMSUNG SSD 830 series

When SSDs first hit the market a few years ago, Samsung were one of the first companies to adopt the new form factor and began competing with the likes of Intel. Thanks to their unique position as NAND flash memory suppliers and having an in-house team developing SSD controllers, they were able to introduce new products to both the OEM market and consumers. The early models were simply denoted by their storage capacity and the type of flash memory used, MLC targeting the mainstream and the more durable SLC aimed at the higher end. At the time, the Samsung SSD performance failed to match up to Intel’s more competitive offerings and pricing still alienated a lot of potential customers. For a while, Samsung remained quiet and dealt mostly as an OEM and ODM. The original Samsung controller was outsourced to third parties such as Corsair and OCZ but never gained popularity like Indilinx, Intel or Marvell. However, Samsung were always renowned for their reliability and user experience which is why the company is once again looking at getting into the consumer market. Last year and more recently in Europe, Samsung released their SSD 470 series which we reviewed here. Unfortunately, it was too little too late for them and limited to SATA 2 meant that the likes of SandForce could continue leading the market. This is where Samsung’s SSD 830 series hopes to rectify their position.

Their latest series is Samsung’s attempt at capturing a bigger share of the high end SSD consumer market following their success in the OEM/ODM business. A lot of the expertise that has seen their success in business is being transferred to ensure sustained performance, reliability and better user experience. The SSD 830 series is Samsung’s first consumer oriented SATA 3.0 6GB/s compliant drive and will be available in four capacities; 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. The drive is fully developed in-house and features a Samsung MCX Controller based on a 3 core ARM9 processor, 256MB DDR2 DRAM Cache memory and Samsung toggle DDR NAND flash.

Performance varies based on the capacity and NAND flash configuration. The best performance is available on the 256GB and 512GB variants boasting a sequential read speed of 520MB/s and write speeds of 400MB/s. The 128GB version features the same sequential read speed but slightly lower write speeds at 320GB/s. The slowest version is the 64GB version with its sequential write speeds halved compared to the 128GB model. Random read and write speed is also reserved to the 256GB and 512GB models whereas the 128GB makes do with a slower write speed of 30,000 IOPS rather than 36,000. The 64GB variant is once again the slowest model on offer. The listed speeds are seemingly lower than SandForce SF-2200 based drives but as highlighted, Samsung highlight that their speeds can be sustained over time thanks to superior controller algorithms and the use of 25nm toggle NAND flash. While this may be argued as mere marketing talk, our review of the Samsung SSD 830 suggests otherwise.

For greater lifespan and endurance, the Samsung SSD 830 series supports a number of features such as foreground garbage collection, wear levelling, and TRIM. The proprietary Samsung controller features unique firmware algorithm that is designed to protect data and recover from sudden power losses, alleviating one of the major concerns attributed to modern SSDs. Samsung detailed to us how under varying loads their SSDs can still be expected to work beyond the amount of time users would typically keep their SSD for. For reference, 10GB/day write size is more than typical daily consumer usage so even the 64GB model will last over 16 years.

Peak performance is also maintained via Samsung’s Magician Software. The utility allows for Windows based firmware updates without loss of data. It can also be used to further optimise performance or wipe the unit clean for formatting purposes. On top of that, a full retail version of Norton Ghost is bundled allowing for the entire drive to be cloned or backed-up.

The Trip

Three days ago, I found myself at Heathrow Airport alongside a number of reviewers from various UK publications; Andrew Edney from Using WHS, Harry Butler from Bit-tech, James Reed from Heaven Media, Philip Iwaniuk from PC Format, Simon Crisp and the legendary Nick Haywood from Imacula PR. After an early start, we ended up in Barcelona at midday to be swiftly taken through the majestic town towards the Samsung presentation Venue. We were soon greeted by the Samsung representative and engineers as well as fifty other people from various international publications. Amongst them was Dave who had already landed an hour earlier and was getting friendly with some French reviewers.

Soon after our arrival and a quick lunch, Samsung proceeded with the presentation, detailing the technical aspects of their latest SSDs including the components used and the technology behind them, the performance in comparison to its competitors, and how reliability was ensured for better user experience. The two hour lecture was very well received and gave us the unique opportunity to explore how Samsung went about designing their SSDs and how they aimed to compete in this growingly-competitive market. A lot of the emphasis was on sustained performance rather than simply marketing peak performance, an approach taken by many of its competitors such as SandForce based drives. Reliability was also up there on there. Samsung have become famous for Intel-like reliability and endurance which they promise to deliver to consumers once again. With the growing number of reports of SandForce based drivers causing problems, it is the perfect time for Samsung to deliver on their promise. Dave and I also took the chance to speak with Jonathan Da Silva, global strategist at Samsung and I’ll cover some of the things he said over the next page.

Business aside, The Samsung crew were most welcoming of their guests, housing us in a luxurious central Barcelona Hotel, feeding us plentifully all day, and even taking us sailing in the afternoon!

Q&A with Jonathan Da Silva

There were 5 people from the Samsung team who had come all the way from South Korea to present to us the Samsung SSD 830 series and I can certainly see why Barcelona was picked. Within the team were two engineers and two senior managers from their SSD division. Jonathan Da Silva is the global strategist and was kind enough to share a few words with us and answer some of the questions our readers had. Unfortunately, my voice recorder wasn’t the best of quality so I’ll aim to paraphrase his response.

How do you see pricing of SSDs changing in the future, are we likely to see prices staying the same and performance increasing, or performance staying the same and prices decreasing?

A lot of that depends on the NAND and the macro trend would be dependent on NAND prices and development in the future.

We have seen various reports saying that moving to smaller NAND fabrication can have problems such as fewer available erase cycles and thus an impact on endurance. What steps are Samsung taking to reduce this effect?

Samsung use higher technologies that have high yields. Since Samsung themselves manufacture NAND flash memory, they know the technology well and can figure out whether smaller fabrication processes are reliable or not. When transitioning to smaller technologies, Samsung will normally sell to the OEM market first which makes up 80-90% of their business and based on feedback of the quality there will move to the consumer market so end-user at home can expect a thoroughly tested and proven unit. This is partly why Samsung have come to the market slightly later than their competitors but at least quality is ensured.

What do you plan on competing with more established competitors like SandForce?

Samsung believes that the results will speak for themselves. Although SandForce has been fantastic and their growth shows this, they remain a third-party that other manufacturers rely on. It comes down to the NAND. Samsung have access to NAND and can move to the next node whereas other companies still have to rely on a couple of different NAND manufacturers such as Micron and others before releasing new products.

From a more technological perspective, what do Samsung think of compression?

Samsung drives don’t support compression. The reason for this is that most day to day data are already compressed such as MP3 and videos so Samsung would rather ensure good performance across the board rather than high performance for certain types of files.

Would Samsung ever consider a third party controller?

Strategically no, Samsung believe in the long run that building their own controller, figuring out how to use the NAND, moving development together and making people cooperate would be smarter.

Are you considering moving to the 3.5 inch form factor for larger capacity?

Samsung have no plans for that. The aim is for smaller form factors and not necessarily large capacities. The real demand for a 1TB drive is low and not many people would be willing to get one.

Would Samsung look at making a diverse range of products in the consumer market?

Samsung are currently discussing the possibility of doing so. The questions they ask themselves are how do they band their categories and how would they tailor their products more to what their consumers need? In terms of priorities, would they target niche applications or make something that caters to general usage? The problem when we look at sales in the US is that they are very complicated for companies that provide up to 10 different SKUs. Samsung are more interested in optimising their products for reliability and performance so that users know exactly what they are going to get and as such would rather focus on just a few SKUs.

With different companies marketing their products using different techniques to show different rated speeds, how do Samsung aim to market their products?

The problem is that different manufacturers use different techniques to test their SSDs using as ATTO, Iometer etc. but the event is part of how Samsung aims to market their products. Samsung realise that their sequential speeds might not match that of its competitors but they aim to be competitive and most importantly provide sustained performance rather than simply marketing peak performance. If consumers look at peak speeds as a metric, Samsung are still very good but when it comes to the real experience, this is where Samsung will stand out.

Do Samsung plan on releasing a hybrid mechanical/SSD like what some of your competitors have done?

Samsung sold their HDD division to Seagate since they were unable to compete with other manufacturers and take the number 1 position. So there are no plans to build mechanical/SSD hybrids.

And what about PCIe based SSDs?

This is something Samsung are not sure about as it depends on demand, especially by the OEMs. Generally, development is based on the OEM market first and then shifts to consumers.

I hope this short interview has answered many of the questions you might have had about Samsung SSDs and for the full review, please have a look at our in-depth article: Samsung 830 Series 256GB SSD Review.

We would like to thanks SAMSUNG once again for this unique opportunity.