Samsung 470 Series 256GB SSD – Long Term Test Results

Samsung 470 – Where We Started

Back in January following CES, we had a look at Samsung’s 470 Series SSD which performed very well in our tests in comparison to other SATA II drives. Our readers have asked numerous times if we could take a longer term look at an SSD to see how the performance fares over time. We thought the Samsung drive would be as good a guinea pig as any. So, we loaded up the drive with our normal day-to-day OS filled with apps like games, photo editing software, productivity software, etc. and began to use it consistently over the course of three months. Measurements on a few benchmarks were taken at midway point and end to compare against the “virgin state” performance.

All of this angst from users about drive slowdown comes as a result of the early SSD which didn’t support TRIM and/or idle garbage collection which was certainly a problem over the long haul. As a refresher, let’s have a look at the specifications for the drive.

Samsung 470 Series Specifications:

Model	470 Series	470 Series	470 Series
Capacity	64GB	128GB	256GB
Form factor	2.5-Inch	2.5-Inch	2.5-Inch
Dimensions (HxWxL)	9.5×69.85×100 (mm)	9.5×69.85×100 (mm)	9.5×69.85×100 (mm)
Weight	Max 64g	Max 68g	Max 68g
Interface	Serial ATA 3.0Gbps	Serial ATA 3.0Gbps	Serial ATA 3.0Gbps
Sequential read	Up to 250 MB/sec	Up to 250 MB/sec	Up to 250 MB/sec
Sequential write	Up to 170 MB/sec	Up to 220 MB/sec	Up to 220 MB/sec
Random read	Up to 31,000 IOPS	Up to 31,000 IOPS	Up to 31,000 IOPS
Random write	Up to 11,000 IOPS	Up to 20,000 IOPS	Up to 21,000 IOPS
Active power use	0.24W	0.24W	0.24W
Idle power use	0.14W	0.14W	0.14W
Allowable voltage	5V 5%	5V 5%	5V 5%
TRIM support	YES	YES	YES
Reliability (MTBF)	1.5 million hours	1.5 million hours	1.5 million hours
Warranty	3 year (= 21.9TBW, 20GB@day)	3 year (= 21.9TBW, 20GB@day)	3 year (= 21.9TBW, 20GB@day)
Temperature	-55 to 95 (Non-Operating)	-55 to 95 (Non-Operating)	-55 to 95 (Non-Operating)
Humidity	5% to 95% (Non-Operating)	5% to 95% (Non-Operating)	5% to 95% (Non-Operating)
Vibration	Operating: Random 2.17Grms(5~700Hz) Non-Operating: Random 3.13Grms(5~800Hz) Swept sine: 20G peak @10~2KHz	Operating: Random 2.17Grms(5~700Hz) Non-Operating: Random 3.13Grms(5~800Hz) Swept sine: 20G peak @10~2KHz	Operating: Random 2.17Grms(5~700Hz) Non-Operating: Random 3.13Grms(5~800Hz) Swept sine: 20G peak @10~2KHz
Shock	1500G, duration 0.5ms, Half Sine Wave	1500G, duration 0.5ms, Half Sine Wave	1500G, duration 0.5ms, Half Sine Wave

The drive is powered by Samsung’s own controller with 32nm ToggleDDR NAND and a pair of 64MB DDR2-667 cache chips thrown in. The drive supports TRIM and idle garbage collection which will largely be responsible for the performance levels over time. During use, we did nothing to clean or reset the drive and relied on the aforementioned built-in maintenance mechanisms to take care of things. Overall, I was surprised how well the drive performed and I’ve been very impressed with its performance as a daily driver. I honestly wasn’t expecting Samsung to be so competitive.

Now that we are caught up, let’s have a look at what we found.