Samsung SSD Magician
- Thread starter Robert
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My point is that despite what you have read, my experience of the Magician software has been good, so far. The only way you'll find out the truth is to try it.
Even if you have trouble with the software, it isn't essential. Samsungs SSDs are pretty good.
Its a good piece of software - I use it with my 250Gb 840 Pro (main system), 2 x 250Gb 840 basics (laptops) and used it with my 120Gb 840 Basic (spare currently for sale!). Does the job perfectly:
- Can use it to run TRIM manually if so required
- Can use it to overprovision the SSD to avoid extra wear
- Can use it to bench performance
- Can use it to make OS level adjustments which are all clearly explained
- Can use it to check authenticity of your product
- Can use it to secure erase your SSD (doesn't work with Win8 though
)
- Can use it to easily check and update the firmware of your SSD.
- Can use it to run TRIM manually if so required
- Can use it to overprovision the SSD to avoid extra wear
- Can use it to bench performance
- Can use it to make OS level adjustments which are all clearly explained
- Can use it to check authenticity of your product
- Can use it to secure erase your SSD (doesn't work with Win8 though
)- Can use it to easily check and update the firmware of your SSD.
Magician only works properly if you're running in AHCI mode. If you're running any kind of RAID (such as sticking it on an Intel controller where you have other RAID arrays), then Magician is mostly useless.
Even if the Samsung is a single drive not part of any RAID arrays, Magician won't talk to it properly if the interface is in any kind of RAID mode.
Even if the Samsung is a single drive not part of any RAID arrays, Magician won't talk to it properly if the interface is in any kind of RAID mode.
That's a good point. It also means that the majority of Samsung SSD owners will be able to use the Magician software.
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Works perfectly on my 250GB pro. This is running in a server as well
Yes, but if you're not using AHCI (a lot of people run RAID of one sort or another), Magician gives no added value despite the Samsung price premium for such niceties as the Magician software.
It's worth knowing as it can influence your buying decision when so many other good drives (such as the Toshibas) cost significantly less, but don't give you nice software utilities.
I have a Samsung SSD, but if I'd known Magician was going to be so useless to me, I would probably have paid less and got something else.
We don't really know the price premium for the Magician software, but I expect it doesn't add too much to the price of a Samsung SSD, maybe a couple of quid ?
The Samsung 840 non-pros are some of the cheapest SSDs available. Yes, I know they use "cheap" TLC memory, but my experience with them has been good.
A lot of people may run RAID, but I`ve only ever "RAIDed" one system for a friend (2 x Intel SSDs). All of my other customers have had single SSDs installed, as a non-raid system is cheaper, simpler and provides enough performance to make a single SSD upgrade worth while.
I do agree that the Magician softwre may not be so useful for a raided or non AHCI system, but even so, I don't think that should rule out a Samsung 840 from a list of possible SSD purchases.
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To Samsung, no, but they use this to justify a price premium over similarly specced products.
Their Pros are significanly more expensive whilst offering similar performance to competitor products. One of the reasons they can do this is the high praise Samsung SSDs get in reviews because they provide extras like Samsung Magician and a longer warranty.
Oh, and another thing is a lot of people have reported that Samsung Magician stops drives from spinning down and systems going to sleep. It's a deliberate thing by Samsung, supposedly because some systems cause data corruption when you try to put it to sleep with a Samsung SSD. It means you can't run Magician all the time in the background, which is it's default installation.
It's easy to disable it under msconfig, or ignore if you never want to sleep your system, but it's another Magician thing that doesn't quite live up to it's promise. Like the five year warranty that only covers up to 40 gigs of writes a day, it's a bit disappointing to discover the small print under the big headlines.
It's easy to disable it under msconfig, or ignore if you never want to sleep your system, but it's another Magician thing that doesn't quite live up to it's promise. Like the five year warranty that only covers up to 40 gigs of writes a day, it's a bit disappointing to discover the small print under the big headlines.
Well, if you can use the Magician software (and I suspect that most users can), then it's up to the prospective customer to decide if the Samsung SSD and it's software is a good choice.
I have not yet purchased an 840 Pro, as I think that the non pros offer better value for money, and probably the best value for money of any mainstream SSD at the moment. I treat the Magicin software as a "bonus", as it does make the installation and future maintenance of the SSD quite simple for myself and my customers.
I know I may seem like a "Samsung Fanboy". The truth is that I could have been a "Crucial Fanboy" when I was using M4s and I would become a fan boyof any SSD that I felt offered good performance, reliabilty and value for money. At the moment, the Samsungs seem to offer all three. If an SSD comes along that improves on what the 840s offer, then they'll be the ones I buy.
I know that the Magician software adds a power management mode to Windows, but once installed, I prevent Magician running at boot up, and configure power management back to suit the system. I use sleep quite a lot on my own PC, and have never had an issue with it.
After installing about 20 840s in other PCs/Laptops, I`ve not yet had any problem reported about sleep mode. Maybe I`ve been lucky.
I think Samsung are sensible to have a limit on average data writes, as it prevents users "hammering" their SSDs and claiming replacements when they fail. An average of 40 gigs per day is hardly "mean", is it ?
It's hardly great either, especially in the face of the publicised five year warranty. It's just another little thing you learn when you're an owner that takes the shine off the specs and the great reviews. It pretends that Samsung have a lot of faith in their product and that it will last a long time, whereas in the small print they say "not really".
I'm just letting the OP know the things that I've discovered as a relatively new Samsung SSD owner that will allow him to make a more informed decision based on the not-so-good stuff as well as all the good stuff. As always, YMMV depending if any of this stuff is important to you or not.
I wished someone had told me all this stuff, so by having it here in the forum, maybe it helps the OP and anyone else that comes along afterwards.
In the small print, they are saying that if you write a hell of a lot of data to your SSD (way above what an average user will do), they may treat a warranty claim as "wear and tear" rather than a fault. That may be of concern for some users who write lots of data on a daily basis, but I would expect that those potential SSD owners would not be considering an SSD as suitable storage medium.
I was not aware of this "clause" before you mentioned it, and now that you have told me (and others), I have no concern whatsoever about the warranty on my Samsung SSD. I doubt any of my customers write 40GB per month to their SSD, never mind a day.
Still, you have informed me of something that I was not aware of. I take it that you do write a lot of data to your Samsung SSD, and you therefore slightly regret the purchase. I suppose you are bound to feel a little annoyed about Samsung's "small print".
Having said all this, it does seem that Samsung are being a bit naughty about this, because I'm sure I read somewhere that Samsung's prediction of life expectancy on a non pro is about 270TB of writes. 40GB a day for 5 years is about 70TB, and the Pro versions are supposed to last about 3 times longer than the non pros !
Mmmm, I still think that Samsung are producing very good quality SSDs, but if there are failures in the future, they are leaving themselves room for excuses.
The bottom line is that Samsung SSDs do perform well, are good value for money (especially the non pros) and do have a good reputation for reliability (so far). I'm sure there will be exceptions (as there was when my supposedly very reliable Intell SSD failed). It remains to be seen if Samsung have to use the "clause" in the future. I doubt they will, as most people are not likely to write anywhere near as much as 70TB in 5 years.
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My personal issues with my Samsung's SSD:
1. It doesn't work properly with Intel Rapid Start. I think this is related to the same caching/flushing issue that makes Samsung try to stop your system sleeping.
2. The much-praised Magician software is mostly worthless if you run anything not AHCI. Even on a fully AHCI port, Magician wouldn't secure erase my drive. I had to use a dos boot disk, and then pull the power on the live drive before it would unfreeze and secure erase (those are the Samsung instructions).
For a premium brand, I was expecting better. Again, you may not care about this if it doesn't affect you, but it's worth knowing about to make a considered choice.
1. It doesn't work properly with Intel Rapid Start. I think this is related to the same caching/flushing issue that makes Samsung try to stop your system sleeping.
2. The much-praised Magician software is mostly worthless if you run anything not AHCI. Even on a fully AHCI port, Magician wouldn't secure erase my drive. I had to use a dos boot disk, and then pull the power on the live drive before it would unfreeze and secure erase (those are the Samsung instructions).
For a premium brand, I was expecting better. Again, you may not care about this if it doesn't affect you, but it's worth knowing about to make a considered choice.
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It is worth knowing about, I agree.
I'm not sure that Magician is "much praised", but my opinion is that most purchasers will be able to use it, and will find it useful. I provide my customers an SSD upgrade service. All of my customers (so far) seem to run AHCI, and do benefit (at least a little) from Magician. The points you make are perfectly valid, as are mine. I'd argue (I love a good argument/debate) that for the majority of potential SSD purchasers, Samsung should be in their list of choices. At the moment, I'd say they should be near the top of the list.
As far as I'm concerned, Magician is the icing on the nice cake. I love analogies !