Samsung's 840 Pro is hardly a new drive but it also happens to be one of the most highly regarded SSDs currently available. The reason for this is simple: it's relatively inexpensive, offers awesome performance and comes with a 5 year warranty. It's also been thoroughly reviewed by other publications but we?ve decided to add it to our charts despite some reservations.

We?ve been holding off highlighting Samsung's SSD's on the pages of Hardware Canucks for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Samsung's storage division was turned over to Seagate back in 2011 which resulted in a convoluted RMA process for anyone that purchased a Samsung SSD. While folks south of the border had the situation quickly resolved, since Samsung never ?officially? sold SSDs here in Canada prior to 2013, many of our readers were SOL when it came to support for their drives. With that in mind, we chose not to support Seagate's Samsung arm until that situation was resolved since in good conscience we couldn't recommend a storage device that shipped without a manufacturer-backed warranty to the majority of our readers. The situation has now changed a bit since Canadian customers can now go through Total Tech Solutions (Samsung's Canadian RMA partner) for warranty support. The process isn't straightforward but replacing a dead drive is now a lot easier.

With all of that being said, let's get back to the 840 Pro since even now, more than a year after its initial release, other manufacturers are still struggling to match what it offers. By combining their versatile fourth generation MDX controller with Toggle Mode 2.0 NAND, Samsung changed the very landscape of the marketplace and continue to do so long after the Pro was first introduced. Back then, competitors who were 'getting by' with SandForce controller based drives had to rethink their strategy and are still scrambling to release comparably performing models.