Samsung's 830 Series SSD left me very impressed. The drive doesn't use any of the well-known controllers like SandForce or Marvell, but comes with Samsung's own controller design instead. This doesn't have to be a bad thing; on the contrary, the 830 doesn't come with the load of issues that are unique to Marvell/Indilinx or SandForce. We see outstanding numbers in terms of performance, especially in tests that require a lot of sequential bandwidth, like our ISO file copy test. Overall, the SSD is tied with Corsair's Performance Pro for first place in our benchmarks. I'd say the Corsair Performance Pro is a little bit faster when comparing drives of the same capacity since the Corsair is a 256 GB drive and the Samsung is a 512 GB drive. The larger an SSD is, the higher its performance compared to the same drive with less memory.
The 830 Series SSD also promises to offer much better stability since it is not based on a SandForce controller. In my testing, which stressed the drive non-stop over a 24 hour period, I did not encounter any bluescreens or other stability issues. Going by the feedback on Newegg, there are also very few reports of consumers experiencing problems, which supports the claims of improved stability.
Overall, the Samsung 830 Series SSD is an excellent choice for a high-performance SSD. I only wish the price would be a bit lower. Coming at $550 right now, it is more expensive than other high-end SSDs, like the OCZ Vertex 3 and 4. Samsung has the potential of taking a large share of the retail sales SSD business if they can reduce the price a bit more; they should be able to since they make all components used themselves.