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The Samsung SSD 830 Reviewby Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/24/2011 1:02 AM EST
- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Samsung
- pm830
- Samsung SSD 830
100 Comments
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Gilbert Osmond - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkDidn't read the article yet, but I sure did post the first comment. Looks like a fun read. Reply
Stahn Aileron - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkDo people seriously still do this? You think people would grow up and out of dumb habits eventually. Reply
Mumrik - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - linkYou'd think so, but GiantBomb even has an site achievement for getting first post (and not writing "first"). Reply
vol7ron - Friday, October 07, 2011 - linkBut shouldn't it be okay if you post w/in the minute of it listing? Or, if it is published at some ungodly hour, like 4:39AM Reply
orangpelupa - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkatleast he is polite and honest :D Reply
kevith - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkSome seems to believe this is another Facebook.... Reply
Aloonatic - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkAloonatic likes this *thumbs up* Reply
tipoo - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkBut by replying, we made the useless thread longer....So did this comment, but lets try not to in the future ;)
AT's comments do need some work though, edit button + downrank/hide option for comments like these would be miles improved by themselves. Reply
DigitalFreak - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkDie in a fire Reply
iamezza - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - linkFirst posts should be auto-deleted when containing the word 'first' ;) Reply
Dewend - Friday, March 04, 2016 - link
This can be undoubtedly an exceptionally complex subject, without using a clear answer. Lots of people will argue a proven way, and some will likely not. I do think you've narrowed it as a result of the bare minimum and have really summed it very nicely. It is actually definitely telling it love it is whenever there is a single thing the site does well! Kudos to you personally my mate. http://8ballhacks.com Reply
johan851 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkGreat article! I'm a little curious, though, as to why you prefer a drive to garbage collect in real time rather than cleaning up after the fact. While I think I sympathize with the idea of improving worst-case performance at the expense of the average, which essentially gives users a less bumpy ride, aren't most typical desktop usage scenarios full of idle disk time?
I like the emphasis on Anandtech on what actually matters in real world scenarios, but it seems that your complaint on this particular matter is very much the opposite. The typical desktop user isn't going to fill the drive with writes and then immediately demand super high performance - at least I can't think of a desktop usage situation that would exhibit that pattern. I work on my computer for a few hours and then it sits for a while. Given that the average user idles their disk constantly, doesn't cleaning up while idle provide higher average performance in the long run? Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkYou are correct, for mostly idle workloads it should work fine. The problem is with a mostly full drive, it's possible that during bursty periods of work the performance will degrade to the point that you'd notice it. Hopefully it'd correct overnight but if you sleep your machine then it prolongs the process.
I'd argue that most desktop workloads won't show the difference between 150MB/s and 100MB/s in 4KB random writes. I'd much rather have the latter and enjoy a more consistent user experience.
I do understand Samsung's argument that delaying garbage collection would seem to work for mostly idle scenarios, I just don't believe there's any downside to doing it the opposite way and only potential upside there.
Take care,
Anand Reply
johan851 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkFair enough. Thanks for the reply and another awesome SSD article. Reply
leexgx - Sunday, September 25, 2011 - linkbut even worst case its still 200x faster then an HDD do same work load, you not notice it unless your benchmarking it
did the disk have any stuttering issues when it was very badly degraded? (access time was reported as 0.1 in that test)
i did not see it but do you no longer do access time tests any more Reply
marraco - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkEven if the common user don't use it, is important to know.
And the drive is not just for the common user. Reply
Malih - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkWell, enthusiast gamers usually use SSD as game installation disk, and they would (mostly) play games right away after installing or downloading from Steam.
So 'on-write-garbage-collection' is preferable in this case. Reply
Beenthere - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkAs any number of owner reviews can attest the Samsung 470 was a nightmare of problems for many people concerning compatibility and in some cases reliability. The 830 looks to be a nice performance improvement but if the compatibility, garbage cleaning and installation/reliability issues haven't been resolved, these drives like the majority of current MLC based SSDs are simply not ready for Prime Time. Samsung's customer support appears non-existent. Consumers are being used as unpaid Beta testers IMO. Reply
kmmatney - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkI've had no problem with my Samsung 470 - I can attest that its a reliable drive. Reply
xype - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkI have a 470 that I installed in my 2009 MacBook Pro. Works like a charm, installation happened without problems, seems reliable (so far). *shrugs* Reply
jwilliams4200 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkHe wrote "any number" of reviews. Zero is a number. Reply
Out of Box Experience - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkCompatability?
As far as I am aware, Intel and Samsung were the only drives compatible with XP and every other OS out of the box
Am I wrong on this point?
I believe ALL other SSD's require Partition Alignment for compatability
It would be nice to get an update to see if ANY newer 6Gbps are compatible with every OS out of the box like the Samsung 470 and Intel drives
Is there a compatability list floating around somewhere Anand?
A Google Search turns up no reliability issues from anyone who actually knows what they are doing either
If you want to find hundreds of reliability or compatability issues, just visit the OCZ Forum or go read the Newegg reviews
or go sleep it off Reply
extide - Tuesday, October 04, 2011 - linkEVERY SSD should be 4KB aligned for best performance. Reply
Out of Box Experience - Wednesday, October 05, 2011 - linkIntel and Samsung SSD's do not require end user alignment
Only SSD's that do not have the offset in firmware require alignment Reply
kake - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkI like your mic. Reply
sequoia464 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkQuite a bit more juice running through them than the other drives - is this partly from the 256 mb cache? Reply
tipoo - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkEven the most power hungry SSD's don't require any additional cooling. It may look big on the graph, but that's still sucking way less power than most things in your system like the processor, graphics chip, etc. It just won't produce that much heat. Reply
sequoia464 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkThanks, Reason I asked is that My Toshiba based Kingstons seem to run (at least to the touch ) cooler than my both Intels and Vertex2's. (not that they are hot by any means, just warmer).
Probably the workload and usage that is at play here - now that I think about it. Reply
name99 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkDifferent people have different concerns.
Yes, if you install this in a desktop box power is not an issue.
If you install it in a laptop, the concern is probably not the thermal load but the maximum power draw. If your laptop is not specced to handle that, you'll find the machine crashing when you do a lot of back-to-back writes.
Same thing if you hoped to use it in a USB enclosure, whether USB2 or 3. Reply
Jaybus - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - linkProbably a combination of things. Certainly, the DRAM is much larger than what is used by the other drives. Also, notice that this 512 GB version is being compared to 256 GB drives, so right off the bat its flash is taking twice the power as those it is being compared with. This was mentioned in the article. Samsung has not yet supplied a 256 GB version for testing. So I doubt it is a controller issue. Probably just the fact that it has twice the flash. Reply
infini - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkI don't think Intel is the king of reliability with the 8mb problem of the 320 series. Beenthere can you provide a link with compatibility and reliability problems of Samsug drives? Reply
iamezza - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - linkproblem is everyone else has had more problems Reply
landerf - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkSpeaking of reliability, aren't those the old results on the M4? Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkThanks for the heads up, updated :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
beginner99 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link...anyone noticed? Though this one would be nice for like a x220 that only takes 7mm drives but with power consumption more than double of a crucial m4 especially at idle...basically kills it for mobile use. Reply
MrSpadge - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkYeah, it almost approaches 5400 rpm HDD idle levels..
MrS Reply
MrSpadge - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkUpdate: Storagereview.com measured idle power consumption of a 256 GB drive to be just 0.31 W, which is much better and just normal (or even good).
MrS Reply
name99 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkOnce again, for mobile the issue is not IDLE power use, it is PEAK power. If your system is not specced to handle that peak power, it will crash whenever there is a sequence of back-to-back writes. Reply
7Enigma - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkI think you're misinterpreting his comment. IDLE power matters for laptop users from a battery standpoint. Yes it's going to be a small % difference due to the large(r) draw of the screen, cpu, gpu, etc. but it does add up. We do understand your comment about crashes but I think the OP's comment is in reference to something that is going to ALWAYS be using more power than a competitor as being bad.
I do not know what burst power consumption is on mechanical HDD's but would imagine they are at or above what even the most power-hungry SSD consumes. This would be an interesting mini-article Anand! Reply
Obsoleet - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - linkBurst on SSDs tend to use more power than many HDDs. Reply
Alexo - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkSo what 7mm SSD would you recommend? Reply
Herp Derpson - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkAnand, it would be very interesting to read about hardware AES encryption in SSDs - how do you use it and how does it affects performance. Reply
juhatus - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkYeap, I heard that AES basicly kills all-compressing Sandforce's?
Maybe test with win7's bitlocker? Reply
Ryan Smith - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkOnly if you leave encryption up to the OS. With a SF SSD you should be leaving it up to the drive - AES encryption is basically free on those drives, they just run the cypher after dedupe and compression. Reply
zanon - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkThere are plenty of valid reasons though not to leave encryption up to the drive, ranging from a need for other features/management (like multiple factors) to just plain not trusting encryption where no source review or updates are available. Perhaps most importantly is the simple observation that it's probable that the vast majority of FDE users are using either software (Truecrypt/PGP or whatever) or OS level solutions.
Given that, I think it's a valid situation to consider, along with filesystem-level compression. Reply
docbones - Monday, October 10, 2011 - linkI would love to see a benchmark article on whole disk encryption across drive types. (especially interested in how does the seagate hybrids do) Reply
iwodo - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkwas it tested with new firmware? Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkThe initial graphs used the older fw but after realizing the mistake I updated the numbers to the latest FW0009 numbers, so yes :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
Beenthere - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkI'd be interested in a number of SSDs if they ever sort out the reliability and compatibility issues. I had hoped by now this would have happened but clearly it has not. This is like OJT for SSD makers I guess. Reply
soliozuz - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkIt's funny you mentioned that because I think you just jinxed both companies. it seems that Apple will no longer be relying on Samsung for it's Nand Flash and etc. Now the reasons as to why they would dump someone as reliable as Samsung is beyond me.
Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/45591-apple-decreasin...
In regards to the SSD, I must admit, as great of a thing they have done with this drive, I kind of was left expecting more. Samsung made a statement last year releasing a SATA II SSD especially with the kind of power consumption they had on it. I think that's key for future products. Reply
jwilliams4200 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkIf you read the source article (Digitimes), it is stated that Apple is apparently diversifying its suppliers from Samsung because of patent disputes with Samsung. Reply
piiman - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkMight have something to do with Apple's and Samsungs legal issues. They seem to be trying to kill each other at the moment and having your supply line coming from someone you are suing and being sued by, isn't a good idea. Has soon as those supply contracts are up Samsung may tell them to kiss their $%@# Reply
lyeoh - Sunday, September 25, 2011 - linkIt's probably less of "killing each other" and more of haggling and "poker" between the two.
By diversifying Apple can say to Samsung, "Go ahead, make my day". Reply
Havor - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkWit most SSDs the size realy matters, why not just format a drive in to different size partitions.
Format one partition to 120GB and fill the other 392GB partition up data so it cant be used for trim or any other optimizing benefits.
Because I am sick and tired of these firms sending big SSDs that dont represent real world use, as I will never buy a +$700 512GB drive, the sweets spot for most people is around 120/128GB.
I wane know how a 120/128GB drive preforms not a model that's way above my budget. Reply
akedia - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkPartitioning wouldn't affect the number of channels, which does affect performance quite a lot, so you'd end up with numbers that reflect no actual product at all. Reply
juhatus - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkWith Samsung's budget on these..
EMC is using Samsung drive's in their enterprise storage products (Clariion) and they are the same sata drive's, except different stamp.
If its good enough for the enterprise-class serious work than it sure is good enough for consumers.
When's the availability for consumers? Reply
jwcalla - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkIt seems that every SSD article I read on AnandTech ends with a plug for an Intel drive. I understand some of the logic there, but it's not like Intel has an unblemished reliability record. The 320 fiasco was just as bad as anything we saw with the Corsair or SandForce drives. And IMO the price premium of the Intel 510 weighs heavily against it in comparison to, say, the m4 or Samsung options. Reply
Fun Guy - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkAgreed - the reviews at New Egg show Crucial to be top dog, with Intel somewhere near the middle. Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkI can't take Newegg reviews seriously, though: "I bought this product with my own money, so now I have to praise it to avoid buyer's remorse." Sure, there are bad reviews and good reviews out there, but even taking the average review score at Newegg isn't as useful as a real review looking at benchmarks and comparing with other drives.
Crucial is one of the cheapest SSDs and still offers good performance, which is what most Newegg shoppers are after. Intel on the other hand charges a price premium, which is precisely what Newegg shoppers don't like. Outside of the 320 "fiasco" (which is something we warn about with every new SSD), Intel SSDs have proven very reliable over time, particularly compared with their contemporaries. The G1 no-TRIM thing was Intel being greedy, but G1 still worked quite well for the vast majority of users (even if it could get backed into a corner where performance would tank). G2 wasn't the fastest in its day, but it was fast enough and rarely gets into the poor performance realm.
Ultimately, if I'm putting my data on a device, I want it to be long-term reliable. So, I'm not buying any brand-new SSD or HDD. I let it stew for a couple months at least and then see if there are any issues cropping up. That gets you around things like SF-2200 issues, Intel 320, etc. Reply
Oxford Guy - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link"The G1 no-TRIM thing was Intel being greedy, but G1 still worked quite well for the vast majority of users (even if it could get backed into a corner where performance would tank)."
In other words, it was a reliability issue because the vendor could not be relied upon to do the right thing. Reply
elerick - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkAnand you used a Intel h67 in your test bed and I am currently run a 990FX chipset. Due to budget I'm looking for a good 120GB SSD(OS drive), what would you recommend? Also I cant wait if there is something around the corner. Reply
spudit88 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkGreat review- I've installed several of the 470 Series and they have been very reliable. I don't believe we have had issues with any of them. These are mostly going into corporate laptops, so the fastest SSD's are not always the best option. I've stuck mainly with Samsung or Intel for reliability reasons. We are just now starting to deploy more laptops with 6Gb/s interfaces, it's good to know there are more choices out there....particularly with a larger drive option of 512GB. Reply
know of fence - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkThe Sizes of these drives are multiples of 2, (64,128), does this imply that GB means the same as GB inside Windows, Gibibyte a.k.a 2^30 Byte or 1.073*10^9 Byte. Same as with RAM.
Or does "GB" refering to SSD Sizes actually mean something completely different than MB (per second) in Speed Benchmarks. Reply
know of fence - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkSorry, It's all explained. Still a bummer, though. Reply
buzznut - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkTwo years ago, Samsung seemed convinced the way of the future was hybrid drives that combined the best of both worlds-the capacity of a mechanical with the performance of an SSD. They had a lot of reliability problems with these drives, I expect that's why there aren't more of these drives on the market.
What I am wondering is has Samsung completely abandoned this idea? What about other manufacturers? Do you think that the cost of producing such drives makes it impractical?
Some of the average performing SSDs have come down to the $1/GB price point, which is seemingly the magic number for those folks still hanging on desperately to their mechanical drives. Now I hear these same folks complaining about reliability being the main issue keeping them from adopting new technology, and they aren't wrong.
I haven't had any issues with my SSDs, I find them to be extremely reliable and now I don't think I could go back for a system drive. Initially I had an X25 40GB, now a 128GB Vertex III. So the reliability of the Samsung drives is refreshing news and I sincerely hope the drives will be priced competitively because I'd really like to see them succeed with this.
I still think, if implemented properly, that there is a market for hybrid drives. Don't know that anyone is willing to risk that though. Reply
Evonick - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkI'm curious if anyone knows the actual time involved for idle time garbage collection, and whether that process is equivalent to TRIM? Anand mentions "overnight" in the review, but does itgc really take 8 hours? And when does it start? After 3 minutes of idle or 3 hours? And when the itgc is completed, how does the drive perform compared to a TRIMmed drive? Reply
FunBunny2 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link-- I've been working on an enterprise workload suite to figure that out...
In order for this to be "real", encrypted data input is required. The reason is that relational databases in Enterprise are increasingly configured with encryption. Reply
tpi2007 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkI Anand, congratulations for the review and the video review, both of which I enjoyed very much.
I was looking at the power consumption figures and was wondering if Samsung's higher numbers could have to do with their use of DDR2 for cache ? And by that I mean two things:
1. The fact that it's much bigger than Intel's for example should add to the power consumption, adding to the fact that they store user data, which probably means more data being written and read from all the time, increasing power consumption;
2. The fact that it's DDR2. Is it low power DDR2 or just normal 1.8v DDR2 ? That could explain the higher power consumption to a certain extent too. What if Samsung were to use low power 1.35 or even better, 1.25v DDR3L ?
Best regards,
tpi2007 Reply
FunBunny2 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkAlong similar lines: why is there not a power loss test in the suite? There appears to be no superCap on the board, yet the part uses "massive" amounts of DRAM with user data. This looks like a bleeding Achille's heel. Reply
enigma80 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkThis worried me too. 256MB of user data in a limbo?
It would be importante to test a power loss amid writing to the drive and check the data on the drive. Reply
Obsoleet - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - linkExcellent points. I'd like to hear an answer to this.
The more I read, the more I feel Intel is the way to go.. even vs this Samsung and M4s. Reply
name99 - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link5.8W maximum power draw! Ouch.
Let's note, for the record, that that means it simply won't work in a USB2 enclosure, and it work work in a USB3 enclosure (4.5W) without a Y-cable.
WTF causes this? If a magnetic hard drive can spin up on USB2 power (2.5W) I remain amazed that SSDs demand so much power when writing. Reply
Jaybus - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - linkThe same thing that causes every transistor based device to consume power, resistivity and capacitance of the materials through which current flows. Resistance produces a loss of energy in the form of heat. Capacitance limits the rise time of the transistors, causing the duty cycle to increase as a function of frequency. Reply
Obsoleet - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - linkIt's the multichannel read/writes. Takes a ton of energy even vs spinning up a portable drive like my WD Passport USB3.0 1TB. Reply
Idontcare - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - linkLoved the video too!
I appreciated you candidly sharing your thoughts regarding the two schools of thought on garbage collections (real-time on-the-fly versus delayed-till-idle) :)
Brought to mind the spindle-days of setting up defrag to run during idle times versus real-time defragging that came out right before we stopped needing to defrag altogether :P Reply
ClagMaster - Sunday, September 25, 2011 - linkFor most enthusiasts obscessed with performance with money to burn, they seem to care mostly about either bandwidth or cost. They upgrade frequently and seem not to care about longterm value.
For the vast majority of mainstream users, who use there computers for creating products and services of lasting (and repeatable) value, ... in short long term value. Mainstream users care the most about reliability, good support, good performance, capacity and then cost.
Thank you for your qualitative comments about the reliability of the SSDs from Samsung (and their rebranders) and its good reputation with Apple and other OEMs for their reliability. I care much more about reliability than I do some of the mind-numbing comparisons that are shown of bandwidth differences spanning about 15% from good to poor. I would rather take a 15% hit in performance from the latest and greatest Vertex III and enjoy 5 years of trouble free operation.
The two most reliable brands of SSD out there is Intel and Samsung according to Anand. Although Intel is more pricy, they offer better firmware and utility support. Like their branded motherboards (which enthusiasts mock for their conventionality but respect for their reliability), I believe Intel does active testing of their SSD's for reliability and longetivity and provides firmware support to make sure that happens. All of its other competitors do not. That is why I now have a 120 GB 510 Series on my PC.
Clearly Samsung and Intel SSD are going to be the choice for business applications. Reply
Fun Guy - Monday, September 26, 2011 - link"According to Anand...." Is Anand God?
Nothing against the guy, but he's just a guy, and he earns money off of this site. No telling how that sways his views (consciously, or unconsciously).
I'll take the aggregate reviews over at New Egg, over any single website operator any day of the week. Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkI'd personally take Google and other aggregations of data over Newegg reviews. Reply
Jaybus - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - linkI wouldn't. Disgruntled consumers are far more likely to review than satisfied consumers. Also, NewEgg doesn't post how many items have been sold. It is impossible to determine whether the number of one egg reviews is statistically relevant without knowing how many were purchased. Reply
tzhu07 - Friday, December 02, 2011 - linkYup, this is true. Not to mention the tons of people at Newegg that 1-star products over issues that don't have anything to do with the product itself. For example, not getting rebates. Reply
ClagMaster - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - linkAnand is not God.
Anand is an IT professional who operates a hardware review site that I enjoy patronizing for nearly 10 years.
I respect Anand's opinions. And yes, there are some instances where I felt his opinions might have been swayed. But overall, his opinions have stood the tests of time.
I simply appreaciate Anands comments on reliability -- singling out Intel and Samsung drives for a good reputation for reliability and support (Intel).
I think Intel works very hard making sure their motherboards, peripherals and SSD's are reliabile. Intel has a facility in Oregon where they extensively test their motherboards. I am impressed because no other motherboard vendor does this. Reply
iq100 - Sunday, September 25, 2011 - linkGreat review, great quality video and sound, BUT please try and speak much slower.
If one knows the material ahead of time, your pace is fine, BUT please remember that your audience is supposed to be those who do NOT know the material. 'Pause' is a sound! Practice making a 'pause' sound between syllables. Your articulation is good, but you leave out the intra syllable pause sound! Reply
Ramon Zarat - Sunday, September 25, 2011 - linkNice article, but It would be **very** useful to state firmware version of each SSD tested.
For instance, the latest 0009 firmware for the M4 series provide an astonishing speed boost of around 20% depending on the condition. It's been available since Agust 25, so I assume the current test was done with M4 firmware version 0009, right?
Information of that significance, we absolutely need to know before drawing any conclusions. Reply
Fun Guy - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkAgreed, that is a HUGE oversight, lending the credibility of the reviews as suspect. If they can't even collect firmware information, what else are they missing? I've read at least two mistakes made and corrected already in this review, with no mention of the updates in the beginning of the thread. Very sloppy. Reply
anandtech pirate - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkhey, why doesn't my login & password work in the forums? & when i go to create another account with my username, anandtechpirate, it says its already taken. Reply
tommythorn - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkWhile I generally find Anandtech's SSD reviews to be amongst the best out there, I
wish you would give less value to compression/dedup as any who uses drive encryption
(transparently available on Mac OS X Lion for example) will not benefit at all. Notably,
this _also_ applies to 4 KB random reads/writes, not just streaming workloads. Reply
thornburg - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkThanks for the review, Anand.
Can you tell us whether this drive supports TRIM in OS X?
I've heard that the Apple-supplied SSDs finally do support TRIM in the newer versions of the OS. I wondered if maybe this drive (and/or the 470) are supported, since Apple sometimes uses Samsung SSDs.
Thanks. Reply
NCM - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkYou can enable TRIM for non-Apple supplied SSDs in Mac OS X using the free TRIM Enabler, see <http://www.groths.org/?page_id=322>. Reply
Loremonger - Monday, September 26, 2011 - linkI like the video review and "putting a face" on the article. It would be nice in the future to show hands-on footage of the item being reviewed, as well as benchmarking setups and results. I think it would be quite interesting for your readers to see the testing process (heavily edited, of course; I know this stuff takes a long time).
As usual, thank you for a thorough and insightful review. Reply
mino - Monday, September 26, 2011 - link476GiB * 1.0737 (GiB->GB) == 512.0 GB
The published TABLE thus DECLARES NO SPARE SPACE present !
I am sure that is not the case, so the table obviously needs fixing ... Reply
Shazbud - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - linkI am seeing what appears to be a serious inconsistency in the article:
The article states (early on): "Samsung SSDs were among the first I reviewed and while they weren't anywhere near the fastest back then, every last one of those drives is still working without issue in my lab today."
In closing the comment "From a drive that I simply wouldn't recommend...." then really confuses me - why would you not recommend this drive? Speed seems to have been the only downside, but that appears to have been traded off for reliability. Reply
ruzveh - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - linkhey anand, where are the other tests dude? Where is the boot time test, application open time, app loading time, etc.??? Reply
abufrejoval - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - linkThis gap between ZEUS and FusionIO, SLC and embedded SAN SSDs on one end and those consumer SSDs on the other end has been narrowing, but it's incredible to see just how much vendors from all over the place fight to keep it from closing.
I got enterprise workloads, which aren't all that high, very predictible, with highs and lows in line with typical OLTP front-end shopping patterns as well as some end-of-day processing.
The crux is the need for ultra high availability (or extremely short outages) and KISS answers that better than investing into premium SANs.
I want directly attached SSDs there, preferably in 2.5" form factor and in RAIDs for better capacity management and non-stop replacements.
20,ooo IOPS should do just fine, the real key is reliability and easy non-stop management. Daily overwrite is well below capacity so consumer SSDs should be fine. And I wouldn't mind replacing them after two years, if they'll reliably advise me of their imminent death weeks ahead.
I tried being clever and put Crucial m3 and OCZ Vertex 2 in a mirror set with an SSD aware LSI SAS RAID controller, to offset the risk of immature firmware/controller issues (the original plan was to use a SAN/SSD mirror, but resilvering would be too expensive). That didn't work out too well, because of these garbage collection issues (m3 drives were failed by the RAID controller, just because they took a little longer than their OCZ counterparts).
Of course we used synthetic tests first, "fio" to be exact and that just keeps those drives busy, busy, busy, quite beyond what actual workloads are likely to be. And in those cases the difference in garbage collection strategy caused real clashes, because the Crucial m3 took a finally took a long break when it had exhausted it's free space, while the OCZ stayed ready always, doing garbage collection on each and every write.
In real life, we might never see that problem, because actual IOPS during early mornings (after the day-end processing) might drop below the "magic" threshold" which allows those Crucials to do their garbage collection, but who knows what would happing during Christmas shopping season, when those unknown thresholds might just be exceeded a wee bit...
SSDs are not magnetic hard disks: They contain operating systems that need to be tuned just like your typical Oracle database. What's missing is interfaces which allow to read and set these well defined and published parameters in line with the use case you requrie.
In purely technological terms that should be easy enough. But every vendor, from database, via OS and SSD will want his cut for this reliability and speed, which is why this may not happen for another couple of years.
If only Samsung could make this strategy decision (early or late garbage collection) a user defined setting without price differentiation (enterprise vs. consumer) I'd be so happy!
Why do I think it won't happen? Reply
gixxer - Monday, October 10, 2011 - linkDoes anyone have a more concrete release date than "october"? I am starting a new build and if this gets released soo, it will definitly be a contender. Reply
DanSmith - Tuesday, December 06, 2011 - linkHi Anand / All,
Wonder if you if could shed any light on this drive supporting AES encryption using the "ATA password" BIOS options. Its been months now and this drive is on the market and there is sooo much conflicting info on the web about this drive supporting AES.
Even samsung themselves can give me a straight answer!!
Anyone who has one of these that can shed any light??
Cheers, Daniel Reply
valhar2000 - Monday, December 26, 2011 - linkWhat's a TRIM pass? Do you have to run some sort of procedure every now and then to apply TRIM to an SSD? Isn't TRIM supposed to work in real time as files are deleted or moved? Reply
kazumoda - Wednesday, February 08, 2012 - linkI've been searching for a place to buy this Samsung PM830 but all I can find is the AM830. Can someone tell me if this is essentially the same thing or is it a vastly different product in terms of performance and reliability? Thanks. Is there any update on the performance of a smaller drive, in particular how does the 256gb version fare in terms of performance to the 512? Reply
datalaforge - Monday, February 27, 2012 - linkI recently installed one of these into my 2.26GHZ Unibody MBP. Its great with its 10 second boots and so on. The battery life is not great though. I think that it was better before. Is there anything that can be done? Reply
BRKHD1 - Sunday, September 30, 2012 - linkgreat review I love your site! I recently did a speed test of the samsung 830 on my youtube channel you can check it out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZJ-pPeE5lA Thanks again! Reply
BRKHD1 - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - linkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZJ-pPeE5lA&fea... Reply


text:
Interview with AMD's Fred Weber - The Future of AMD Microprocessorsby Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/31/2005 12:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- CPUs
35 Comments
Back to Article
ceefka - Sunday, April 03, 2005 - linkI assume this wafer and die stacking will also be used for increasing the GB's per RAM-stick. What else when 64-bit OSs and apps have become the standard? Is there any word from memory manufacturers on that? Reply
Athlex - Saturday, April 02, 2005 - linkAMD seems to be missing the point of pitting Turion against Centrino. Intel's Centrino package requires a P-M, Intel chipset, and Intel wireless. Since most people don't know the diff between P-M and Centrino it's a brilliant way for Intel to move more silicon.
Also confusing why AMD is using the same packaging for Turion CPUs as they do for normal A64 CPUs. The lowest-power XP-Ms use the smaller socket 563 (Sharp and Averatec systems for example). AMD already has a spec for a smaller 'socket 638' A64, seems like that should be the thin and light version.. C'mon AMD, let's see a real thin and light K8 notebook! Reply
suryad - Friday, April 01, 2005 - linkI agree...I cant wait for a dual core FX proc with each core clocked @ 3 GHz...think what a monster system that would be...yikes!! Reply
ceefka - Friday, April 01, 2005 - link#23 What exactly is ILP/TLP ?
ILP Instruction Level Parallism
TLP Thread Level Parallism
It is explained in one of the CPU articles here on AT.
Happy surfing. Reply
BlvdKing - Friday, April 01, 2005 - link#26 - I would be torn between an IBM notebook and Turion too. IBM notebooks are amazing - full of features and so durable. Reply
cryptonomicon - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkincredibly interesting article by anand.
it seems like this is the kind of stuff you can only find at anantech.. the info is so in depth right from the source. Reply
Regs - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkThank's Anand. With all this Intel news running about, it's good to see AMD isn't just planning to be a bench warmer. Reply
Xunilla - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - link#25 -- I agree, that is making a generalization that doesn't necessarily apply across the board. Reply
Xunilla - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkReply
phaxmohdem - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkI really want to see what kind of Turion notebooks spring forth. It will take a lot though to change my decision on the IBM T42 as my next notebook though. Reply
stephenbrooks - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkI'm a bit confused by the terminology in places. Doesn't ILP mean "Instruction-Level Parallelism", i.e. that applies to distributing instructions between different execution units, and perhaps other tricks like out-of-order execution, branch prediction etc. But it certainly does NOT include "frequency", as seems to be implied by the first page! Unless it means that the longer pipeline will be interpreted as more parallelism (which is true). But that's not the only way to increase clock speed... a lot comes from the process technology itself. Reply
MrEMan - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkI just realized that the link to "IDF Spring 2005 - Predicting Future CPU Architecture Trends" requires that you go to the next page, and not the one the link points to, and it is there where ILP/TLP is explained. Reply
MrEMan - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkWhat exactly is ILP/TLP ? Reply
sphinx - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - link#12 PeteRoy
I would have to agree with you. Reply
Son of a N00b - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkGreat article Anand! I feel better informed and this was something that filled up my little spot of curiosity I had saved for the future of processors.
It seems as if AMD will continue to keep up the great work. I will be a customer for a long time. Reply
hectorsm - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkblckgrffn I did not see your post until now. Your explanation seem to make a lot of sense. I guess is now a matter of opinion to how much is "30%" worth in terms of heat and transistor.
thanks. Reply
hectorsm - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkThanks Filibuster. The article confirms the up to 30% gain in processing power under certain multithreaded scenarios. But I am still confused to why this is a waste of resources specially when HT was design for multiple thread use.
blckgrffn - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkThe point of hyperthreading being a waste of resources is that it costs A LOT to put features like that into hardware, and the die space and tranistors used to do HT could probably have been used in better way to create a more consistent performance gain, or could have been left out all together, reducing the complexity, size, power use/heat output of the processor and putting a little bit more profit per chip sold at the same price into Intels pocket. That is why it is a misuse of resources.
Nat Reply
BLHealthy4life - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkJust release the FX57 already... Reply
hectorsm - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - link"not sure what you mean by "processing efficiency". all HT does is virtually separate the processor into two threads. maybe I'm missing something, but I can't figure out why everyone associates HT with performance gain. "
There are supposedly fewer misprediction in the pipeline since there are two threads sharing the same pipes. Even when the total processing power is cut in halth, the sum of the two appears to be greater with HT. It has been reported up to 30% increase in total output when running two intances of folding@home and HT.
So I am still wondering why Fred is calling it a "misuse of resources". Maybe he knows something we don't. It would be interesting to know more about this. Maybe someone at AnandTech get get a clarification from Fred? Reply
Filibuster - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - link...but...its HYPER!
#11 it can also decrease performance by 10-50% depending on the application. Clearly it matters what you're doing with your PC.
I think Fred is talking about the inconsistant gains/losses. Its not the best way to spend transistors. Reply
fitten - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - link#13, HT is kind of like hardware allowing context switching at instruction speed levels. Tyipcally, a thread that stalls on IO (like a hard drive) or something gets swapped out and another thread runs until the IO request completes. However, if a thread just can't use a cache well (streaming data, for example) all of those stalls due to memory loads just cause the CPU to sit and wait. These stalls are on the order of 10s of clock cycles. Other IO is on the order of 1000s of clock cycles (or more). A context switch is on the order of 100s of clock cycles. Obviously, you don't want to swap threads just because of a L2 cache miss. However, HT allows two thread contexts to be loaded so that when one thread stalls on a L2 cache miss, for example, the other thread can execute instructions with no delay. It's like shuffling cards. Basically, it allows the CPU to execute two contexts on the granularity of a clock cycle or two rather than on 100s of clock cycles.
So, as an example, the worst case for a thread is that every piece of data it wants will generate an L2 cache miss. On a non-HT processor, this means that this thread will not be swapped out until its scheduling quantum is met. But, during that time, the CPU will in effect be idle for probably 90% of the time due to all the cache misses. Since the thread won't be swapped out, your CPU will effectively be used for only 10% of the time during that quantum, then the next thread is allowed to run. With HT, both threads are loaded and those 90% of the cycles that the "bad" thread would waste can actually be used by the other thread. Reply
xtknight - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - link#11-not sure what you mean by "processing efficiency". all HT does is virtually separate the processor into two threads. maybe I'm missing something, but I can't figure out why everyone associates HT with performance gain. Reply
PeteRoy - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkThe future of processors is Software that make use of them. Reply
hectorsm - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkDoes anyone know why Fred thinks that HT is a misuse of resources?
Doesn't HT increase processing efficiency by 10-30%?
Sounds to me like he got it backward. Reply
xsilver - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkCould it be that possibly the reason for the slowdown in clock increases is not due to AMD/Intel R&D but rather software companies that are not keeping up.... As far back as I can remember many programs were able to utilize the new speed increases effectivly whereas now, a budget "3000" cpu is already kinda overkill for many office apps....
gaming is the only arena where the software is pushing the hardware (maybe video editing too but that market is much smaller?)
there needs to be more innovation on the software front to utilize the added hardware benefits... is a positive reinforncement routine....
If there was that push, I have no doubt that the speed increases would happen at a much better rate Reply
Calin - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkAn architecture with several cores, with one more powerful than the others, requests the programmer to tell to each thread what kind of performance it needs. While this could be accepted by console developers (that work very close to the hardware layers), you can say bye bye to easy porting to that platform.
while the performance increase can be substantial, the trade off is very specific code even at the highest level Reply
Jeff7181 - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkComment WAS mad on HT...
"Fred's response to this question was thankfully straight forward; he isn't a fan of Intel's Hyper Threading in the sense that the entire pipeline is shared between multiple threads, in Fred's words 'it's a misuse of resources.'" Reply
Zebo - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkWish some comment was made on HT, intel only real saving grace for last couple years. Guess with DC it becomes a non-issue though at that point.
Hehe nice to see CPU world going full circle... AMD copied Intel like nobodies biz now it's the other way around. Props to AMD for innovating dispite thier punny size.. they definity should be rewarded by sales. I know I made the right choice with A64, the latency he mentions you can feel all the time, hard to "benchmark" it other than system just feels snappy compared to any other CPU I've used to including a P4C oC'ed to 3.4, A-XP OCed to 2.7, and IBM chips from apple at 2.5. Reply
bupkus - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkReduced processor complexity is a step neither manufacturer is willing to take.
Neither manufacturer appears willing to reduce processor complexity. Reply
bersl2 - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - link#1: Thank you for the paralepsis. Reply
Googer - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkI have set up the OFFICIAL SOVIET RUSSIA thread in the forums section, so we can keep this garbage out of the news section.
Let the bad humor fly here:
oupei - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkshould be:
"it's clear that sacrificing hardware complexity isn't a sacrifice that EITHER amd OR intel are (IS?) willing make"
"it's clear that sacrificing hardware complexity IS a sacrifice that neither amd nor intel are (IS?) willing make"
or how about just writing a sentence that is easier to understand... Reply
ksherman - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - link"It's clear that sacrificing hardware complexity isn't a sacrifice that neither AMD nor Intel are willing to make..."
Or not so clear... what exactly does this mean? Reply
Bonesdad - Thursday, March 31, 2005 - linkI was going to say "first post" but i won't Reply

subset: commoncrawl


text:
You can search by office holder, candidate or position to find out who's running for which city position or to represent New York City in the Legislature.
The Board of Elections' Polling Site Finder can help you find your US Congressional district, State Senate and Assembly districts, City Council and Civil Court districts.
This project is a work in process and will be updated regularly between now and the November 3, 2009 city elections. Are we missing a candidate? Please email us at info (at) GothamGazette.com.
Developed and produced by Amanda B. Hickman and Courtney Gross. Design by Ya-Hsuan Huang. Research by Lillie Binder, Lenore Costello and Mia Goldberg.


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(US) A Springtime Celebration With Early Music Song And Dance (Harmonia Early Music radio recording) (2011 March 29)
In temperate regions, there is no more highly-anticipated season of the year than spring. After many long and dreary winter months, spring brings relief in the form of warmer weather, more sun, a welcoming outdoors, and the flowering of trees and other vegetation. Spring can be seen, heard, and felt.
(US) Longy Summer Programs: International Baroque Institute at Longy (IBIL) (2011 July 22-31)
The International Baroque Institute at Longy offers a comprehensive program taught by an unparalleled international faculty. The program features eight full days of master classes, ensembles, orchestra sessions, concerts, lectures and continuo coaching.
(US) Longy School of Music Summer Programs
Summer Workshops
- Weekend Chamber Extravaganza! (2011 June 17-19)
- Voice (2011 June 21-July 14)
- Longy Summer Early Dance Workshop (2011 July 24 -30)
(US) Michel Blavet and Friends -- Gems of the French Baroque (Bacchanalia Baroque Ensemble Concert) (2011 April 28)
(US) Fourth Annual Clarion Collegium Week (CCW) (2011 May 11-16)
to Focus on Works of Handel
Educational Week with Free Admission to Baroque Performance Master Classes
From May 11th to May 16th, 2011, the Clarion Society will present its fourth annual Clarion Collegium Week (CCW) of master classes for gifted young musicians. Launched in 2008 in partnership with the New York Collegium, CCW assembles advanced music students and young professional musicians from around the country to be educated together in historical performance practice by some of the world's most respected Early Music specialists.
(FR) Orpheon Courses for Early Music
May we invite you to join us for some very stimulating courses in Early Music in some of the most spectacular settings one can imagine? These courses, geared for professional and amateur alike, offer a pedagogically well balanced program of technique classes, master classes and ensemble playing.
(BE) Séminaire International de Musique Ancienne en Wallonie (SIMAW) (2011 July 4-9)
The international seminar of early music in Wallonie offers musicians the possibility of deepening all facets of their musical skills.
(US) SFEMS 2011 Summer Early Music Workshops (2011 June 19 - July 23)
(US) Port Townsend Early Music Workshop (2011 July 10-16)
(FR) 28th Festival PRINTEMPS DES ARTS de Nantes et du grand Ouest (2011 June 13-15)
(FR) Rencontres internationales de l' Abbaye de Vignogoul (2011 July 22-31)
(US) Chorus America 2011 Conference: Choral-Orchestral Masterclass with Jeffrey Thomas (American Bach Soloists)
Conference delegates are invited to observe three selected Chorus America Conducting Fellows as they are coached by American Bach Soloists' artistic and music director Jeffrey Thomas.
(US) Early Music America Conference: Focus on the Future of Early Music (2011 June 15-17)
(IT) Salvatore Carchiolo -- New Title from LIM EDITRICE SRL
Salvatore Carchiolo
A wonderful harmony of perfection
Practice of Italian organ-harpsichord continuo origins in the early eighteenth century
The book offers a rational framework of documentary material relating to the practice of the basso continuo in Italy, from its origins to the early eighteenth century.
(US) Spring 2011 issue of Early Music America Magazine
(US) 2012 Dena Epstein Award (Music Library Association) (Deadline 2011 July 1)
(US) Still Dangerous After 181 Years?
(FR) Musical Institutions at Versailles from Louis XIV to Louis XVI
An examination of musical institutions at Versailles from Louis XIV to Louis XVI.
"… Music is mainly the "Musique de la Chapelle","Musique de la Chambre" and the Grande Ecurie, divisions of the Chapelle, the Chambre and the Ecurie. Each of these musical departments tasks are theoretically different but it is not uncommon for musicians from one are required to complete the complement of another. We will briefly examine each of these groups. …"
(US) Clarion Society Performs Handel's Judas Maccabeus (2011 May 17)
(CA) Lute Workshop West (2011, August 1-5)
In cooperation with the Lute Society of America, Inc.
The Lute Society of America is pleased to return to the West Coast, and co-present this Workshop with Early Music Vancouver.
(US) Retrospective: Early Music America Competition Winners, part 1 and part 2 -- Harmonia Mundi Early Music
(BE) New Books from Brepols Publishers
The focus of its publications lies in "source-works" from Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. By this is meant critical editions of original texts and documents in their original language, reference works such as encyclopaedias, handbooks and bibliographies, as well as monograph studies and cutting-edge research.
(FR) "Famille Bach" et "Méditerranée sacrée" (LE Choeur de Chambre Les Éléments) -- Concerts (2011 April 21 and 22)
La famille BACH, Les Motets
Le Choeur de Chambre Les Éléments and Ensemble Jacques Moderne – Joel Suhubiette, conductor
Culmination of the double chorus repertoire from the Baroque period, the Motets of JS Bach is a work of confounding richness, virtuosity and beauty .
Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 21h, Odyssud, Blagnac
(IT) Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 2008-2010
Reminder that the Italian Journal of Musicology has a new publisher, the Italian Music Library ( LIM ). The current version is larger than usual as it consolidates the 2008-2010 journal articles. The journal is available to members of the SIdM (Società Italiana di Musicologia).
(FR) "Miserere a dùo" and "El Diablo mudo - Escena del auto sacramental" José de Nebra (1751) -- Les Passions (2011 May 22)
Spanish Baroque Music: José de Nebra (1672-1748 )
Eglise Saint-Aubin de Toulouse
Specializing in the restoration and the rediscovery of the major works of the Spanish Eighteenth century, Los Musicos de su Alteza present this enigmatic work which the composition date is unknown.
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text:
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Obama argues with himself on almost every page of this lively autobiographical conversation. He gets you to agree with him, and then he brings in a counternarrative that seems just as convincing. Son of a white American mother and of a black Kenyan father whom he never knew, Obama grew up mainly in Hawaii. After college, he worked for three years as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side. Then, finally, he went to Kenya, to find the world of his dead father, his "authentic" self. Will the truth set you free, Obama asks? Or will it disappoint? Both, it seems. His search for himself as a black American is rooted in the particulars of his daily life; it also reads like a wry commentary about all of us. He dismisses stereotypes of the "tragic mulatto" and then shows how much we are all caught between messy contradictions and disparate communities. He discovers that Kenya has 400 different tribes, each of them with stereotypes of the others. Obama is candid about racism and poverty and corruption, in Chicago and in Kenya. Yet he does find community and authenticity, not in any romantic cliche{'}, but with "honest, decent men and women who have attainable ambitions and the determination to see them through."


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NellyMember Since 20 Feb 2012
Offline Last Active Jul 25 2014 08:53 AM
Dear Tom, I just got a message from TRJ letting me know about your question. No, I was not in Toronto at the OOAK. I am a university teacher and do my pots as a hobby. Someday??... Updated 31 Mar · 0 comments


text:
As SFR went to press, the US Senate was on track to vote—and pass—a bill to reform health care. Back in New Mexico, state Sen. William Sharer, R-San Juan, was stewing—and not about the dismaying collapse of the Democrats' Medicare buy-in proposal, either.
"What's going on in Washington now is exactly what we fought a revolution over," Sharer says. "You're taking away liberty."
Sharer's is the classic libertarian argument against government-run health care—but he recognizes, laughingly, that in New Mexico, he's in the minority. From a long-winded public debate to a steadily worsening local situation, health care reform became the issue of the year, and the "public option"—which four of New Mexico's five congressional delegates support—its ubiquitous catchphrase.
In New Mexico, despite brief national hysteria about "death panels" and widespread local confusion about what health care reform actually means, reform has started to sound like the only way out of a very broken health care system. One in four New Mexicans are currently uninsured, the second highest percentage in the country. Even before the economy imploded, the percentage of uninsured workers in New Mexico hovered almost 10 percentage points above the national average; once the recession hit, local businesses scrambled to offer coverage without bankrupting themselves.
"Without reform, New Mexico will experience the largest increase in insurance premiums of any state in the country," US Sen. Tom Udall, D-NM, tells SFR. "The status quo is not an option for New Mexico."
The status quo is in part a function of the state's budget problems. In February, Gov. Bill Richardson signed a bill to cut $27 million from Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program in anticipation of federal money; after the special legislative session in October, Richardson approved additional (albeit limited) Medicaid cuts.
Udall says the federal bills—the House bill passed Nov. 7, with the support of Democratic US Reps. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján; the Senate bill had not passed as of press time—provide federal money to cover the entirety of the expanded Medicaid program, eliminating the effect of state budget problems on health care. Also, Udall says, the bill has provisions to keep insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or long-term illnesses.
Some of the less-publicized aspects of the House bill also are of particular import to New Mexico, according to Dick Mason, the legislative committee chairman for Health Action New Mexico, an advocacy group that favors the public option.
"One of the things that was underplayed is the extraordinary benefits in these plans for rural areas," Mason says. He's talking about loan forgiveness for doctors who practice in rural areas, support for rural community health centers and the reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.
"I think if people realize these insurance reform initiatives, they'll be welcomed and applauded," Udall says.
Udall, along with the rest of the New Mexico delegation, takes contributions from the health care industry, and the sweeping reforms he advocates will not only take years to implement, but will also have their own kinks.
But to Mason, almost any reform is good reform. "New Mexico's going to benefit considerably—probably disproportionately positively—on health care reform," he says. "We are paying a very large price for our uninsured." Thousands of dollars out of every health insurance policy, he says, go to funding uncompensated care.
Currently, Mason is assembling a working group to hammer out the local aspects of health care reform. He says he's not worried about challenges from the likes of Sharer, who plans to reintroduce his 2009 joint resolution that calls for a ban on government-mandated health insurance.
"That isn't going to go anywhere in New Mexico," Mason says. "I'm not concerned about that."
Not that he's completely blasé.
"I've been working on federal health care reform since 1991," Mason says. "This is like my Super Bowl. In 1993, 1994, we thought it was going to happen; this issue was first raised by Theodore Roosevelt over 100 years ago." He pauses.
"I'm very excited," he adds. "And worried"—and then he laughs. He's reluctant to jinx it, but if the Senate does pass the bill on Christmas Eve, this year just might bring real reform.


text: NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- Thousands upon thousands of homeowners are trimming their mortgage payments by refinancing to today's rock-bottom rates, but about a third of them are still missing out on the best possible deal. That's the finding of a survey by LendingTree that found that too many borrowers replace their old loans with ones that add years of payments. "Only one-third of homeowners who have refinanced their existing mortgage in the last three years realized the benefits of a shorter-term home loan," LendingTree said of its survey results. In other words, a borrower five years into a 30-year mortgage takes out a new 30-year loan, adding five years of payments. Because the new loan typically carries a lower interest rate, the borrower's monthly payment goes down. But some of that saving is offset by the extra years of payments. About 69% of homeowners who refinanced last year took out 30-year loans, meaning they took on years of extra payments. To save the most, the new loan should have a term ending at the same time as the old one, or earlier. Taking out a 25-year loan instead of a 30-year loan does mean shouldering a slightly higher monthly payment. But the extra amount is principal, which pays down the debt. Because the debt on the loan with the shorter term gets smaller faster, the interest charges on the remaining balance get smaller faster. The snowballing effect can produce considerable savings in interest charges. Imagine a homeowner who took out a 30-year loan for $300,000 at the average rate of 6.25%. Today, that borrower could get a new 30-year loan on the remaining $280,012 debt for only about 3.5%, cutting the payment to $1,257 from $1,847. The alternative: take out a 25-year loan at 3.5%. The new payment would be slightly higher -- $1,402 -- but total interest costs over 25 years would be $140,530 instead of $172,644. Why don't more borrowers grab this extra saving? After all, even though the payment on a 25-year loan is higher than on the 30-year deal, it's still far less than the borrower paid on the old loan, so it should be affordable. Some borrowers probably figure they won't keep the loan long enough to enjoy all these savings. Others undoubtedly focus on getting the lowest monthly payment they can. LendingTree found that the typical borrower who refinanced reduced the interest payment by two percentage points, producing substantial savings. So for many the saving from refinancing is so big they don't see the need to reach for a bit more that will take years to materialize. Still, it's worth running the numbers to see what you can save with a shorter loan term. Aside from reducing the number of years of payments, the shorter term often gets the borrower a lower rate as well. Fifteen-year loans, for instance, now average just under 3%, a half-point less than the 30-year deal.