Samsung 850 EVO SSD Reviews: the first TLC V-NAND SSD

[sonofsanta]

Reviews are out, though there's no pricing* this side of the Atlantic yet.

 

AnandTech | Samsung SSD 850 EVO (120GB, 250GB, 500GB & 1TB) Review

Samsung's 850 EVO solid-state drive reviewed - The Tech Report - Page 1

 

In summary: very fast (94k-98k read IOPS), very consistent, 5 year warranty and highly rated for endurance (75TB/150TB depending on model). The 40nm V-NAND mitigates all the issues of TLC, in essence.

 

It all depends on how the pricing lands compared to the Crucial MX100, as far as I'm concerned, but it certainly looks an excellent drive. And look how small it is! So much empty space in its case (250GB on the left, 1TB on the right):

 

*scan.co.uk have some prices up but they seem fairly high, and they're the only site listing them, so I suspect they've taken a cautious stab in the dark with pricing. I hope so, otherwise you can get a 256GB MX100 for the price of the 120GB 850 EVO, which will never work.

[Ephelyon]

Just bought the 840 for my iMac.

[featured_spectre]

Just bought the 840 for my iMac.

 

I wouldn't worry, they're not due for release until 2nd quarter next year.

[sonofsanta]

Just bought the 840 for my iMac.

 

AnySSD > NoSSD. The 840 EVO is still a mighty fine piece of kit, and cheaper than the 850 EVO will be for a while yet. Unless you particularly needed the endurance, you're fine, and if you did, you wouldn't have bought a TLC drive in the first place

[Ephelyon]

This is all very true

[Dos_Box]

I am beginning to wonder when they will standardise a smaller drive casing format as SSD's begin to replace traditional HD's.

Admittedly, keeping the 2.5" format would be handy to allow for future, higher capacity drives. Interesting times.

[featured_spectre]

I think they'll be sticking with 3.5 until SSD becomes the norm. However when it comes to SAS drives etc, thats where the fun will start as they require faster read/write speeds in general compared to normal HDDs. So if they can make an SSD with the equivalent SAS style boost to speed and longevity, then yes, 2.5 will become the norm.

[Domino]

But how will you erase it? surely a TLC SSD don't want no scrubs...

 

[Arthur]

I am beginning to wonder when they will standardise a smaller drive casing format as SSDs begin to replace traditional HDDs.

mSATA and M.2 SSDs are both smaller in size than regular 2.5" SSDs. Why bother with the casing at all? It's redundant.

 

I reckon manufacturers will start using M.2 (PCIe) SSDs in more devices since SATA 6Gb/s SSDs are also bottlenecked by the interface and AHCI is inefficient too.

 

 

I think they'll be sticking with 2.5" until SSD becomes the norm.

SSDs should hopefully become the norm next year or the year after apparently. The sooner the better IMO!

 

if they can make an SSD with the equivalent SAS style boost to speed and longevity, then yes, 2.5 will become the norm.

SSDs are already faster than SAS HDDs and longevity in enterprise SSDs isn't an issue either.

[Arthur]

scan.co.uk have some prices up but they seem fairly high, and they're the only site listing them, so I suspect they've taken a cautious stab in the dark with pricing.

Overclockers have the 250GB 850 EVO at more-or-less the same price as Scan.

 

www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-191-SA

 

It must be the early adopter tax.

Edited December 8, 2014 by Arthur

[mac_shinobi]

mSATA and M.2 SSDs are both smaller in size than regular 2.5" SSDs. Why bother with the casing at all? It's redundant.

 

I reckon manufacturers will start using M.2 (PCIe) SSDs in more devices since SATA 6Gb/s SSDs are also bottlenecked by the interface and AHCI is inefficient too.

 

 

 

SSDs should hopefully become the norm next year or the year after apparently. The sooner the better IMO!

 

 

SSDs are already faster than SAS HDDs and longevity in enterprise SSDs isn't an issue either.

 

What sort of IOPS and throughput speeds in mbps ( both read and write ) can we expect on mSATA /

M.2 SSD's vs normal 2.5" SSD's using SATA 6gbps ??

[rich_tech]

My 840 Evo is still going strong, its the best upgrade I have put in my system in years in terms of performance, my machines to the desktop in about 12 seconds and usable, you just dont get that on 3.5" drives, even the 7200 RPM ones.

 

Next thing is Graphics at some point next year (barring a lotto win where I go apple ret 5k and a thunderboltdisplay)

[Arthur]

What sort of IOPS and throughput speeds in mbps (both read and write) can we expect on M.2 SSD's vs normal 2.5" SSDs using SATA 6gbps?

See the links below.

 

• www.anandtech.com/show/8045/asrock-z97-extreme6-review-ultra-m2-x4-tested-with-xp941/11
  
• www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/samsung-xp941-m-2-pcie-ssd-review-512gb
  
• www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/ngff-m-2
  
• www.thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz/understanding-m-2-ngff-ssd-standardization
  

mSATA is essentially just SATA with a different connector. A PCIe 2.0 x2 M.2 SSD on the other hand can reach upto 10Gb/s (or 32Gb/s using PCIe 3.0 x4).

[sonofsanta]

At this point I'm waiting for the next gen of Intel CPUs*, Broadwell, as they'll have proper support for NVMe - i.e. an interface designed specifically for SSDs operating over PCI-E, unlike AHCI which is meant for spinning media over SATA. Should be an order of magnitude faster again, all told. Broadwell should have enough PCI-E 3.0 lanes on die to support full bandwidth to the SSD and the GPU as well (and it'll be DDR4, so it's basically The Future Platform).

 

*also a surprising and significant influx of cash, from an as yet unknown of source