Samsung 850 evo ssd review

It seems like yesterday, but it's been more than two years since Samsung introduced its solid-state hard drives with TLC (3 bits per cell) memories with the Samsung 840 PRO, a model that came to turn the quality SSD market upside down. / price and to lower the price per gigabyte to limits previously unthinkable for a consumer disk.

However, the demands of the users also grew, and the rest of the brands counterattacked with more durable MLC alternatives on paper, a very respectable performance (in many cases higher than that of the 840), and also adjusted price. This victory did not last long, since in the summer of 2013 Samsung presented the 840 EVO, which turned out to be the real blow on the table, with an ingenious system that uses a small portion of memory as if it were SLC this model led the tables of performance with a very low price, and the only thing that sticks is the estimated durability that was still quite high, except in the smallest model and with very high loads.

Today we are going to analyze its successor, the Samsung 850 EVO in its 1Tb variant, again the younger brother of the top of the range (850 PRO), let's see if it can exceed the high bar of its predecessor.

Technical characteristics

FEATURES SAMSUNG 850 EVO 1TB
Format	2.5 inches.
SATA interface	SATA 6Gb / s SATA 3Gb / s SATA 1.5Gb / s
Capacities	120GB, 250GB, 500GB and 1TB.
Controller	Samsung MEX controller NAND Flash Memory Samsung 32 layers 3D V-NAND DRAM Cache Memory 1GB (1TB)
Writing / Reading rates.	Sequential Reading Max. 540 MB / s Sequential Writing Max. 520 MB / s 4KB Random Read (QD1) Max. 10, 000 IOPS 4KB Random Write (QD1) Max. 40, 000 IOPS 4KB Random Read (QD32) Max. 98, 000 IOPS (1TB) 4KB Random Write (QD32) Max. 90, 000 IOPS (1TB)
Temperature	Operational: 0 ° C to 70 ° C Non-Operating: -40 ° C to 85 ° C
Encryption	AES 256-bit Full Encryption (FDE)
Weight	66 grams
Useful life	1.5 million hours.
Consumption	Max. 50mW Hibernation mode: 4mW (1TB)
Price	120GB: € 82 approx. 250GB: € 119 approx. 500GB: € 219 approx. 1TB: € 419 approx.

Samsung 850 EVO 1TB

Cover box

Back box

Samsung EVO 850 1TB

Bundle

We will analyze the general model, which also turns out to be the most basic, with no data migration software or extras other than disk. The box follows a gray and white pattern and is very small, only what is strictly necessary to accommodate the disc, documentation and a CD. It is seen both on the front and the back that Samsung really wants to publicize its V-NAND technology, and promote the album with it. The interior follows the same line, just protection for the disc and nothing else

As for the included accessories, they are reduced to a CD with the manual and software available on the web, an installation guide that assumes that we have the SATA to USB adapter that in this case Samsung does not include with the disk, and documentation that informs us about the guarantee. An improvable section, although given the range of the disc I would personally forgive everything except the step of not checking that the installation guide is not suitable for the accessories that come with the disc. For that, I prefer not to include it.

Samsung EVO 850 combines black and gray colors

Samsung EVO 850 in your reservation we have all the information and interface SATA 6.0

Aesthetically it is a discreet disk, in line with any 2.5-inch SSD. It is very well distinguished from the PRO line by the gray color under the brand logo. As usual for some time, it is a 7mm thick model, compatible with all notebooks that use a SATA disk.

Unfortunately we cannot show photos of the inside of the disc due to not having the appropriate screwdrivers (5 bits, Samsung's own), but luckily the specifications are public and well known. We detail them below:

The 1TB model of the 850 EVO contains 8 NAND memory chips, a 1GB LPDDR2 chip to use as a cache, and the Samsung MEX controller (3 cores) already seen in the 850 PRO and 840 series. We should note that This is the only model that includes this chip, since the rest are made up of 2 cores to reduce costs, a real shame, although according to Samsung the additional power was not necessary, it is still a small downgrade that is noted in some scenarios. heavy duty.

The memory chips barely cover half of the disk case as such, leaving the door open very simply for a 2TB model using 16 pads from the same NAND and keeping the rest, although for the moment Samsung is not expected have plans to launch such a model.

Test of performance

For testing we will use the native X79 chipset controller on a Rampage IV Extreme board. Although it is known that there have been slight performance optimizations in the latest chipsets (Z97 and X99) in principle we do not expect a loss big enough to alter the results.

As a first contact, we see some really good numbers on Crystal Disk Mark. The biggest improvement over others is overwhelming, especially with small blocks and a 32-trade queue

The performance on AS SSD Benchmark 1.7.4 is truly spectacular, breaking the scoring record in our tests so far and setting the bar very high. As in the previous case, AS uses incompressible data, and in addition to confirming the previous readings, it gives us an idea of ​​the expected performance of the disk in the worst possible conditions.

From the worst possible conditions we pass to a test that gives us an idea of ​​the expected results under favorable conditions, with compressible data. The ATTO Disk Benchmark score is also one of the highest we've seen, with values ​​starting at 64KiB of block size hovering around the limits of the SATA3 interface. One thing we would like to highlight about the performance of this disc is that it is tremendously consistent, with almost identical results in both reading and writing in the last four tests.

Likewise, no greater deviation is observed in the results of having the disk newly formatted, at 20 or 50% of its load, showing the effectiveness of Samsung's garbage collection algorithm (one of the best at present) and how well it The SLC cache works to dramatically improve the performance of flash memory (let's not forget it's TLC, on the slower role that the 850 PRO mounts).

Samsung Magician

Samsung Magician is the utility that incorporates Samsung SSDs to optimize, diagnose if there are any errors and monitor the solid state hard drive. It also allows us to clone, backup, update SSD firmware without losing data, and benchmark. It is only applicable to Samsung units in both the 850 EVO / PRO series and earlier.

Final words and conclusion

We are undoubtedly facing a difficult model to assess, since in the SSDs market there are two very well differentiated segments: models with a high capacity / performance / price ratio, such as the Crucial MX100, the "old" 840 EVO series, or the based on the veteran Sandforce SF2281 controller such as the Kingston HyperX Fury that we analyzed 3 months ago, and on the other hand the enthusiastic sector where the price per giga does not matter, and what prevails is the durability and performance, with models like the professional series Intel, or the older brother of this album, the 850 PRO.

This model, however, does not fall into either of the two categories, it is a leading model in performance, although it only approaches the dimensions of the PRO model in the larger models like this one that we are analyzing, and it is certainly not competition for the models. M.2 and more advanced pciexpress, and at the same time it is not priced as tightly as Marvell controller-based disks.

We recommend reading the best SSDs on the market

Despite all this, this 850 EVO seems to have a really good balance for enthusiastic users looking for something very quickly but without neglecting the entire pocket. In addition, it is a really durable disk, since despite using TLC memory, it uses a very high manufacturing process node thanks to Samsung's 3D V-NAND technology, and in fact they are disks with a 5-year warranty like the old one 840 PRO series. The 1Tb model can be found in Spanish stores around € 400, a fairly reasonable price for the capacity and performance observed.

ADVANTAGE

	DISADVANTAGES
+ VERY HIGH PERFORMANCE, COMPARABLE TO THE 850 PRO IN HIGH CAPACITIES	- IN MODELS WITH LOWER CAPACITY, THE SAMSUNG MGX CONTROLLER (2 CORES) BRINGS LOW PERFORMANCE.
+ THE SAMSUNG MAGICIAN SOFTWARE.	- LIMITED BY SATA INTERFACE.
+ VERY HIGH POTENTIAL DURABILITY, DESPITE BEING TLC, 5 YEAR WARRANTY	- SOMEWHAT PRICE COMPARED TO ITS PREDECESSORS
+ CONSISTENT PERFORMANCE THROUGHOUT CAPACITY, EQUAL WITH COMPRESSIBLE AND INCOMPRESSIBLE DATA
+ TCG / OPAL V2.0 ENCRYPTION SUPPORT
+ SAMSUNG MEX CONTROLLER (3 CORES) IN THE 1TB MODEL

For its performance at the best level allowed by SATA3, durability in the highest range, and reasonable price, the Professional Review team awards you the platinum medal

SAMSUNG 850 EVO

COMPONENTS

PERFORMANCE

CONTROLLER

PRICE

WARRANTY

9.3 / 10

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