Conclusion, Pricing, and Final Thoughts
Conclusion:
PROS:
- Outstanding performance
- Excellent fragmentation resiliency
- 10 Year Warranty (yeah, I said it)
CONS:
- Hard to come up with one, but I'd really like to see this V-NAND doing the TLC/SLC trick that the EVO series does. Samsung tells me this is absolutely doable, which likely makes this con into a pro.
- Intro price of smaller capacity units is a bit on the high side
Pricing:
Intro MSRP's:
128GB – $130 ($1.01/GB)256GB – $230 ($0.90/GB)512GB – $430 ($0.84/GB)1TB – $730 ($0.71/GB)
Update (7/1/2014 @ 2:45AM EDT): Already, Samsung has updated their MSRP listings:
- 128GB – $129.99 USD ($1.02/GB) – Amazon Preorder Link
- 256GB – $199.99 USD ($0.78/GB) – Amazon Preorder Link
- 512GB – $399.99 USD ($0.78/GB) – Amazon Preorder Link
- 1TB – $699.99 USD ($0.68/GB) – Amazon Preorder Link
Warranty and Availability:
I wasn't kidding earlier. Samsung has so much confidence in the increased endurance of their V-NAND that they've upped the warranty to 10-years, rated at 40GB of writes per day, which equates to 150TB of total writes. The drives will be available for purchase on July 21st.
Final Thoughts:
The Samsung 850 PRO delivers on one of the potential answers to ever more difficult flash memory die shrinks. Instead of shrinking, Samsung actually expanded their process back up to 30nm and chose to go vertical! They plugged this new V-NAND into their existing controller technology and really made it sing. The structure and interface improvements of this new flash also go a long way to alleviate some of the small write speed issues seen on typical 2D NAND, making it very resilient to fragmentation over time, which should help out in RAID configurations lacking TRIM support. Overall I'm extremely impressed with the 850 PRO. The only fault I can really find is that intro pricing is a tad high, but to that I say here's hoping we seen an 850 EVO soon!
Awesome read!
Very cool
Awesome read!
Very cool stuff, seems like the shift from 2D to 3D in process tech is shaping up to be a very cool thing, first CPU’s, now SSD’s, upcoming is the stacked ram on video cards.
I didn’t see an ETA on these to market, any idea on availability?
I would hardly call intel’s
I would hardly call intel’s finfet technology 3d. I’m still waiting for the 3d cpu revolution. Heat dissipation, however, will not be easy for CPU’s.
cpu’s are at a very small nm
cpu’s are at a very small nm size, not easy to get that heat outta there.
So far the release date is
So far the release date is set to 21st July
Graph’s on “PCMark Vantage
Graph’s on “PCMark Vantage and 7” page, is missing numbers on them.
Getting the figures all on
Getting the figures all on the same chart and readable was overwhelming the chart. I'll tinker and see if we can get them all on there somehow.
Tech report needs to start
Tech report needs to start the kill test on this drive. My guess would be 4PB, which is still ridiculous, and I’m probably underestimating it.
Also, 10 year warranty?! I
Also, 10 year warranty?! I think the 512 will find a good home in my Corsair Air 540
I’m sitting right next to
I'm sitting right next to Geoff (author of the first kill test piece). He says it 'will take too damn long' LOL. He's right.
Lol indeed 🙂
SATA is too
Lol indeed 🙂
SATA is too damn slow today. The express version seems like a clunky slapped together thing that I’m not sure I want. Like the M.2 some manufacturers put on their boards and make them SATA only, what a waste of space. We need multiple PCIe 3 or 4 lanes and NVMe.
Does anybody sell such a
Does anybody sell such a drive today? I think the drive Apple uses in the current Mac Pro is a 4-lane. Anandtech benchmarked it at over 1000MB/sec!
(The iMac had 2 lanes for its SSD, and it still beats SATA III, though not by much.)
given 10 year warranty i
given 10 year warranty i would expect it would take a lot of data to kill the thing.
What hard drive were you
What hard drive were you using 10 years ago? Are you still using it now? Would you still use it now even if it worked?
I was using dual 36GB Raptors in RAID0 and I would not ever considering using those today. Too small, too slow. Ten years from now, we won’t even care if our SSDs are still working.
I still have a Maxtor 6L040J2
I still have a Maxtor 6L040J2 spinning away in my low-traffic web server. It’s easily ~10 years old. Loud as heck but still cranking away. I don’t put anything critical on it any more though, despite SMART saying the drive’s healthy.
If it’s a low-traffic web
If it’s a low-traffic web server, wouldn’t it work equally well from a humble SD flash card? 🙂
2X 256GB in raid 0 ?! 😀
2X 256GB in raid 0 ?! 😀
How will the thinner layers
How will the thinner layers impact write endurance?
Also, will overclocking the bus that the data controller is on, or overclocking the controller, improve the throughput for a single drive?
They should do a less involved endurance test, write to it but don’t test the integrity until it reaches 1pb. At its write speed, it will not take too long, especially if there is no benchmark every 100 TB. Since the rated endurance is not always accurate, a test needs to be done.will this drive go beyond the rated endurance, or will it fail at around the 150TB rating (the 10 year warranty is also limited by it where after 150TB the warranty is void.
The claim is 10x the
The claim is 10x the endurance, and that's considering the layer thickness. Since the cells are cylinders, there is more volume to store the charge, which is likely what lets them get better endurance.
Unless you can overclock the SATA bus itself, you're not going to see any improvement.
This makes for a really nice
This makes for a really nice last hurrah for SATA SSDs.
Cant wait to see what Samsung flew you out for!
Trying not to be too nerdy,
Trying not to be too nerdy, but you have a rounding error in your 128GB pricing calculations.
You show the cheaper $129.99 costing more per GB
than the $130 original price.
1.015625 ($1.01/GB)
1.015546 ($1.02/GB)
Not sure why one was rounded up and the other rounded down, and while it really doesn’t matter, it may suggest some laxness in your calculations which is not what you want on such a good review.
Who comments on the third
Who comments on the third significant digit being off by 1 on anything? Really is that important? lol
Allyn wrote the original
Allyn wrote the original ($130) and, for some reason, rounded down. I did the update, because Allyn couldn't access his laptop. I used proper significant figure rules.
So, your answer? Two different people. I noticed Allyn's truncating, too, but left it as is.
ok i want this in sata
ok i want this in sata express for my haswell 2011 build
Was rapid mode enabled on the
Was rapid mode enabled on the 840 Pro during the benchmarks?
If it was, the write and read
If it was, the write and read speeds would been higher.
I don’t test these SSDs using
I don't test these SSDs using RAPID, since I'm testing the SSD, not the Samsung Magician software ability to cache data in RAM. It's really unnecessary interference, especially since performance for uncached areas is *lower* with RAPID enabled, due to the increased system overhead involved.
Would you recommend disabling
Would you recommend disabling RAPID for real world use?
Allyn:
Do you know if there
Allyn:
Do you know if there is to be a enterprise version of this bad boy?
Yup! There’s an 845DC PRO
Yup! There's an 845DC PRO coming, which uses the MEX controller and V-NAND (but it's the older 24 layer stuff). More to follow on that as I'm working up a post from the events yesterday.
Still won’t buy an SSD until
Still won’t buy an SSD until under 25cents a gig.
There is no reason except for greed that they shouldn’t be there right now and still be profitable to the manufacturer.
The premium is too damn high.
256gb is a joke for usability. Some games eat up 40+ gigs. That puts comfort use at 500gb or higher.
That’s why I’m still using
That’s why I’m still using Velociraptors in RAID- significantly faster than a regular HDD, yet still large and cheap enough to be usable. I’ll probably finally buy an SSD when the price reaches the level of higher end HDDs.
Since higher end HDDs come
Since higher end HDDs come down in price like everything else, it soulds like you guys won't be going SSD until HDD prices start to go back up. You know, like when they are collectors items.
I built a new system May 4th.
I built a new system May 4th. It has a nice little Samsung 840 EVO 1TB. It does not have a hard drive.
With SanDisk (and most likely Samsung and other companies too) planning on releasing 8GB SSDs next year, and 16GB SSDs in 2016, I think the death of hard drives will be sooner than most people think, but yes, they will probably be around for another decade. Mainly due to price. Once SSD pricing drops down to hard drive pricing per TB, which I think will happen in about 7 years, then there will not be many, if any, reasons to buy hard drives anymore.
I built a new system May 4th.
I built a new system May 4th. It has a nice little Samsung 840 EVO 1TB. It does not have a hard drive.
With SanDisk (and most likely Samsung and other companies too) planning on releasing 8GB SSDs next year, and 16GB SSDs in 2016, I think the death of hard drives will be sooner than most people think, but yes, they will probably be around for another decade. Mainly due to price. Once SSD pricing drops down to hard drive pricing per TB, which I think will happen in about 7 years, then there will not be many, if any, reasons to buy hard drives anymore.
I’m still running my old
I’m still running my old system which has 2 – Intel X-25M 80 gb SSD Raid 0. So far 5 years has past and still running fine. I only run the os on the ssd’s! I have over 10 tb of harddrives that I install my games on.
I am waiting on intel’s DC P3500 to be release so I can finish my new computer.
“10 Year Samsung Warranty” =
“10 Year Samsung Warranty” = SSD Truck Nuts
Its nice to see things that
Its nice to see things that designers were dreaming about decades ago actually appearing in products now.
Can’t wait to see a system with an M.2 x4 interface version of this SSD in it, that also has stacked DDR4 memory stacked on top of the CPU. Should make new systems of today look downright slow. And the stacked DDR4 on a CPU should be here in just a few years.
I built a new system May 4th.
I built a new system May 4th. It has a nice little Samsung 840 EVO 1TB. It does not have a hard drive.
With SanDisk (and most likely Samsung and other companies too) planning on releasing 8GB SSDs next year, and 16GB SSDs in 2016, I think the death of hard drives will be sooner than most people think, but yes, they will probably be around for another decade. Mainly due to price. Once SSD pricing drops down to hard drive pricing per TB, which I think will happen in about 7 years, then there will not be many, if any, reasons to buy hard drives anymore.
Did you track power
Did you track power consumption in any of your testing? In the specs it says it’s 3W max per read/write but I’m curious what it actually was.
Based on the review here
Based on the review here http://thepcenthusiast.com/samsung-850-pro-ssd-review-256gb/ it seems that there’s no significant performance difference between the 256GB and 512GB variant. Which is good actually because with the other SSDs from competitors usually its the higher capacities that only benefits from consistent high read/write speeds. The 850 Pro is great, but most of use will probably settle for a more affordable option like the Evo, unless you really need the 10-year warranty and 150TBW.