Specifications, Packaging, Internals, Testing Methodology and System Setup

Specifications:

Straight from Samsung:

Packaging:

Packaging is identical to that of the 840 series products from Samsung.

Internals:

Even though we already took the *really* deep dive on the intro page, let's zoom back out a little and check things out at the chip and packaging level:

With the disassembly complete, we can get a good look at the admittedly small PCB:

The trusty MEX controller drives four packages (K9HQGY8S5M) on the top…

…and another four packages (K9PRGY8S7M) on the bottom. I highlighted a bit of a difference there. Why different chips on the top and bottom? I suspect the red letters there denote the die layers within the packages. Half of the packages contain 4 dies each, the other half contain 8 dies each. 4*4+4*8 adds up to 48 dies, which is 4GB larger than the rated 512GB capacity of this unit when assuming 86Gbit density per die.

Testing Methodology

Our tests are a mix of synthetic and real-world benchmarks. PCMark, IOMeter, HDTach, HDTune, Yapt and our custom File Copy test round out the selection to cover just about all bases. If you have any questions about our tests just drop into the Storage Forum and we'll help you out! 

Test System Setup

We currently employ a pair of testbeds. A newer ASUS P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt and an ASUS Z87-PRO. Variance between both boards has been deemed negligible.

PC Perspective would like to thank ASUS, Corsair, and Kingston for supplying some of the components of our test rigs. 

 
Hard Drive Test System Setup
CPU Intel Core i7-4770K
Motherboard ASUS P8Z77-V Pro/TB / ASUS Z87-PRO
Memory Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR3-2133 CL9
Hard Drive G.Skill 32GB SLC SSD
Sound Card N/A
Video Card Intel® HD Graphics 4600
Video Drivers Intel
Power Supply Corsair CMPSU-650TX
DirectX Version DX9.0c
Operating System Windows 8.1 X64
  • PCMark05
  • Yapt
  • IOMeter
  • HDTach
  • HDTune
  • PCPer File Copy Test
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