Take the Samsung 850 Pro and 850 EVO, add some Tantalum Capacitors for enhanced power loss protection, tune their firmware for enterprise workloads and QoS, and what do you get?
…you get the Samsung PM863 and SM863 lines of enterprise SSDs! These 2.5" SATA units were just announced, and as we suspected after reviewing the new 2TB 850 EVO and Pro, these new models can include even more flash packages, dramatically increasing the flash capacity. Here is a breakdown of the launch pricing and capacities:
SM863 (2-bit MLC VNAND):
- 120GB – $140 ($1.17/GB)
- 240GB – $180 ($0.75/GB)
- 480GB – $330 ($0.69/GB)
- 960GB –
$870 ($0.91/GB) < possible typo$640 ($0.67/GB) - 1.92TB – $1260 ($0.66/GB)
PM863 (3-bit MLC VNAND):
- 120GB – $125 ($1.04/GB)
- 240GB – $160 ($0.67/GB)
- 480GB – $290 ($0.60/GB)
- 960GB – $550 ($0.57/GB)
- 1.92TB – $1100 ($0.57/GB)
- 3.84TB – $2200 ($0.57/GB)
Aside from the possible typo in the pricing I informed Samsung of the pricing oddity and they have replied with a correction. Their site should be updated to reflect this correction shortly.
These are some very competitive prices for enterprise SSDs, and the fact that the TLC version can cram just under 4TB into a 7mm 2.5" form factor is just astounding. The MLC version capacities appear to still follow that of the 850 Pro, minus a bit of available capacity due to higher levels of over-provisioning.
More impressive is the endurance ratings of these SSDs. The SM863 line is rated (varying by capacity) from 770 Terabytes Written (TBW) to an astonishing 12,320 TBW for the 1.92TB model! That's over 12 Petabytes! The PM863 is rated lower as it is TLC based, but is still no slouch as it ranges from 170 to 5,600 TBW for the 3.84TB capacity. The SM863 carries a 5-year warranty, while the PM863 drops that to 3-years.
We've been waiting to see Samsung's 32-layer VNAND appear in enterprise units for some time now, and look forward to testing them just as soon as we can get our hands on them!
Full press blast after the break.
RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today introduced its latest lineup of high performance SATA solid state drives (SSDs) for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) — the Samsung PM863 and SM863. These next-generation drives deliver faster speeds and improved reliability in much higher capacities, as well as greater power efficiency, in order to support the heavy demands placed on the data center.
“Companies around the world are racing to digitize their business processes, which is putting increased strain on the data center and extreme pressure on IT managers to find a solution quickly,” said Un-soo Kim, Senior Vice President of Branded Product Marketing, Memory Business, at Samsung Electronics. “The PM863 and SM863 solid state drives are the ideal solution, offering much higher density in the 2.5” form factor, which saves IT managers at small and medium sized businesses precious real estate in the data center without sacrificing power or performance thanks to our breakthrough V-NAND technology.”
Powered by Samsung’s leading-edge V-NAND technology – which improves the performance of SSDs — the PM863 and SM863 deliver outstanding performance and reliability while still achieving low power consumption levels.
The 3-bit MLC V-NAND-based PM863 is developed for mixed pattern applications and ideal for use in content delivery networks and streaming or Web servers. Alternatively, the write-intensive SM863 based on 2-bit MLC V-NAND is an optimal choice for online transaction processing (OLTP) and serves as an ideal choice for email and database servers.
The Samsung PM863 comes in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB, 960GB and now 1.9TB and 3.8TB capacities. It also offers read speeds up to 540 MB/s, and for the 240GB drives and above provides random read speeds of up to 99,000 Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS). The Samsung SM863 provides more options for configurable overprovisioning and is available in 120 gigabyte (GB), 240GB, 480GB, 960GB and now 1.9TB capacities. It also features read speeds up to 520 megabytes per second (MB/s) and write speeds up to 485 MB/s.
Both drives will be available to SMBs in early August 2015. They are already available for the enterprise.
Hi Allyn,
Is there anyway you
Hi Allyn,
Is there anyway you can test for the TRIM issues on these drives? 🙂
I would be interesting to see if they have updated the firmware or changed anything else to mitigate or resolve those issues.
Kind Regards
Simon Zerafa
—
which TRIM issue you talking
which TRIM issue you talking about? The Queued TRIM thing or the “data loss” thing? Cuz Algolia recently reported that the “Data loss” was due to something in their Linux kernel and not due to the SSD.
Really? Got a link to where
Really? Got a link to where this was discussed?
*edit* it looks like their original blog post was updated with this info, but the statement from Samsung is not yet out.
Sorry, forgot to post the
Sorry, forgot to post the source. My bad.
This may be the first thing I
This may be the first thing I test 🙂
These seems very well priced
These seems very well priced for Enterprise. Anyway for PCper to test one of these?
That’s the plan!
That's the plan!
PM863 (3-bit MLC
PM863 (3-bit MLC VNAND)?
That’s supposed to say TLC, right? … Right?
3-bit MLC is another way of
3-bit MLC is another way of saying TLC. Some manufacturers go that route, and they are not wrong, as TLC is still technically 'multi-level'.
There’s a definite need for
There’s a definite need for stronger truth in labeling laws for PC/electronics related products, as there is to many chances for obfuscation using the current terminology.
There is nothing dishonest
There is nothing dishonest about saying '3-bit MLC'. There is also 4-bit MLC, which would not be called TLC either way.
There’s a definite need for
There’s a definite need for stronger truth in commenting and forum posting for PC/electronics related products, as there is to many chances for obfuscation using the current terminology.
The PM863 is remarkably
The PM863 is remarkably priced. Almost 4tb of SSD space, the V-Nand, 3bit MLC/TLC, and enhanced PLP. It’s basically a roided out 850 Evo. And $2200 isn’t all that much considering what you are getting, let alone what an enterprise environment is getting. Odd that they placed a three-year warranty on it, but then again these things probably will survive longer than they’ll be used.
I like it. Can’t wait to see them tested.
How will these hold up to
How will these hold up to NVME you suppose? same performance as 850 pro’s?
Should be similar, with
Should be similar, with slightly lower max write IOPS to compensate for being able to perform 100% random full span writes (enterprise workloads)
SLC?
Not sure how to ask, is
SLC?
Not sure how to ask, is the PM863 doing the “same” SLC magic
Not sure. It’s possible they
Not sure. It's possible they repurposed the SLC cache area into additional overprovisioned TLC.
It’s good to see that SSDs
It’s good to see that SSDs are getting veeeery slooowly into bigger capacities but at 2200$ there is no place for it at home PC unless you have money to burn. Because it’s TLC I’m not at all surprised that only 3 year warranty is offered. It should be much less because of that. Very much allergic to TLC as a whole.
But I would jump on it if the price was right, which is simply not, because for 2200$ you can get stack of excellent HGST HDD or smaller SSD drives, connect them in hardware (heck you can buy top of the line RAID AIC for that and still have cash to spare) RAID 10 which will together offer superior performance and Redundancy.
YAAAAWWWWNNN…wake me up
YAAAAWWWWNNN…wake me up when it becomes “0.20 per 1 GB” for 512GB and up across the whole range AND throughout the planet.
It’s not gonna get there
It's not gonna get there overnight 🙂
Don’t worry, I’ve plenty of
Don’t worry, I’ve plenty of time when with my cryogenic hibernation chamber.
I really like that SSD’s are
I really like that SSD’s are gaining more and more storage space, but the price will have to come down before we can do away with spinning hard drives altogether. I look forward to the day I no longer need a giant rotating HDD for my mass storage. I currently have a 240GB 850 evo and I have thought about getting the 1TB model, but anything bigger than that and it starts getting too expensive. We can dream, however.