Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

Honestly I was not expecting mSATA to perform as well as it did. Very impressive. That goes for both form factors, albeit the 120GB version of the M.2 form factor based SSD was disappointing in write performance. That is the thing with the 120GB model, it has only two NAND ICs and that hinders the controller bus versus the memory channels it can use. Would we have received the 250GB model then the performance would have been just as good or likely even better compared to the mSATA or SATA3 versions.

Regardless of what form factor you like to use, the new EVOs are tremendously fast in all available volume sizes. The power consumption of the Samsung SSD is low with an IDLE rating of 2 mW, but roughly 3 to 4 Watts when in use. Next to that, starting at the 500 GB version the endurance of this SSD is rated at 150 TB, that's rather massive. I mean, if you write say 10 GB a day / 365 days a year that would be 3.7 TB per year. So that's like 40 years of lifespan easily. For the 120 and 250 GB models that number is half, but still 75 TB which is nearly server grade classification.

Performance

Overall these new 850 EVO storage units shine at many factors and on all levels really, IOPS performance is very good. This SSD writes and reads serious amounts of tiny files in a very fast fashion. We stated it before though, IOPS is not something you as a consumer should worry about too much unless you are doing a lot of database related work or create similar workloads on your PC, but this SSD certainly ranks high within this aspect. Trace testing - we think by far the best test in our entire benchmark suite is PCMark Vantage 64-bit. This is a trace test and can emulate what you guys do on your PC but then multiplied by factor 100, this test puts more focus on read performance opposed to writing though. The outcome of the results with the Samsung EVO are nuts, exceptionally good. Sustained read / write performance, again excellent. Read performance in particular leads and is top ranking. Overall the 850 EVO series is impressive. Zoom in at both IOPS and trace performance and you'll notice that the SSD can manage serious workloads without breaking so much as a drop of sweat. So whether you write lots of small files, copy big MKV movies or do it all together, the 850 EVO remains a top dog on all fronts, aside from the write performance on the 120GB models that is.

Overall SSD Usage

An SSD is enjoyable, very much so. If you put a drive like this into your SATA3 compatible laptop or SATA3 compatible PC, you'll have no idea what is about to hit you. We very much enjoy the grand sustained performance of this SSD series; if you copy a vast amount of compressed data, then the 850 EVO will perform seriously fast in performance. Make no mistake, replacing a HDD with an SSD in your desktop PC or laptop eliminates the random access lag of the HDD head, it is no longer mechanical. That combined with the performance SATA3/M.2/mSATA offers these days is simply a massive difference and probably the best upgrade you can make for your computer anno 2015.

Pricing & Warranty

First a generic rule that I always apply; you probably should stop looking at Solid State Disk technology as if it were a traditional HDD. We'll all be old and grey before the two reach the same price or top the multiple TB volume storage the HDD offers for less money. Comparing an SSD with an HDD is making a comparison in-between an integrated IGP or a dedicated graphics card, that last one will cost you a heck of a lot more yet you gain incredible overall performance. It is the very same with an SSD, use it as a boot drive for Windows and applications and you instantly have removed a huge bottleneck, namely load and access times. It's a night and day difference (in a proper system). For massive storage like movies, MP3 files and bulky data you do not access on a regular basis, sure, that's where the HDD remains the winner as a cheaper storage solution. Guru3D's rule of thumb; the magic simply is finding a good combination in-between the two and balance things out. Use a nice 256 GB SSD for your operating system and applications, and park these movies and MP3 files onto a separate TB HDD. That's where the magic happens. I kid you not, all my test systems and work systems run on SSDs, not once have I considered going back to HDDs. The benefits of a good SSD are simply grand. But that doesn't mean I do not understand the budget and cost dilemma that many of you are facing though.

Pricing

Making your own SSD with your own controller, own PCB, own cache chips and own NAND flash memory does have advantages as Samsung is able to keep the prices very competitive as this product is made 99% in-house.

• 120 GB costs 79 EUR = 0.65 EURO per GB
• 250 GB costs 124 EUR = 0.50 EURO per GB
• 500 GB costs 215 EUR = 0.43 EURO per GB
• 1 TB costs 413 EUR = 0.41 EURO per GB

Concluding

This conclusion will be similar to the SATA3 EVO 850 series review. It is the same stuff, just with a different connector and yeah, Samsung has a top notch offering with this product series in terms of reliability, price and performance.

Aside from the 120GB models (which you should simply skip) all units are little beasts in terms of performance. The new 3D V-NAND allows Samsung to stack NAND cells and thus use less physical NAND IC chips per SSD, 32 layers of cells per IC. This means Samsung will get more NAND ICs per produced wafer. For Samsung this is a methodology to create more cost effective chips - e.g. less chips used per SSD. The SSD overall shines at read performance and remains exceptional at write performance, in fact sustained, trace and IOPS tests are all rocking hard. If IOPS matter to you for say database utilization with heavy workloads on the storage unit then again, this is a segment where the 850 EVO storage units are very strong. Prices perhaps need to come down a tiny bit more, but this is a mainstream class SSD with enthusiast class performance and some pretty nice endurance claims. Samsung offers 5 years warranty with the 850 EVO series as well as 75 TB written on the 120 and 250GB versions, and a whopping 150 TB written for the 500GB and 1TB versions. Combine that warranty with the more than great performance numbers and we can only conclude that the Samsung 850 EVO series will be the choice units to get for many of you guys and girls. The Samsung EVO 850 series is recommended whether you choose the SATA3, the mSATA or the M.2 version. It's all fairly the same in price and performance combined with the endurance, lifespan and performance you may expect from consumer grade storage units anno 2015.

Peek at some more of our many SSD reviews.

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