Although the availability is expected later this month or in early January next year, Samsung has now officially announced and launched its new Samsung 850 EVO solid-state drive (SSD) lineup, which will feature the new 3-bit 3D V-NAND flash chips, be available 120GB, 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities and based on newer generation MGX controller (MEX for the 1TB version).
The new Samsung 850 EVO SSD lineup is based on 3-bit 3D V-NAND flash memory chips, which are a bit different than the 2-bit 3D V-NAND seen earlier on the Samsung 850 Pro SSD lineup. According to Samsung, this NAND is more suitable for notebooks and gaming PCs as it allows Sasmung to create higher densities at lower prices, which should be perfect for the mainstream market that Samsung targets with the 850 EVO SSD. Despite using the 3-bit 3D V-NAND flash memory chips, Samsung still promises improved durability and reliability with endurance of up to 41GB/day, for the 120GB and 250GB models, and 82GB/day for the 500GB and 1TB versions, as well as its standard five year warranty.
As noted, the 120GB, 250GB and 500GB 850 EVO SSD models are based on Samsung's newer generation MGX dual-core controller while the 1TB model will feature Samsung's MEX controller with 3 ARM cores. Apparently, the dual-core one is enough for smaller capacities, while the 1TB benefits from the MEX triple-core controller. As noted, the entire lineup is based on Samsung's 128Gbit 40nm TLC 3D V-NAND flash memory chips. The 120GB model also comes with 256MB of LPDDR2 DRAM, 250 and 500GB model have 512MB and 1TB comes with 1GB of LPDDR2 DRAM.
As far as the maximum performance is concerned, the entire range has sequential read and write performance of up to 540MB/s and 520MB/s, while 4K random read and write performance range from 94K IOPS and 88K IOPS on the 120GB model up to 98K IOPS and 90K IOPS on the 500GB and 1TB models.
Performance wise, according to a couple of first reviews that we have seen, including
the one at Anandtech.com, which had a chance to try out the full lineup, the new Samsung 850 EVO SSD lineup is quite a performer, just a bit slower from earlier released 850 Pro lineup.
Samsung's 850 EVO SSD lineup is expected in retail later this month or early in January, according to first reports. The prices for the new Samsung 850 EVO SSD lineup start at US $100 for the 120GB model, US $150 for the 250GB, US $270 for the 500GB model and US $500 for the 850 EVO 1TB model.
At these price points, Samsung can not directly compete with some cheaper SSDs, like the Crucial MX100 or SanDisk's Ultra II, but with this performance, it can certainly put a lot of pressure on the competition. Samsung is also expected to extend the range to mSATA and M.2 drives with 3D V-NAND next year.
Source:
Samsung.com.