The 845DC PRO 800 GB is Samsung's flagship enterprise-grade SATA SSD. The series features Samsungs latest 3D V-NAND with 24 layers and 128Gbit density. Thanks to this NAND flash memory the drive is endurance rated for 10 Drive Writes per Day over five years, which is a seriously high value. Furthermore this drive is recommended for write-intense workloads featuring high sequential as well as random throughput rates.


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Specifications / Delivery

Model	845DC PRO 400 GB	845DC PRO 800GB
Capacity	400 GB	800 GB
Form Factor	2.5''	2.5''
Controller	Samsung 3-core MDX	Samsung 3-core MDX
Memory	MLC NAND 3D V-NAND 2bit	MLC NAND 3D V-NAND 2bit
Throughput	530 MB/s sequential read 460 MB/s sequential write 92'000 IOPS 4K random read 50 '000 IOPS 4K random write	530 MB/s sequential read 460 MB/s sequential write 92'000 IOPS 4K random read 51 '000 IOPS 4K random write
QOS 4KB, QD32 (99.99%)	0.6 ms read 5.0 ms write	0.6 ms read 5.0 ms write
QOS 4KB, QD1 (99.99%)	45 us sequential read 40 us sequential write 110 us random read 50 us random write	45 us sequential read 40 us sequential write 110 us random read 50 us random write
Power Consumption	1.7 Watt read 3.1 Watt write 1.0 Watt idle	1.7 Watt read 3.3 Watt write 1.0 Watt idle
Temperature	Operating: 0°C bis 70°C Non-Operating: -40°C bis 85°C	Operating: 0°C bis 70°C Non-Operating: -40°C bis 85°C
Endurance	10 Drive Writes per Day (DWPD) 4 TB per day	10 Drive Writes per Day (DWPD) 8 TB per day
Warranty	5 Years	5 Years
Price	959.99 US-Dollar	1'829.99 US-Dollar

Not long ago Samsung have announced three new SSD series. There is for instance the 850 PRO for endusers, then there is the 845DC EVO and last but not least there is the 845DC PRO, which we're reviewing here. In case of the 850 PRO the most significant upgrade concerns the NAND Flash used, since Samsung is now bringing 3D V-NAND to the mass market, enabling a new level of reliability and endurance. With the 845DC EVO you get a datacenter optimized SSD with TLC memory, recommended to be used in read-intense environments. The 845DC PRO, with it's 3D V-NAND is recommended for write-intense environments and it's also to cope well with mixed workloads. The new 3D V-NAND that's being used in case of the 845DC PRO features 24 layers and 40nm process technology is needed to manufacture these chips with up to 128Gbit density. 3D V-NAND offers higher endurance as well as increased performance at the same time.

As we already mentioned, Samsung is recommending the 845DC PRO for write-intense environments. Therefore it's irrelevant if you look at sequential or random read/write performance, since the 845DC PRO is consistently quicker than TLC based 845DC EVO. But in the end it's especially endurance where the 845DC PRO excels. Samsung is claiming that the 400 Gigabyte as well as the 800 Gigabyte version are capable of withstand 10 Drive Writes Per Day over a time period of five years. Doing the maths this translates into a whopping 14'600 TBW in case of the 800 Gigabyte drive or 7'300 TBW in case of the 400 Gigabyte drive.
Another necessary feature in case of an enterprise-grade SSD is data-path-protection in case of a sudden power-loss. For this purpose there is an array of tantalum capacitors ensuring data residing in the volatile 512MB DDR3 buffer can be safely written into non-volatile NAND Flash memory.

If we start looking for the controller we see there is the Samsung MDX model. Despite the fact, that there is already an MEX version around Samsung have decided to use the older model, which for instance clocks 100 MHz lower then the newer MEX. The reason for choosing the MDX controller might be that internal validation testing for the 3D V-NAND has been done with the MDX version of the controller and therefore Samsung is able to offer even higher reliability.
Last but not least let us have a quick look at the exterior. The Samsung 845DC PRO is only available with a 2.5 inch casing measuring 7 millimeter in height. In case of the interface you get SATA 3.1. We're rather curious to see wether Samsung is planning on releasing a SAS version of this drive or not. This might be a move demanded by the markets actually, since lots of datacenters only use SAS SSDs.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 7 - Random read KByte/s
Page 2 - Impressions	Page 8 - Random write IOPS
Page 3 - How do we test?	Page 9 - Random read IOPS
Page 4 - Sequential write KByte/s	Page 10 - QD1/4/8/16/32 Performance
Page 5 - Sequential read KByte/s	Page 11 - Conclusion
Page 6 - Random write KByte/s