The Samsung 850 EVO 4TB SSD Review
by Billy Tallis on July 11, 2016 10:00 AM ESTSequential Read Performance
The sequential read test requests 128kB blocks and tests queue depths ranging from 1 to 32. The queue depth is doubled every three minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. The test spans the entire drive, and the drive is filled before the test begins. The primary score we report is an average of performances at queue depths 1, 2 and 4, as client usage typically consists mostly of low queue depth operations.
The 4TB 850 EVO scores slightly better than the 2TB for sequential reads, but it is still a hair slower than the fastest drives.
Samsung's large drives draw a lot of power during the sequential read test, but at least the 4TB 850 EVO improves over the 2TB and 1TB 850 EVOs.
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The 4TB 850 EVO does not suffer from the modestly impaired QD1 performance of the 2TB model, but for the rest of the test the 4TB is slightly slower than the other two.
Sequential Write Performance
The sequential write test writes 128kB blocks and tests queue depths ranging from 1 to 32. The queue depth is doubled every three minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. The test spans the entire drive, and the drive is filled before the test begins. The primary score we report is an average of performances at queue depths 1, 2 and 4, as client usage typically consists mostly of low queue depth operations.
The 4TB 850 EVO manages to just barely break the record of the 1TB 850 Pro for the fastest sequential write speeds at low queue depths.
With the fastest performance and the fourth-lowest power usage, the 4TB comes out on top for efficiency.
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The 4TB 850 EVO shows substantially better QD1 performance and slightly better QD2 performance than the 2TB 850 EVO while having power consumption that is more in line with the 850 Pro.
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ddriver - Monday, July 11, 2016 - link
That's a valid point, and even though majority of the people who buy consumer stuff are gonna use it on windows, it is still no excuse, it is not like samsung doesn't have the resources to dedicate to proper support.Palorim12 - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
Linux is the only OS affected. Windows and Mac are fine. Disable Queued TRIM and Sequential TRIM will run. So NBD.Kevin G - Monday, July 11, 2016 - link
Samsung has horrible warranty support and they have had a few major issues with their SDDs (840 EVO performance degradation).Samus - Monday, July 11, 2016 - link
Yeah. I had two really sour back to back experiences with Samsung Storage support, one regarding the 840 EVO. After a month of back and fourth communication attempting different firmware updates as support requested, secure erase and reimage, and even trying the drive in another PC as support asked, it was obvious they were in denial of the well documented read performance problem. After RMA they shipped me back another 840 EVO that eventually (after a year) developed the same problems even with the latest firmware update. The problems always come up after a lot of writes like a game install. It wasn't worth the trouble. I would have been happy if they simply replaced the drive with an 850 EVO.Palorim12 - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
The FW update that came out in April completely fixed the issue. I posted several updates on a 840 EVO and an 840 EVO m-sata on Overclock that are fine well over a year since the fix.Palorim12 - Tuesday, July 12, 2016 - link
And they also came out with a fix for the non-EVO 840 recently.Impulses - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Did they? That's news to me! To teh Google...Impulses - Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - link
Huh, go figure, they DID issue an 840 update towards the end of June (2016)... What the heck took so long? I think most people had rightfully assumed the 840 (non EVO) was abandoned, the EVO did come out like 6 months after it.Apparently the issue was also never quite as severe on the 840 non EVO? Did they ever commit to a fix and it got drowned out over time or did that update happen out of the blue? No AT Pipeline post about it either...
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/Samsung-Magic...
Palorim12 - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - link
I think its because in most cases, it took longer for the issue to appear in the 840. So it would take longer for them to see if a fix fully worked?SetiroN - Monday, July 11, 2016 - link
Why wouldn't you?When you're talking TBs, that difference translates in HUNDREDS of dollars that I have better use for when Sandisk's performance is already good enough.
This drive only really makes sense in oddly demanding small laptops.