The Samsung 960 EVO (1TB) Review
by Billy Tallis on November 15, 2016 10:00 AM ESTPerformance Consistency
Our performance consistency test explores the extent to which a drive can reliably sustain performance during a long-duration random write test. Specifications for consumer drives typically list peak performance numbers only attainable in ideal conditions. The performance in a worst-case scenario can be drastically different as over the course of a long test drives can run out of spare area, have to start performing garbage collection, and sometimes even reach power or thermal limits.
In addition to an overall decline in performance, a long test can show patterns in how performance varies on shorter timescales. Some drives will exhibit very little variance in performance from second to second, while others will show massive drops in performance during each garbage collection cycle but otherwise maintain good performance, and others show constantly wide variance. If a drive periodically slows to hard drive levels of performance, it may feel slow to use even if its overall average performance is very high.
To maximally stress the drive's controller and force it to perform garbage collection and wear leveling, this test conducts 4kB random writes with a queue depth of 32. The drive is filled before the start of the test, and the test duration is one hour. Any spare area will be exhausted early in the test and by the end of the hour even the largest drives with the most overprovisioning will have reached a steady state. We use the last 400 seconds of the test to score the drive both on steady-state average writes per second and on its performance divided by the standard deviation.
The 960 EVO's steady state random write speed is not quite as fast as the 960 Pro, but it's in the same league and much faster than most consumer SSDs.
The 960 EVO sets a new record for combining high performance with consistency. It's a bit slower than the 960 Pro, but less variable.
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Highly consistent performance is a good thing, but it makes for a boring graph. The transitions from peak to sustained performance modes look the same for both the 960 Pro and the 960 EVO.
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The 960 EVO responds to extra overprovisioning with even more consistent (and high) performance.
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Eddie Goodie - Sunday, November 20, 2016 - link
It seems these drives are delayed because of NAND shortage. But what about the driver and the Magician software ? There is a lack or delay of some kind? If these items work and benefit former models, I see no reason for this delay after delay. Needless to say they play in my decission to buy a 960Pro when available, I'll wait for some advances here. Very dissapointing.hvar - Monday, November 21, 2016 - link
Where are the RAIDs? I want a RAID-5 enclosure with 5 of these drives with Thunderbolt 3 connector for video editing. Why does all RAID-enclosures still use SATA?Beany2013 - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - link
Because no bugger is making anything other than SATA/SAS RAID cards so far.I'm sure they'll come along, but they're taking their bloody time about it.
Chad - Saturday, December 3, 2016 - link
Dat Optics been making them for awhile now. Thunderbolt 1, 2 & 3 enclosures. I use one. It flies!Meteor2 - Wednesday, November 23, 2016 - link
Is there going to be an 860 line from Samsung, or is SATA maxed out?JJWV - Wednesday, November 30, 2016 - link
"As is normal for Samsung's EVO lines, the usable capacities are a bit smaller, with the 1TB EVO being 1000GB instead of 1024GB."It is norma for the whole world except Microsoft and some others : 1 TB is 1000 GB, just like 1TW is 1000 GW. (On the other hand 1 TiB is 1024 GiB notice the "i" between the T and the B ?)
haybat - Saturday, May 13, 2017 - link
so, this is MLC or TLC NAND drive? because all of samsung datasheet claimed that 960 Evo is using MLC NAND.