The Latest High-Capacity M.2: The Samsung 860 EVO 2TB SSD, Reviewed
by Billy Tallis on February 14, 2018 1:40 PM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - The Destroyer
The Destroyer is an extremely long test replicating the access patterns of very IO-intensive desktop usage. A detailed breakdown can be found in this article. Like real-world usage, the drives do get the occasional break that allows for some background garbage collection and flushing caches, but those idle times are limited to 25ms so that it doesn't take all week to run the test. These AnandTech Storage Bench (ATSB) tests do not involve running the actual applications that generated the workloads, so the scores are relatively insensitive to changes in CPU performance and RAM from our new testbed, but the jump to a newer version of Windows and the newer storage drivers can have an impact.
We quantify performance on this test by reporting the drive's average data throughput, the average latency of the I/O operations, and the total energy used by the drive over the course of the test.
The Samsung 860 EVO 2TB matches the performance of the 4TB 860 PRO. Both of the new generation drives offer small improvements to the average data rate on The Destroyer—enough to secure Samsung's position at the top of the SATA SSD market, but not enough for 850 PRO or EVO owners to have reason to upgrade.
The 860 EVO provides small improvements to both average and 99th percentile latency. The SanDisk Ultra 3D keeps Samsung's drives from being the clear winners by this metric.
The generational improvements from the 860 EVO are similar for both average read and average write latency. The SanDisk Ultra 3D has a clear advantage for average write latency, but otherwise the current-generation drives with 64L 3D NAND have very similar latency.
The 860 EVO improves both 99th percentile read and write latency, and by a larger amount than average latencies improved.
The power consumption of the 860 EVO is much lower than the 850 EVO and is competitive with the latest drives from Crucial and SanDisk, but isn't a match for the 860 PRO. (The 860 EVO's score here is handicapped by the voltage regulation of our SATA to M.2 converter, and the 1TB Crucial and SanDisk drives have less memory to be powering during the test.)
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
32 Comments
View All Comments
yankeeDDL - Friday, February 16, 2018 - link
Today, on Newegg, the 860 Evo m.2 250GB is $77.99. The 960 Evo is $98.99. It seems to me a relevant question to understand if $21 are worth the difference. If the 960 "utterly destroys" the 860 (and, therefore, all other devices in the comparison), then why even bother, given $21 price difference?Luckz - Monday, April 30, 2018 - link
Because it destroying the 960 only matters if you copy files from left to right. Sequential writing.PeachNCream - Thursday, February 15, 2018 - link
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this feels like a slightly disappointing result. There's nothing outwardly wrong about the 860 EVO, but it isn't very far ahead of the competition and the price seems too high for what you get back.Samus - Thursday, February 15, 2018 - link
Is the 2TB m.2 drive single sided?OddFriendship8989 - Thursday, February 15, 2018 - link
I'm always kinda annoyed by these comparisons. Yes the obvious 850 vs 860 comparison was done, but what about the 960? I think both the 860 EVO and 860 Pro should be tested against the 960 and compared. It gives people perspective if they should shell out extra $$ or not. It always seems to me a lot of these benches are lazy. I know it takes time to do comparisons, but that's why we trust you reviewers.saketh_ravirala - Sunday, February 18, 2018 - link
What is the main difference between 850 EVO and 860 EVO?If it is a upgraded version, then why is there a slight performance loss?
If i get both for the same price, which one should i buy!!!
yifu - Wednesday, February 21, 2018 - link
Cheapestyifu - Wednesday, February 21, 2018 - link
If Same price, Which box looks better to you. At this level, there is no difference you will ever knowzodiacfml - Tuesday, February 20, 2018 - link
Reading the first few pages, it felt that Samsung has not done anything substantial. In the last pages, it can be see that the gains are in the mixed random load. They optimized for this load which is logical!peevee - Tuesday, February 20, 2018 - link
What's the point of making iit m.2 and then only giving it SATA?