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 - Heavy
Our Heavy storage benchmark is proportionally more write-heavy than The Destroyer, but much shorter overall. The total writes in the Heavy test aren't enough to fill the drive, so performance never drops down to steady state. This test is far more representative of a power user's day to day usage, and is heavily influenced by the drive's peak performance. The Heavy workload test details can be found here. This test is run twice, once on a freshly erased drive and once after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The Samsung 860 EVO's average data rates on the Heavy test are slightly below the 850 EVO, and the full drive and empty drive test runs produced the same average data rate. These regressions still leave the 860 EVO faster than most of its competition, though the Crucial MX500 is clearly faster when the test is run on an empty drive.
The average and 99th percentile latencies of these SATA drives are mostly quite similar. The Crucial MX300 had clear issues when full and the MX500 has slightly higher latency than its competitors, but otherwise the differences are minimal.
As compared with its predecessor, the Samsung 860 EVO shows slightly higher average read latency and slightly lower average write latency. The 860 EVO's scores are all still within the normal range for this product class.
Aside from the Crucial MX300, the 99th percentile write latency scores are all essentially the same for this batch of drives. There's a bit more variation for the 99th percentile read latencies, where the 860 EVO is slightly faster than its predecessor but still not as fast as the current or previous generation MLC drives from Samsung.
The 860 EVO uses less power during the Heavy test than its predecessor, but the improvement isn't enough to catch up to the Crucial and SanDisk drives, which match or beat the 860 PRO's efficiency.
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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?