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 - Light
Our Light storage test has relatively more sequential accesses and lower queue depths than The Destroyer or the Heavy test, and it's by far the shortest test overall. It's based largely on applications that aren't highly dependent on storage performance, so this is a test more of application launch times and file load times. This test can be seen as the sum of all the little delays in daily usage, but with the idle times trimmed to 25ms it takes less than half an hour to run. Details of the Light test can be found here. As with the ATSB Heavy test, this test is run with the drive both freshly erased and empty, and after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The average data rate of the Samsung 860 EVO on the Light test is slightly lower than the 850 EVO, but still definitely within the normal range for this class of drives.
Average and 99th percentile latencies from the 860 EVO on the Light test are about the same as its predecessor and Samsung's other SATA SSDs. The competing SATA drives tend to show a bit higher average latency when the test is run on a full drive.
Average read and write latencies for the 860 EVO are within the normal range, for Samsung's drives. The competing drives from Crucial and SanDisk show larger increases to average read latency when the test is run on a full drive.
Looking at 99th percentile read and write latencies on the Light test, Samsung's drives are generally the least-affected by being full, and the 860 EVO doesn't break that pattern.The SanDisk Ultra 3D has a slightly better 99th percentile write latency than Samsung's SATA drives.
The Samsung 860 EVO shows clear improvement in power consumption over its predecessor, but the Crucial and SanDisk drives are still clearly in the lead over the Samsung drives.
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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?