The Samsung 860 QVO (1TB, 4TB) SSD Review: First Consumer SATA QLC
by Billy Tallis on November 27, 2018 11:20 AM ESTIdle Power Measurement
SATA SSDs are tested with SATA link power management disabled to measure their active idle power draw, and with it enabled for the deeper idle power consumption score and the idle wake-up latency test. Our testbed, like any ordinary desktop system, cannot trigger the deepest DevSleep idle state.
Idle power management for NVMe SSDs is far more complicated than for SATA SSDs. NVMe SSDs can support several different idle power states, and through the Autonomous Power State Transition (APST) feature the operating system can set a drive's policy for when to drop down to a lower power state. There is typically a tradeoff in that lower-power states take longer to enter and wake up from, so the choice about what power states to use may differ for desktop and notebooks.
We report two idle power measurements. Active idle is representative of a typical desktop, where none of the advanced PCIe link or NVMe power saving features are enabled and the drive is immediately ready to process new commands. The idle power consumption metric is measured with PCIe Active State Power Management L1.2 state enabled and NVMe APST enabled if supported.
It appears that the 1TB Samsung 860 QVO was still busy with background processing several minutes after the test data was written to the drive, so our automated idle power measurement caught it still drawing 2W. The 4TB was much quicker to flush its SLC cache and turned in a respectable active idle power consumption score. Both drives have good idle power consumption when put into the slumber state, though we've measured slightly higher than the official spec of 30mW.
The wake-up latency for the 860 QVO is the same as their other SATA SSDs, hovering around a reasonable 1.2 ms. It's not the best that can be achieved over SATA, but it's nothing to complain about.
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Lolimaster - Thursday, November 29, 2018 - link
SSHD's shoudl use optane, like 32GB.Lolimaster - Thursday, November 29, 2018 - link
And let you manually mirror files that you want accelerated.h0007h - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
It's even slower than HDD。 Why not buy a regular HDD with an Optane? That's much cheaper.piroroadkill - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
It seems to me like the move from TLC to QLC is not just a bit worse, but monumentally so. QLC would have to be a LOT cheaper than TLC to warrant a purchase, not just a bit.piroroadkill - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
"The current street prices for the 860 EVO are lower than the 860 QVO for two out of three capacities, and that's comparing against one of the best SATA SSDs out there."Which makes QLC as a worthless product. I don't think 25% off the cheapest TLC SSDs would be enough, because it seems even worse than that.
rpg1966 - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
Right, because these at-introduction prices will never fall, just like with every other product in the history of the universe.Kamgusta - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
CONCLUSIONS: Current QLC drives are trash.vortmax2 - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
In the end, it's good to see this quad tech coming to the consumers. We're now within striking distance for true HDD to SSD storage/mirror conversion. In the next year or two, pricing will lower enough for many to make the leap.nwarawa - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
YES! Finally! Samsung GETS it! 512GB QLC models should not exist. Even 512GB models with current 3D TLC don't reach the parallelism performance sweet spot. The 2TB model, when priced right, should all but eliminate the case for consumer 2.5in HDDs.Kaihekoa - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
Pretty underwhelming performance and too expensive. I'd buy at 10 centers/GB.