Samsung SSD 850 Pro (128GB, 256GB & 1TB) Review: Enter the 3D Era
by Kristian Vättö on July 1, 2014 10:00 AM ESTFinal Words
Samsung does not cease to amaze me with their SSDs as the 850 Pro just kills it in every aspect. The performance is there. The endurance is the best of the class. Heck, even Samsung's feature and software suites beat the competition by a mile. To be honest, there is not a single thing missing in the 850 Pro because regardless of the angle you look at the drive from, it it will still top the charts.
Samsung's heavy investment on NAND R&D and specifically 3D NAND is really paying off in the 850 Pro. Thanks to the more efficient structure of 3D NAND, Samsung has been able to improve all three main aspects of NAND i.e. performance, endurance and power consumption. It will be very hard for anyone to compete with the 850 Pro as the characteristics of V-NAND are superior compared to 2D NAND. The density is also very competitive against the smallest 2D NAND nodes, meaning that V-NAND should not carry a hefty premium over MLC.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (6/28/2014) | ||||
| 120/128GB | 240/256GB | 480/512GB | 960GB/1TB | |
| Samsung SSD 850 Pro (MSRP) | $130 | $200 | $400 | $700 |
| Samsung SSD 840 Pro | $120 | $190 | $401 | - |
| Samsung SSD 840 EVO | $80 | $140 | $240 | $420 |
| SanDisk Extreme Pro | - | $200 | $370 | $600 |
| SanDisk Extreme II | $80 | $150 | $260 | - |
| Crucial MX100 | $75 | $110 | $210 | - |
| Crucial M550 | $104 | $157 | $280 | $491 |
| Plextor M6S | $100 | $145 | $400 | - |
| Intel SSD 730 | - | $270 | $500 | - |
| Intel SSD 530 | $94 | $165 | $330 | - |
| OCZ Vector 150 | $115 | $190 | $370 | - |
Update: Samsung just provided us the updated MSRPs, which I have added to the table. The old MSRPs were $230 for 256GB, $430 for 512GB and $730 for the 1TB capacity. This certainly makes the 850 Pro more price competitive with the Extreme Pro, although the 1TB drive is still $100 more.
The MSRPs, on the other hand, are a bit of a letdown. I was hoping that Samsung would have priced the 850 Pro more aggressively because now they are asking anywhere between $30 and $130 more than what SanDisk is charging for the Extreme Pro. The 850 Pro is certainly a better drive in all areas but forking over up to $130 more for one can be difficult to justify. Of course, as with all MSRPs, they should be taken with a grain of salt and I certainly hope that the actual street prices end up being closer to the Extreme Pro ones the 850 Pro becomes available in the next few weeks.
If you are looking for a SATA 6Gbps drive and want the absolute best, the 850 Pro is your pick. It is without a doubt the best drive in the market as long as you are able to justify the price premium over other options.
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extide - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
Well, kinda, I mean, some implementations come from the IOH instead of the CPU. I have heard rumors that future versions of Intel Desktop CPU's will have 20-24 PCIE lanes on them instead of 16. That would be perfect for storage!smithrd3512 - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
Gotta love that warranty. 10 years on the drive. Might be worth the extra cost just for that alone.rahuldesai1987 - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
"That is very aggressive because it essentially implies that the die capacity will double every year (256Gbit next year, 512Gbit in 2016 and finally 1Tbit in 2017)" - Does this mean a 8TB drive at $600 in 2017 ($75 per TB). Good bye hard drives by then :). What about a 850/850 Evo version?DarkXale - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
It certainly does imply 8TB SSDs by 2017. By that point such a SSD will likely have a higher capacity than HDDs of that time.Of course, price will be very significantly in favour of the HDD still; but if money is no object you could do bulk storage in a portable device if you wanted to.
CalaverasGrande - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
This may become an exhibit in some future dispute between Samsung and Apple. Those prices are easily Apple territory.extide - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
Ehh, those prices were par for the course 18-24+ months ago!toyotabedzrock - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
Does the height of these 32 layers make the cells more delicate when subjected to horizontal movement?And is this mlc or TLC?
MrSpadge - Wednesday, July 2, 2014 - link
Do, it doesn't. The height scale is still in the µm range, which is pretty much stable on macroscopic sclaes.emvonline - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
thanks for the article on VNAND SSD. I think the SSD analysis is good and shows the impact. The details of Planar NAND and VNAND are incorrect in many cases. The overall NAND takeaway should be Samsung VNAND is a 86Gbit device Die level with a very large effective cell size. I still want to buy one... where can I get it?Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - link
"The details of Planar NAND and VNAND are incorrect in many cases."Can you elaborate on that? I'm not saying that there can't be mistakes but it doesn't help me unless you explain what you think is incorrect.