I'm not sure giving up 80GB (40%) space to save €20 is the right choice. Remember, these things don't like being full and people tend to save a lot of junk of their drives. That said, the smallest SSD is still way better than the fastest HDD. (Have you ever seen Win10 trying to patch itself while installed on a HDD?)
"Remember, these things don't like being full and people tend to save a lot of junk of their drives."
For situations where the drive is never going to be full and you just need the cheapest possible SSD, it's fine. For instance, My spouse writes reports for a living, and she has never come anywhere near to filling up the 40gb X25-V on her work laptop. (no music, no pictures, no videos, just documents and PDFs and audio recordings that she refers to and then deletes when the report gets final client approval).
We've been missing the 128GB 850 Pro model with it's 10 year warranty, which usually cost about $90. We were using it in single task devices such as DVRs with secondary data drives. Having to move to the 256GB 850 Pro just meant we had to spend an extra $30+ for no extra benefit, and unfortunately those 256GB drives never dropped to the $90 price range.
Pricing did drop that low at one point; in the UK the 850 EVO 250GB was 53 UKP from Amazon and not much more elsewhere (meanwhile, 500GB pricing was slowly heading down to 100 UKP), but then after a blowout sale of several thousand 850 EVO 500GB units by one retailer in two weeks at around 115 UKP each (I bought two), I'm sure Samsung realised they simply didn't need to sell their tech so cheap, prices went up, and all the other vendors followed suit. Also, when new models came out, old models were almost immediately removed from seller sites, sometimes on the same day. Since then, pricing has almost doubled, there's just no need for the manufacturers to offer low pricing when they can easily sell everything they make due to OEM demand. It's ironic that the nature of that demand is largely by a consumer demographic that treats tech as thoroughly disposable, and often has little regard for what it is or how it works.
The more I see new products like this being worse than old products, the more I'm impressed with what Intel has done with Optane, etc. At least Intel has actually done something new, whereas Samsung seems to have done what Intel did with its CPU-based strong position, ie. sat on its butt for several years while the cash rolled in and not bothered to innovate. Have to wonder why Samsung couldn't have brought ought something like Optane ages ago, and for the consumer market, not just Enterprise. Yes there's a shift towards NVMe, but it's not that big yet (with warranties 50% shorter and insane price hikes on retail versions), and a lot of consumers just want capacity with decent quality. At this point a 4TB SATA SSD with the quality level of the 850 EVO would sell very well if sensibly priced, but nobody's even trying, they're still having fun selling low capacity models (why sell one 4TB when one can make a lot more selling twenty 120GB units). I remember SanDisk promised to have an 8TB model by now, but that never happened.
Billy, add the old 840 and 840 Pro into those results charts, I bet this new 850 wouldn't look so impressive, ditto if other old models were included too like the Vertex 4, Vector, Neutron GTX, etc. Heck, even the old 830 would likely put most of the modern non-Samsung models to shame (ditto something as ancient as a Vertex3, and it'd be hillarious too see where the budget Agility3/4 would fit in the charts today). SATA SSDs have become like CPUs before Ryzen finally launched, the tech has stagnated or even gone backwards. The 750 was touted as a cheaper 850 EVO, but in reality it became more expensive. I get that the nature of parallelism in NAND means larger dies don't offer the performance at lower capacities, but then that's why it would make sense to create something genuinely new; Intel needed a good poke in the ribs from Ryzen to get moving again with its CPU line, but at least it *did* something with respect to developing new storage tech.
Why not? Write endurance is not a factor when dealing with the boot/OS drive, especially when logs are moved onto another drive. Most servers would see 10-15GB of writes per week on the OS drive, with updates bumping that up more once in a while. This drive would last for decades at that write level.
meh - while there is nothing wrong with one as a boot drive only: once booted you won't benefit much. (this is not a reflection for complex server environs - which then you would never consider this SSD as a contender)
Even the infamous Samsung 840s were still out-performing 15k SAS drives in their degraded modes. I see free "crackerjack" USB 2.0 flash drives out performing my 7.2k RPM rust buckets.
Billy , I would really want to see , is not only the speed , but the power efficiency for a older laptop like my MacBook Pro 13in 2012. if some one really care about speed , they will go for 850 pro 850 EVO, or PCIE. my gaming PC is with 960 pro for windows and 850 evo for storage. my iMac for work is with apple PCIE and a Toshiba HK4R 960GB (power lost protection). SATA speed for a ssd is done.the speed difference between those cheap SSDs are to small. I am thinking to "upgrade" my MacBook Pro mid 2012 from 840 pro to a slower but very very power efficient SSD.
The company has already released several new versions of its OEM models, such as the PM871b, with 64-layer V-NAND. These drives often sell in basic systems from Dell, Lenovo, and other OEM brands. Customers often do not select the components in those systems, so the OEM models fly under the radar. Samsung isn't saying much for now, but it should answer our questions in early 2018. That's when we expect it to roll out new retail SSDs.
Thy should be cheaper now tho (cant JUST blame brexit) wanted to get a bulk storage drive and wanted quiet durable power efficient, so ssd, but still too expensive. Might have to go SSHD instead. Would buy samsung over other brands but not if the £perGB gets too out of whack. Crucial seem to be giving them some stick, and maybe WD will lower prices, now that the whole Toshiba Fab is getting sorted.
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31 Comments
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Kristian Vättö - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
There are still MLC based enterprise SSDs from Samsung, such as SM863a.yifu - Saturday, December 2, 2017 - link
also Toshiba hk4rqlum - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
For the pc's at work I always use 120gb ssd's as they offer enough capacity and are still about €20 cheaper then 200gb+ drives.bug77 - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
I'm not sure giving up 80GB (40%) space to save €20 is the right choice. Remember, these things don't like being full and people tend to save a lot of junk of their drives.That said, the smallest SSD is still way better than the fastest HDD. (Have you ever seen Win10 trying to patch itself while installed on a HDD?)
ads295 - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
I think that's why laptops started skipping on the HDD activity LED from as early as when Win8 was available.bcronce - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
Great for my firewall. I only need ~4GiB of space.Glaurung - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
"Remember, these things don't like being full and people tend to save a lot of junk of their drives."For situations where the drive is never going to be full and you just need the cheapest possible SSD, it's fine. For instance, My spouse writes reports for a living, and she has never come anywhere near to filling up the 40gb X25-V on her work laptop. (no music, no pictures, no videos, just documents and PDFs and audio recordings that she refers to and then deletes when the report gets final client approval).
pixelstuff - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
We've been missing the 128GB 850 Pro model with it's 10 year warranty, which usually cost about $90. We were using it in single task devices such as DVRs with secondary data drives. Having to move to the 256GB 850 Pro just meant we had to spend an extra $30+ for no extra benefit, and unfortunately those 256GB drives never dropped to the $90 price range.mapesdhs - Wednesday, November 29, 2017 - link
Pricing did drop that low at one point; in the UK the 850 EVO 250GB was 53 UKP from Amazon and not much more elsewhere (meanwhile, 500GB pricing was slowly heading down to 100 UKP), but then after a blowout sale of several thousand 850 EVO 500GB units by one retailer in two weeks at around 115 UKP each (I bought two), I'm sure Samsung realised they simply didn't need to sell their tech so cheap, prices went up, and all the other vendors followed suit. Also, when new models came out, old models were almost immediately removed from seller sites, sometimes on the same day. Since then, pricing has almost doubled, there's just no need for the manufacturers to offer low pricing when they can easily sell everything they make due to OEM demand. It's ironic that the nature of that demand is largely by a consumer demographic that treats tech as thoroughly disposable, and often has little regard for what it is or how it works.The more I see new products like this being worse than old products, the more I'm impressed with what Intel has done with Optane, etc. At least Intel has actually done something new, whereas Samsung seems to have done what Intel did with its CPU-based strong position, ie. sat on its butt for several years while the cash rolled in and not bothered to innovate. Have to wonder why Samsung couldn't have brought ought something like Optane ages ago, and for the consumer market, not just Enterprise. Yes there's a shift towards NVMe, but it's not that big yet (with warranties 50% shorter and insane price hikes on retail versions), and a lot of consumers just want capacity with decent quality. At this point a 4TB SATA SSD with the quality level of the 850 EVO would sell very well if sensibly priced, but nobody's even trying, they're still having fun selling low capacity models (why sell one 4TB when one can make a lot more selling twenty 120GB units). I remember SanDisk promised to have an 8TB model by now, but that never happened.
Billy, add the old 840 and 840 Pro into those results charts, I bet this new 850 wouldn't look so impressive, ditto if other old models were included too like the Vertex 4, Vector, Neutron GTX, etc. Heck, even the old 830 would likely put most of the modern non-Samsung models to shame (ditto something as ancient as a Vertex3, and it'd be hillarious too see where the budget Agility3/4 would fit in the charts today). SATA SSDs have become like CPUs before Ryzen finally launched, the tech has stagnated or even gone backwards. The 750 was touted as a cheaper 850 EVO, but in reality it became more expensive. I get that the nature of parallelism in NAND means larger dies don't offer the performance at lower capacities, but then that's why it would make sense to create something genuinely new; Intel needed a good poke in the ribs from Ryzen to get moving again with its CPU line, but at least it *did* something with respect to developing new storage tech.
Ian.
WithoutWeakness - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
First section header in the introduction: The *Samung* SSD 850"boozed - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
This website really needs a "send corrections" link...mr_tawan - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
corrections is a kind of participation. Using comments is not that bad idea.dgingeri - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
This sounds like a great OS drive for servers. They don't change all that much, especially if the logs are offloaded to a different drive.sonny73n - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
TLC for servers? No thanks.dgingeri - Wednesday, November 29, 2017 - link
Why not? Write endurance is not a factor when dealing with the boot/OS drive, especially when logs are moved onto another drive. Most servers would see 10-15GB of writes per week on the OS drive, with updates bumping that up more once in a while. This drive would last for decades at that write level.tmanini - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
meh - while there is nothing wrong with one as a boot drive only: once booted you won't benefit much. (this is not a reflection for complex server environs - which then you would never consider this SSD as a contender)lilmoe - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
The EVOs are priced down on amazon now. Just saying.Magichands8 - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
They better be. Nothing much to see here.lilmoe - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
I know... I like Sammy and all, but I'd like to see them go even lower. 2TB SSDs shouldn't be a luxury anymore.mapesdhs - Wednesday, November 29, 2017 - link
Still a very long way from where they used to be. 850 EVO 250GB is currently 85 UKP on Amazon; before the pricing went crazy it was 53 UKP.lilmoe - Monday, November 27, 2017 - link
Oh, and so are the Pros... hmmm.Is that a holiday discount or is it that I haven't checked the price in a while?
Arbie - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
Great article, even though its subject is a minor league item. AT quality.bug77 - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
That's the ugly face of SSD: the cheaper they make them, the more we lose durability and access speed...bcronce - Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - link
Still 1000x faster than a mechanical drive, perceptibly as fast as any other SSD for most situations, and will last a lifetime.mapesdhs - Wednesday, November 29, 2017 - link
Definitely will not last a lifetime, and some newer models can have worse steady state performance than a rust spinner.bcronce - Wednesday, November 29, 2017 - link
Even the infamous Samsung 840s were still out-performing 15k SAS drives in their degraded modes. I see free "crackerjack" USB 2.0 flash drives out performing my 7.2k RPM rust buckets.MamiyaOtaru - Thursday, November 30, 2017 - link
no you don'tyifu - Saturday, December 2, 2017 - link
power efficiency test pleaseyifu - Sunday, December 3, 2017 - link
Billy , I would really want to see , is not only the speed , but the power efficiency for a older laptop like my MacBook Pro 13in 2012. if some one really care about speed , they will go for 850 pro 850 EVO, or PCIE. my gaming PC is with 960 pro for windows and 850 evo for storage. my iMac for work is with apple PCIE and a Toshiba HK4R 960GB (power lost protection). SATA speed for a ssd is done.the speed difference between those cheap SSDs are to small.I am thinking to "upgrade" my MacBook Pro mid 2012 from 840 pro to a slower but very very power efficient SSD.
finefunny - Sunday, December 3, 2017 - link
The company has already released several new versions of its OEM models, such as the PM871b, with 64-layer V-NAND. These drives often sell in basic systems from Dell, Lenovo, and other OEM brands. Customers often do not select the components in those systems, so the OEM models fly under the radar.Samsung isn't saying much for now, but it should answer our questions in early 2018. That's when we expect it to roll out new retail SSDs.
dromoxen - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
Thy should be cheaper now tho (cant JUST blame brexit) wanted to get a bulk storage drive and wanted quiet durable power efficient, so ssd, but still too expensive. Might have to go SSHD instead.Would buy samsung over other brands but not if the £perGB gets too out of whack. Crucial seem to be giving them some stick, and maybe WD will lower prices, now that the whole Toshiba Fab is getting sorted.