Samsung 850 Pro SSD Review: 3D Vertical NAND Hits Desktop Storage

Results: 128 KB Sequential Read And Write

Fantastic sequential read and write performance is a trademark of modern SSDs. To measure it, we use incompressible data over a 16 GB LBA space, and then test at queue depths from one to 16. We're reporting these numbers in binary (where 1 KB equals 1024) instead of decimal numbers (where 1 KB is 1000 bytes). When necessary, we also limit the scale of the chart to enhance readability.

128 KB Sequential Read

There's not much difference between drives in this metric. Then again, I didn't expect any. Getting 538 MiB/s is about all we'll see from SATA 6Gb/s, and these could have been any three drives to pass through my lab lately; they're all hitting the interface's ceiling. On to the writes.

128 KB Sequential Write

The 128 GB 850 Pro is the only drive to register lower performance, as we knew would be the case. But hitting 460 MB/s is no joke. No other 128 GB drive I have comes close. Note that, first, I'm using 128 KB access sizes, and second, reporting in binary, not decimal. In decimal, that'd be 482 MB/s. Put another way, the 128 GB 850 Pro pushes 100 MB/s more than the 840 Pro at 128 GB.

Samsung's 256 and 1024 GB models are blazing fast, demonstrating throughput in excess of 510 MB/s (again, in binary). That's as fast as you're going to see from a SATA 6Gb/s-based SSD.

Here's a breakdown of the maximum observed 128 KB sequential read and write performance with Iometer:

Sorted by combined maximum read and write throughput, two 850 Pros establish beachheads just below the pair of PCIe-based SSDs. No drive with a SATA interface can claim to deliver more sequential performance. And again, dig through this chart and you'll find that no competing 128 GB-class offering touches the 850 Pro.

  • MoulaZX
    I 'just' ordered 2x Samsung EVO 120GB a few hours ago, then I stumbled onto this article. Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Every freaking time I run into this, be it Storage, CPU, or GPU.... -_-
    Reply
  • cryan
    I 'just' ordered 2x Samsung EVO 120GB a few hours ago, then I stumbled onto this article. Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Every freaking time I run into this, be it Storage, CPU, or GPU.... -_-

    I don't know if this really changes anything for you. Two EVOs are still going to be better than one 850 Pro in every way. But I understand the sentiment!

    Christopher Ryan
    Reply
  • lp231
    13621005 said:
    I 'just' ordered 2x Samsung EVO 120GB a few hours ago, then I stumbled onto this article. Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Every freaking time I run into this, be it Storage, CPU, or GPU.... -_-
    You just ordered a few hours ago. Just cancel your order if you really want this 850 Pro.
    Reply
  • tomfreak
    10yrs warranty, may be finally I have a reason to buy SSD. lol
    Reply
  • g-unit1111
    13621197 said:
    10yrs warranty, may be finally I have a reason to buy SSD. lol

    I can guarantee that in 10 years you won't own that drive anymore. :lol:
    Reply
  • 10tacle
    I still have several 8-10 year old drives laying around between 80GB-150GB. I mostly use them as external drives for backing up USB thumb drives and other files that aren't large volume.
    Reply
  • helper800
    Hoping for some SATA 12gbs (or more) transfer speeds in the coming years.
    Reply
  • razor512
    Will overclocking the bus that the sata controller is on impact the performance?

    Can you test on an AMD platform which makes it easier to over clock that bus and some of the connected components?
    Reply
  • BestJinjo
    Looking forward to future generations of 3D Vertical Nand on M.2 / M.2 Ultra interface. Too bad SATA 3 is all maxed out and the next generation standards are not yet mainstream for the masses which is holding back SSD performance. As far as this drive goes, it's only slightly faster than MX100 but costs double. I don't think it's worth it. MX100 512GB sounds like a perfect stop-gap until M.2/SATAe drives arrive with 1-1.5TB/sec throughput. Perhaps Samsung will give us 95% of the performance for a fraction of the price in the 850 EVO.
    Reply
  • MoulaZX
    I 'just' ordered 2x Samsung EVO 120GB a few hours ago, then I stumbled onto this article. Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Every freaking time I run into this, be it Storage, CPU, or GPU.... -_-

    I don't know if this really changes anything for you. Two EVOs are still going to be better than one 850 Pro in every way. But I understand the sentiment!

    Christopher Ryan

    Not quite. One is for my Desktop, the other is for my Father's Desktop.

    For my Desktop, I'll be stepping up from 2x OCZ Vertex 2 60GB in RAID 0. Hope it'll be worth it...
    Reply