Samsung is taking the wraps off of a new desktop-oriented SSD. Dubbed the 840 EVO, it joins the 840 Pro and vanilla 840 in Samsung's SATA-based retail family. According to the company, the EVO will slot in under its 840 Pro as a mainstream offering, but will eventually replace the TLC-based 840. Samsung intends to keep the 840 EVO's pricing the same as its predecessor's for bare drive packaging. Desktop and laptop installation kits will be available as well, including a SATA-to-USB 3.0 adapter.
Samsung is claiming huge performance advantages over the existing 840, including serious write speed enhancements courtesy of what company representatives refer to as Turbo Write. This feature uses some of the drive's three-bit-per-cell NAND in a simulated SLC mode for caching. Single-level cell flash can read and write much quicker than memory cells storing multiple bits. Samsung claims the new model's write speed tops out at 520 MB/s and 90,000 4 KB write IOPS, compared to the 500 GB 840's more pedestrian 330 MB/s sequential writes and 44,000 4 KB write IOPS.
Read speeds are slightly improved over the original 840, now rated at 500+ MB/s sequentials and up to 98,000 IOPS.
The EVO employs Samsung's new NAND process technology. Its latest flash is a 10 nm-class (geometry somewhere between 10 and 20 nm) design, with each die storing 128 Gb (16 GB), enabling the Korean company to double current flash density for higher-capacity drives. The EVO will ship in capacities ranging from 120 GB up to nearly 1 TB when it launches in August. That includes a 750 GB model, alongside more common 120, 240, and 500 GB capacity points.
Samsung claims to have sold over 2.5 million 840s in the aftermarket. It says that number puts it in control of 20% of aftermarket SSD sales with a single model that was launched late last year.
