Samsung Releases m.2 And mSATA 850 EVO SSDs
Samsung refreshed its popular 850 EVO series with slim m.2 and mSATA flavors. The new pint-sized offerings are perfect for laptops and Ultrabooks and come in capacities of 120 GB, 250 GB, and 500 GB for both m.2 and mSATA. The mSATA EVO also offers a capacious 1 TB model.
The drives interface via mSATA and m.2 connectors, but they're still SATA-based SSDs. The new variants offer similar performance specifications to the 2.5" model, and speed varies with capacity. Maximum sequential speeds weigh in at 540/520 MBps read/write, and random performance peaks at 97,000/89,000 read/write IOPS.
The new SSDs continue to leverage the now tried-and-true Samsung TLC 3D V-NAND. The Samsung-proprietary 32-Layer 3D NAND offers more endurance, performance, density, and lower cost in comparison to typical 2D NAND. Last week, a flurry of 3D NAND announcements came out, but for now Samsung is the only company in the world shipping finished 3D NAND products.
Samsung boosts endurance and performance with its TurboWrite feature, which is a fast write buffer for incoming writes. The Magician software provides monitoring and management tools for the SSD, along with the optional Rapid Mode, which is a RAM-based caching feature geared for the speed-junky crowd.
Samsung was the first SSD manufacturer to bring TLC NAND to consumer SSDs, and many skeptics questioned whether TLC offered enough endurance for the broader SSD market. Time has proven TLC to be a durable solution, especially when combined with innovative engineering techniques, such as the TurboWrite feature, that reduce wear on the underlying NAND.
TLC has continued to gain popularity largely because of its solid performance and low price point. According to DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, TLC accounted for 37 percent of NAND shipments in the last quarter of 2014, and it predicts that TLC will total half of the world's NAND output by the end of this year.
The 850 EVO offers an endurance threshold of 75 TBW (TeraBytes Written) for the 120 GB and 250 GB models, and 150 TBW for the 500 GB and 1 TB models. The five-year warranty is competitive with other m.2 and mSATA products, but for the 2.5" segment many SSDs, such as the Samsung 850 PRO, feature a longer 10-year warranty period.
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The new drives cost slightly more than a standard 2.5" model and come with MSRPs of $100, $150, $270, and $500 for the 120 GB, 250 GB, 500 GB and 1 TB SSDs. Look to these pages soon for our full review.
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Paul Alcorn is the Editor-in-Chief for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.
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tical2399 Was about to look for one to by until I say that they are sata based. Somebody release a damn m.2 pcie 3.0 4x drive to retail alreadyReply -
CKKwan I have already got mine (1TB mSata 850 EVO) last Friday. Too bad only comes with 3 years warranty. Still looking for the M2.0 3mm flat head screw for me to screw it on to my laptop :(Reply -
Darkk I recently bought the Samsung 850 EVO 500 gig for my Linux Mint workstation. Made a huge difference in speed. Correction to the previous poster the EVO 850 model line comes with a 5 year warranty not 3 regardless of interface type. There is a write limit warranty but doubt most of you will ever reach that over the life of the drive.Reply -
jasonelmore ReplyWas about to look for one to by until I say that they are sata based. Somebody release a damn m.2 pcie 3.0 4x drive to retail already
Most PC's only have 16 3.0. Lanes And the graphics card uses all of that up.
PCI Express 4 in conjuction with skylake going to 20 lanes will help push PCIe SSD Storage, but thats a two years away. 2H 2016 for PCI 4.0 -
yumri ReplyWas about to look for one to by until I say that they are sata based. Somebody release a damn m.2 pcie 3.0 4x drive to retail already
Most PC's only have 16 3.0. Lanes And the graphics card uses all of that up.
PCI Express 4 in conjuction with skylake going to 20 lanes will help push PCIe SSD Storage, but thats a two years away. 2H 2016 for PCI 4.0
to who you have quoted Plexor already has a line of PCIe 4x m.2 drives and to jasonelmore how do you get there will even be a PCIe 4.0 that is compatable with PCIe 3.0 and before?
My comment on the article now it is a nice thing to see that laptops and tablets will get more storage soon -
siman0 ReplyWas about to look for one to by until I say that they are sata based. Somebody release a damn m.2 pcie 3.0 4x drive to retail already
Most PC's only have 16 3.0. Lanes And the graphics card uses all of that up.
PCI Express 4 in conjuction with skylake going to 20 lanes will help push PCIe SSD Storage, but thats a two years away. 2H 2016 for PCI 4.0
This is wrong the Z77 and Z87 platforms have 16X lanes that hang off the CPU's integrated PCI-e controller, but they have 8X 2.0 lanes hanging off the south bridge. (4x 3.0 PCI-e) Most of the M-ATX boards that have the little 4x/8x PCI-e slot are those lanes. -
Paul Alcorn Just hang loose guys. Something is coming that is going to change the whole game, and it is close, trust me :)Reply -
Sea Bee There is kingston hyper x predator m2, that looks good. http://www.overclockers.com/kingston-hyperx-predator-m-2-pcie-g2-x4-480gb-ssd-review/Reply