Samsung Releases SSD 750 Series in Japan
Samsung Japan lifted the cover on the new SSD 750 EVO over the weekend. The new drive moves Samsung's SSDs further in line with traditional product naming from the company's other product lines. This new product series uses an existing controller and 2D planar NAND flash and is limited to small capacity sizes at this time.
Not much is known about the new SSD 750 EVO. Our only information comes from Samsung's Japanese website that we translated to English. On the site we found the official product page for the SSD 750 EVO 120 GB and a dead link to a 250 GB model. This may indicate that a web developer published the page early. Official media reps from the company have yet to disclose any details about the products.
This will mark the first 7 series SSD from Samsung. Many of the company's other products follow similar naming schemes with 7, 8 and 9 Series products. The EVO at the end indicates that the drive uses 3-bit per cell NAND flash. It appears the company plans to bring naming schemes over from notebooks, TVs and other electronic devices sold globally. The new drive follows Samsung's recent release of the SSD 950 Pro.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | SSD 750 EVO 120 GB | SSD 750 EVO 250 GB |
|---|---|---|
| Controller | Samsung MGX | Samsung MGX |
| NAND Flash | Samsung 1xnm 128 GB | Samsung 1xnm 256 GB |
| DRAM | Samsung DDR3 256 MB | Samsung DDR3 512 MB (est) |
| Interface | SATA 6 Gb/s | SATA 6 Gb/s |
| Encryption | AES 256-bit FDETCG Opal 2.0IEEE 1667 | AES 256-bit FDETCG Opal 2.0IEEE 1667 |
| Sequential Read | 540 MB/s | -- |
| Sequential Write | 520 MB/s | -- |
| Random Read (QD1) | 10,000 IOPS | -- |
| Random Read (QD32) | 94,000 IOPS | -- |
| Random Write (QD1) | 35,000 IOPS | -- |
| Random Write (QD32) | 88,000 IOPS | -- |
| Warranty | 3 Years | 3 Years |
The MGX controller was previously used on the SSD 850 EVO and large capacity 850 Pro models. Absent from the translated product page is any mention of 3D V-NAND flash. This leads us to believe Samsung will bake the SSD 750 EVO with 2D planar TLC NAND flash similar to the 840 EVO. This may be the first 16nm 3-bit per cell product, but it may still use 19nm. Samsung rarely discloses specific lithography nodes.
Since Computex, we've talked about the road to the bottom and how SSD prices have and will continue to plummet. We already see 256 GB-class drives selling for $60 and expect Black Friday sales to dip into the $40-50 range. Post Black Friday, the prices will hold. Samsung will not want to take premium V-NAND products under $60 (for the 250 GB model), so the new SSD 750 Series will allow the company to have a competitive product in the very low cost sector.
We feel Samsung will have a competitive product with the SSD 750 in this area. The drive delivers competitive performance (at least on paper), a solid 3-year warranty, and AES 256-bit encryption. Rapid Mode support through Samsung's Magician software was just increased to version 4.9, and it supports the SSD 750.
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Chris Ramseyer was a senior contributing editor for Tom's Hardware. He tested and reviewed consumer storage.