Tom's Hardware Verdict

If you are in the market for a new SATA based SSD, the Samsung 860 QVO delivers acceptable performance, high capacity, and enough endurance to satisfy most users. It even includes AES 256-bit encryption with Windows BitLocker support. The only thing that's missing is the lower price point we expect from QLC SSDs, which makes the 860 QVO hard to recommend over the proliferation of faster and cheaper SSDs on the market.

Pros

+
Decent endurance for a QLC SSD
+
Build quality
+
AES 256-bit encryption with Windows BitLocker support

Cons

-
High introductory MSRP
-
Write performance after SLC cache exhausts
-
Three-year warranty

Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

Go to page:

Samsung 860 QVO

Samsung leads the SSD industry, largely due to the huge lead the company opened up in the race to 3D flash. Along the way, Samsung established a reputation as an SSD powerhouse and has consistently set the standard for performance, quality, and support. But it isn't the first to bring a QLC SSD to market. Companies like Intel and Micron/Crucial already have QLC SSDs, but we knew it was only a matter of time until the SSD giant joined in.

The 860 QVO features Samsung’s newest V4 QLC V-NAND paired with the SATA interface and its well-established MJX controller. Together, these components deliver over 550/520MB/s of sequential read/write throughput and up to 97,000/89,000 random read/write IOPS. However, performance is only one part of the equation: the 860 QVO uses lower-quality QLC flash that is supposed to bring lower prices and higher capacity to the masses, but the company's pricing isn't as competitive with other options as we expected.

2018 marked the introduction of QLC SSDs, but they will truly thrive in 2019. Enthusiasts aren't very enthusiastic, though. QLC flash has inherently lower native write speeds and lower endurance than the TLC or MLC flash found in most modern SSDs. But, like the move to other types of flash before it, QLC should pave the way for larger storage devices and lower prices, which is always good for us. The Intel 660p is a prime example. At launch, it set the new low bar for value NVMe storage. Crucial's P1 followed soon after.

We finally learned about the 860 QVO when Samsung announced it earlier this year, and we were finally given a name at Samsung’s Tech Day event last month. During the announcement, Samsung briefly listed the 860 QVO on a slide alongside a 980 QVO but didn't provide more detail about the mystery 980 model. As with SSDs based on other types of flash, we expect models with higher performance and endurance to come to market alongside cheaper and slower models, so it's logical to conclude the 980 QVO will be a higher-performance model. Samsung hasn't announced a launch date.

All QVO SSDs come with a static 6GB write cache that doesn't change regardless of conditions, but they also have a larger intelligent write cache of 36-72GB (depending on drive capacity). This intelligent cache dynamically expands and contracts based on the amount of data stored on the drive. This provides impressive performance for inbound writes, but if the drive doesn’t have enough free space the intelligent cache will not be available, leaving you with just 6GB of static cache. On the 1TB model, the intelligent cache evaporates after there is less than 168GB of free space. We have reached out to Samsung for specifics about the other capacities and will update as necessary.

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Product	860 QVO 1TB	860 QVO 2TB	860 QVO 4TB
Pricing	$149.99	$299.99	$599.99
Capacity (User / Raw)	1000GB / 1024GB	2000GB / 2048GB	4000GB / 4096GB
Form Factor	2.5" 7mm	2.5" 7mm	2.5" 7mm
Interface / Protocol	SATA 6.0 Gb/s / AHCI	SATA 6.0 Gb/s / AHCI	SATA 6.0 Gb/s / AHCI
Controller	Samsung MJX	Samsung MJX	Samsung MJX
DRAM	1GB LPDDR4	2GB LPDDR4	4GB LPDDR4
NAND Flash	Samsung QLC V-NAND	Samsung QLC V-NAND	Samsung QLC V-NAND
Sequential Read	550 MB/s	550 MB/s	550 MB/s
Sequential Write	520 MB/s	520 MB/s	520 MB/s
Random Read	96,000	97,000	97,000
Random Write	89,000	89,000	89,000
Encryption	AES 256-bit, TCG/Opal V2.0, IEEE1667	AES 256-bit, TCG/Opal V2.0, IEEE1667	AES 256-bit, TCG/Opal V2.0, IEEE1667
Endurance	360 TBW	720 TBW	1,440 TBW
Part Number	MZ-76Q1T0	MZ-76Q2T0	MZ-76Q4T0
Warranty	3-Years	3-Years	3-Years

The QVO offers much higher endurance figures than the QLC-powered Intel 660p and Crucial P1. The QVO spans from 360TBW for the 1TB model up to 1,440TBW for the 4TB drive. What it doesn’t have, however, is a five-year warranty. Instead, Samsung covers the SSD for just three years. But that's expected considering the drive is in a lower tier than the 860 EVO and competes against the cheapest SSDs in the market, all of which also feature two- to three-year warranties.

Image 1 of 8

We see the same MJX controller as the one found in Samsung's EVO and PRO models, so compatibility and stability should not be an issue in most environments. The controller also supports LPDDR4 DRAM to improve power efficiency. Each QVO capacity point features a 1MB:1GB DRAM to flash ratio, meaning the 1TB model has a 1GB LPDDR4 DRAM package while the 4TB model has 4GB of LPDDR4. Memory products still command a premium during the ongoing shortage, so the DRAM allocation is an interesting choice considering most companies are using less DRAM to reduce costs. The Intel 660p, for example, only needs 256MB of DRAM for the 1TB model.

The flash has a die density of 1Tb, and there are a total of 8 dies stacked into a single package. The 1TB SSD provides 931.5GB of usable capacity after formatting. It is striking that Samsung can cram in 1TB of its V4 QLC flash into a single package and still deliver solid performance. Typically, SSDs need several flash packages working in concert, thus exploiting the benefits of parallelism, to reach similar levels of performance.