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.
Conclusion
The Sony G Series Professional SSD may be effective for video recording, but it isn't as impressive as a Samsung 860 PRO, or even the 860 EVO, when it comes to performance for the storage enthusiast or gamer. The drive lived up to its specifications during our testing, but it consistently wound up in last place, or next to last, and it isn't very power efficient. These weaknesses come as a result of its firmware tuning that optimizes for sequential write workloads, thus boosting video recording performance.
Due to lower-than-average 4K random performance, the drive trails other SSDs in our application tests. It was even 20% slower than the nearest SSD during our game scene loading benchmark. In PCMark 8 it was over 40% slower than the Samsung 860 EVO. And in SYSmark, its score was significantly lower than the rest of the comparison pool. It did fare better during the 50GB file copy test and 6GB file read test, but its results were still near the bottom of the group.
While the Sony drive's performance wasn’t too impressive against the average consumer SSD, it was significantly faster than an HDD. Compared to an HDD, the SV-GS48 can deliver three to four times the performance depending on the task.
It looks good, too. With a sleek black and brushed metal finish, Sony’s G Series has the looks to match the price tag, but that is one hefty price tag for the sub-par performance. What you are really paying for is double the endurance and warranty of the Samsung 860 PRO.
| Product | Capacity | TBW | Price | Price Per GB | Price Per TBW |
| Sony G Series Professional SSD | 480 | 1200 | $299.95 | $0.62 | $0.25 |
| 960 | 2400 | $533.35 | $0.56 | $0.22 | |
| Samsung 860 PRO | 256 | 300 | $97.99 | $0.38 | $0.33 |
| 512 | 600 | $147.99 | $0.29 | $0.25 | |
| 1024 | 1200 | $297.99 | $0.29 | $0.25 | |
| 2048 | 2400 | $597.99 | $0.29 | $0.25 | |
| 4096 | 4800 | $1,197.99 | $0.29 | $0.25 |
If you're willing to give up the Sony's ten-year warranty for Samsung's five-year, you can get a Samsung 860 PRO at twice the capacity of the G Series for nearly the same price. We don’t have a Samsung 860 PRO to compare to the Sony, but based on the ranking history and its newer 3D MLC flash, we can confidently say the 860 PRO would come out on top. In exchange for a shorter warranty, you will gain better application performance in desktop PC workloads, twice the capacity, and a similar cost-per-TBW of endurance to top it off. When it comes to weighing the value of the SV-GS48 for video recording, it’s a hard toss-up between these two SSDs.
For the sole usage as a recording device, Sony’s G Series Professional SSDs hold their merit. They excel in media recording and offer high reliability and durability for the task. The SATA connector is even rated for six times the insertions and removals as standard connectors. So, if you will constantly swap between your Atomos Inferno or Blackmagic recorder and computer all day, you won’t have to worry over the interface failing on you after a year or two of work.
MORE: Best SSDs
MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs
MORE: All SSD Content
