The Latest High-Capacity M.2: The Samsung 860 EVO 2TB SSD, Reviewed
by Billy Tallis on February 14, 2018 1:40 PM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Light
Our Light storage test has relatively more sequential accesses and lower queue depths than The Destroyer or the Heavy test, and it's by far the shortest test overall. It's based largely on applications that aren't highly dependent on storage performance, so this is a test more of application launch times and file load times. This test can be seen as the sum of all the little delays in daily usage, but with the idle times trimmed to 25ms it takes less than half an hour to run. Details of the Light test can be found here. As with the ATSB Heavy test, this test is run with the drive both freshly erased and empty, and after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The average data rate of the Samsung 860 EVO on the Light test is slightly lower than the 850 EVO, but still definitely within the normal range for this class of drives.
Average and 99th percentile latencies from the 860 EVO on the Light test are about the same as its predecessor and Samsung's other SATA SSDs. The competing SATA drives tend to show a bit higher average latency when the test is run on a full drive.
Average read and write latencies for the 860 EVO are within the normal range, for Samsung's drives. The competing drives from Crucial and SanDisk show larger increases to average read latency when the test is run on a full drive.
Looking at 99th percentile read and write latencies on the Light test, Samsung's drives are generally the least-affected by being full, and the 860 EVO doesn't break that pattern.The SanDisk Ultra 3D has a slightly better 99th percentile write latency than Samsung's SATA drives.
The Samsung 860 EVO shows clear improvement in power consumption over its predecessor, but the Crucial and SanDisk drives are still clearly in the lead over the Samsung drives.
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Reflex - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LB05YOO/Micron 1100 2TB for $379
This is basically a clone of the MX300 marketed to IT departments. Cheaptest 2TB SATA option I've seen by far, and gets good reviews, essentially identical to the MX300 (same hardware, no surprise) but has a better warranty I believe.
CherryBOMB - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
Thanks for the information comment on your experience.bug77 - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
I wonder what kind of warranty you get with those, since Micron branded products are not usually meant for retail.Reflex - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
https://www.nikktech.com/main/articles/pc-hardware...According to this review of the 256GB model of this drive, it is a 5 year warranty.
Reflex - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
The Crucial MX300 that it is a clone of has only a 3 year warranty, for reference.bug77 - Friday, February 16, 2018 - link
Actually, in the provided Amazon link, the first question is about warranty and the seller says it's 3 years. I was just afraid these were sold as stripped parts and wouldn't be covered, but it seems that not the case.Reflex - Friday, February 16, 2018 - link
The seller is not the OEM however, it's a third party. I have no idea if that is correct or the review I linked was correct. Micron's site is not helpful.xrror - Thursday, February 15, 2018 - link
How long has this drive been out???! Because I've been looking for an affordable 2TB option for the past half year and can't believe I never found this one.Thanks for the heads up on this model.
Reflex - Thursday, February 15, 2018 - link
I am unclear on how long it has been out, the review I linked is from late 2016, but the Amazon page implies its only been there since late 2017. My guess is its only sold into enterprise settings and a seller with stock listed it on Amazon. Regardless, its a great price for a brand that isn't questionable.Reflex - Saturday, February 17, 2018 - link
In case anyone is tracking this: I got mine in the mail yesterday. It is definitely intended for OEM markets, it came in a sealed anti-static bag with no other packaging. That said I popped it into a system and it was immediately recognized and is the capacity expected. No problems at all.