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 - The Destroyer
The Destroyer is an extremely long test replicating the access patterns of very IO-intensive desktop usage. A detailed breakdown can be found in this article. Like real-world usage, the drives do get the occasional break that allows for some background garbage collection and flushing caches, but those idle times are limited to 25ms so that it doesn't take all week to run the test. These AnandTech Storage Bench (ATSB) tests do not involve running the actual applications that generated the workloads, so the scores are relatively insensitive to changes in CPU performance and RAM from our new testbed, but the jump to a newer version of Windows and the newer storage drivers can have an impact.
We quantify performance on this test by reporting the drive's average data throughput, the average latency of the I/O operations, and the total energy used by the drive over the course of the test.
The Samsung 860 EVO 2TB matches the performance of the 4TB 860 PRO. Both of the new generation drives offer small improvements to the average data rate on The Destroyer—enough to secure Samsung's position at the top of the SATA SSD market, but not enough for 850 PRO or EVO owners to have reason to upgrade.
The 860 EVO provides small improvements to both average and 99th percentile latency. The SanDisk Ultra 3D keeps Samsung's drives from being the clear winners by this metric.
The generational improvements from the 860 EVO are similar for both average read and average write latency. The SanDisk Ultra 3D has a clear advantage for average write latency, but otherwise the current-generation drives with 64L 3D NAND have very similar latency.
The 860 EVO improves both 99th percentile read and write latency, and by a larger amount than average latencies improved.
The power consumption of the 860 EVO is much lower than the 850 EVO and is competitive with the latest drives from Crucial and SanDisk, but isn't a match for the 860 PRO. (The 860 EVO's score here is handicapped by the voltage regulation of our SATA to M.2 converter, and the 1TB Crucial and SanDisk drives have less memory to be powering during the test.)
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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.