Key Features
- 2TB capacity
- 1,863GB formatted capacity
- 7mm form factor
- SATA 3 interface
- 10yr RTB warranty
- Manufacturer: Samsung
- Manufacturer: Samsung
- Review Price: £731.00
What is the Samsung 850 Pro 2TB?
Samsung’s
850 Pro represents the pinnacle of the performance SSD market, but its
position at the top of the heap is under threat: cheaper drives are
offering decent performance for less cash, and new form factors such as
PCI Express and M.2 are pushing the performance envelope.
One
response is to increase capacities. This version of the 850 Pro features
2TB, which results in 1,863GB of formatted space. That makes it one of
the largest SSDs we’ve ever seen.
Samsung 850 Pro 2TB – Under the Hood
The 850 Pro is Samsung’s top-tier consumer drive, and is packed with the firm’s best technology.
Star
of the show is 3D V-NAND, which was introduced with more conventional
850 Pro capacities at the start of the year. It’s a sea change for how
the memory inside SSDs is ordered: instead of packing transistors
horizontally, these tiny components are now stacked vertically. This
results in more space for transistors, meaning Samsung doesn’t have to
produce smaller transistors.
The 850 Pro uses a 40nm manufacturing
process. On paper, that’s archaic compared to the sub-20nm processes
used elsewhere, but it affords the 850 Pro much better performance and
reliability than many other drives.
Opting for MLC, or multi-level
cell, memory chips is also a decision taken with performance in mind.
Here, each silicon cell can store two bits of data at once. It’s more
expensive than the triple-level cell chips used in cheaper drives, but
it means that more of the 850 Pro’s resources can be devoted towards
getting those two bits of data in and out as quickly as possible.
The
one component that has been swapped out is the controller – but, even
then, it’s only a slight tweak. The new MHX chip still has the
ARM-powered cores of its predecessor, but it’s been given more memory in
order to cope with the increased demands of the Pro’s 2TB capacity.
The 850 Pro shares much with the cheaper 850 Evo,
but it justifies its higher price with a more generous endurance
rating. Its 300TB quoted lifespan is one of the best in the entire
consumer SSD market, and it’s twice as long as the 850 Evo’s rating.
Samsung 850 Pro 2TB – Performance
Samsung’s 850 Pro is designed for speed, but there’s very little between this drive and the 850 Evo in many of our benchmarks.
The
850 Pro’s AS SSD sequential read and write results of 517MB/sec and
505MB/sec are among the best we’ve seen from a SATA drive, but only the
former is better than the Evo. When working with smaller files it could
only match the Evo when reading, and fell behind slightly in the
file-write tests. When the difference is only a few megabytes per
second, however, you’re unlikely to notice.
Similar patterns
emerged in CrystalDiskMark. The 850 Pro’s sequential read and write
speeds of 546MB/sec and 527MB/sec match the Evo, it fell behind when
reading files, and sped up when writing. The 850 Pro’s 512Kb read pace
of 502MB/sec is 4MB behind the Evo, but its write speed of 520MB/sec was
2MB quicker.
There was little to choose between the two drives in
the Atto test. The 850 Pro quickly ascended to speeds beyond 500MB/sec,
and its reads and writes topped out at 561MB/sec and 538MB/sec
respectively. Those results are only a megabyte or two ahead of the
Evo,, but they’re among the best we’ve seen from SATA SSDs.
The
850 Pro’s only performance issue really comes in Iometer, where it
returned an overall score of 5,673 I/Os per second. That’s a great
result, but it’s still a few hundred points behind the 850 Evo.
The
850 Pro doesn’t deviate much from smaller capacities in benchmarks, but
the hardware is limited by the 600MB/sec limit of its SATA connection.
To go beyond that you’ll have to opt for an M.2 or PCI-based product,
but then you’ll be exchanging capacity for speed. If it’s a drive like
the PCI-based Intel SSD 750, you may end up paying an even higher price.
Other Things to Consider
The
850 Pro doesn’t stray from the Evo drive in terms of performance –
instead, Samsung justifies its higher price in other areas. We’ve
already mentioned the Pro’s stellar 300TB endurance rating, and the
drive is protected by a ten-year warranty. That’s one of the best deals
in the consumer space – and twice what's included with the 2TB Evo.
In
terms of extras, though, that’s it. No screws for PC installation or a
9.5mm blanker is included in the box, so you'll need to add the cost of
such accessories to your bill.
Should I Buy the Samsung 850 Pro 2TB?
The
850 Pro is designed to be Samsung’s flagship SSD. In performance terms,
however, there’s very little between the Pro and the cheaper 850 Evo –
no surprise, given they use the same controller and their 3D V-NAND
designs.
Instead of streaking ahead in benchmarks the 850 Pro adds
value elsewhere, with a high endurance rating and generous warranty.
They’re great, but they also mean the 850 Pro becomes even more of a
niche product – only a few of the handful of consumers who want to buy a
2TB SSD will be interested in one with such extreme protection levels,
especially given the extra cost.
If that’s you, then the 850 Pro
is the best high-capacity SSD on the market. If you need its space and
speed, but for less money, then 850 Evo is a fine alternative.
Check out our verdicts on Samsung's latest mSATA and M.2 SSDs, or investigate this round-up of more conventional consumer SSDs.
Verdict
The
Samsung 850 Pro combines impressive performance levels with the
market’s best endurance rating and warranty. But if you don't require
that level of protection, then the 2TB 850 Evo offers equivalent
performance for less.
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