Personal computing has advanced considerably when compared to the original Altair 8800 that Bill Gates used in the Seventies to demonstrate Altair BASIC, the first program to be sold by the newly created Microsoft..
One aspect that has changed dramatically is the way we store electronic data. From the old 80 megabyte mainframe hard drives that weighed pounds instead of ounces and were massive in size to today’s tiny drives that store terrabytes of data.
Your standard hard disk drive uses internal disks or platters that rotate at set speeds, typically 5400 or 7200 RPM, which are then read from, or written to, using a fast actuator arm which uses a magnetic pick-up to read the data. This entire process is how data is written and read.
Everything I’ve said so far is about the past, but today, personal computers have begun to adopt the latest in drive storage, the solid state drive or SSD for short.
By writing an electronic signal to a digital chip, a digital controller can manage your data across multiple chips and since this process is digital, SSDs can offer incredible speeds in a small form factor. This is typically known as flash storage and is very similar to a USB Flash drive.
This industry has recently been taking off with many prebuilt machines now coming with an SSD as a standard option. Their extreme lightness, thinness and reliability make them a very good viable option for almost any user, including those who are in enterprise or networking environments.
There are many different manufacturers of flash based storage, but depending on the manufacturer, not all provide what they claim on their product page. Samsung has been a a major player in this market with their mobile phones, appliances, laptops, and other devices all using flash based storage. With all of their solid state drives being produced in-house, does their latest EVO 850 drive perform perform better than other SSDs?
Welcome to my review of the Samsung EVO 850 120GB solid state drive. Throughout this review, I will be discussing the following subjects, the performance, functionality, and my final thoughts. A special thank you to Samsung for providing me with the SSD.
Performance
As a user of Samsung SSDs, I’ve gained a good understanding of their features and performance benchmarks. From the EVO 840 to the EVO 850 Pro, my personal machines all run different types of Samsung SSDs and it was interesting to see how one that I don’t own was about to perform against the rest.
Samsung’s naming scheme is simple with numbers following the EVO brand being the version. My Samsung EVO 840 256GB drive is older than this EVO 850 120GB unit. The addition of the Pro label is for power users who seek the fastest speed and performance.
I began with Samsung’s Magician software that is the SSD toolbox for Samsung drives. This tool searches for firmware upgrades, monitors data written, optimizes performance, and more importantly for me, performs a performance benchmark.
This drive was a secondary drive on my main system running a Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z97 motherboard that was performance optimized and set to run the SSD on AHCI mode. The rest of the system is all user overclocked to eliminate any bottlenecks.
Although this testing method is Samsung built, the results show a great surprise. As seen below, the read speed slightly surpasses the box rated 540 MB/s, likewise, the writing speed is on par at 521 MB/s. When running a sequential testing pattern, this means you can move a 540MB file within one second to a different location on the SSD.
Random testing is performed by throwing a random task and measuring the speed of the inputs and outputs of the SSD. The Samsung drive in the spotlight jumps its score to 97302 IOPS and 88322 IOPS for the write.
Every SSD will be slightly different in performance as each one is slightly different. To put this data into perspective, I compared this to two additional drives; a Samsung EVO 850 250GB and a Kingston HyperX. My EVO 850 250GB drive measured in at a write speed of 545MB/s and a write speed at 482MB/s. On the random testing, results were at 91332 and 78470 for the random write.
Moving on to the performance testing tool, ATTO Disk Benchmark, this tool simulates transfer speeds of by moving a file that increases in the set range of 0.5KB to 8 gigabytes.
What I enjoy most about this tool is its ability to show how quickly a drive reaches its maximum performance. As seen in the graph below, the 850 120GB SSD reaches its maximum reading and writing speed of ~500MB/s at 1GB of data and maintains this speed with increasing file sizes. This shows us that Samsung’s drive performs the same whether moving an 8GB file or 1GB.
Why does this matter? Well, this means the drive can ramp to full power and speed very quickly and efficiently. Looking at my previous review on the Kingston HyperX SSD, we see that drive too ramps up quickly, but surpasses the speed the Samsung EVO drive can achieve.
The Kingston SSD in question is actually one of the fastest recorded speeds when bench testing this drive. While every SSD is different, other Kingston HyperX drivers are slowly overtaking their Samsung counterparts. When put in a head to head test for this testing period, we find that the Samsung offers a higher reliability with reported Samsung drives lasting five years plus, as Kingston starts to show a faster speed.
The final test in the lineup is run using CrystalDiskMark which uses different testing methods and writes up to a set storage size. These numbers somewhat confirm what we’ve seen above and are fairly straight forward. What is shown is that CDM reports higher performance speeds over my HyperX and 850 250GB drive.
Functionality
Most solid state drives function in a similar manner. They use a SATA interface for transferring data to your motherboard. Data is written, read, and managed by a card controller that sends data in blocks to neatly store them on flash based electronic chips.
Samsung SSDs use their own 3D V-NAND Technology which creates a greater density, better performance, and more reliable drive. They state that they stack their NAND on top of each other which provides for the better improvements that other drives lack.
Moreover, their heavy investment in this technology comes from their technological background. Even using many different Samsung drives, never once has one failed on me or failed to show in the BIOS of multiple different motherboards.
One thing these drives do lack is a distinctive styling to them. Other brands like Kingston, Intel, OCZ and others all create a beautiful design on their SSD faces while this Samsung drive uses a simple black finish and a single grey square to symbolize its model.
When moving large files from one SSD to another, speeds were high and even large movies finished in a matter of minutes. Installing a game on the drive, then uninstalling it was also painless and quick; quicker than other SSDs I’ve used.
Furthermore, the EVO drive is available in different capacities including 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB. What I’ve found is the 250GB gives the best bang for your buck and using the cloud or an additional hard drive for file storage.
Finally, setup was a breeze, with setup being simply plugging in the drive and formatting it within Windows. Since Samsung Magician was already installed, it quickly detected the drive which was then updated and set to the correct settings.
My final Thoughts
Just because I’ve used Samsung SSDs in my personal machines, doesn’t mean I went easy on this drive or hid any negatives. I and many others here on TSF have discovered Samsung SSDs to be quite superior, so much so that even if performance was greater on a different drive, we may still heavily consider choosing the Samsung unit. While 120GB is a lower size for a main operating system drive, it makes up for it with a $70 price, but I do recommend the 250GB unit for more storage space. Backed by the five year warranty, you won’t have to worry if your drive is going to fail anytime soon and with the incredible Windows boot time, you surely won’t miss that old hard drive.
Buy it Now:
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1 Comment
I have the same model; I got the 850 immediately after release and have never been more satisfied with a hardware purchase. It’s more expensive in Canada, but was still an inexpensive option. The Kingston drives are the cheapest right now, but SAMSUNG is a brand I trust, so I will stick to them for now.