14 DAY TRIAL // Back in October, information reached the Internet about a new series of storage devices from Samsung, one that would follow in the footsteps of the 840 EVO series and use next-generation 3-bit 3D V-NAND chips.
Three-dimensional V-NAND memory uses a stacked configuration for hold data, boosting both capacity and performance for solid state storage devices.
Samsung's next-generation 3-bit 3D V-NAND chips, as well as an updated in-house controller chip, will be used to create the 850 EVO line of SSDs.
Or perhaps we should say they already have been used. Given the information emerging on the web, odds are good that the products have been mostly completed by now, with the company only having a few loose ends to tie before releasing them via retail.
Whatever the case, some new information about them has emerged via the website Hermitage Akihabara.
The Samsung 850 EVO SSDs
According to the report, the SSDs will feature capacities of 120 GB, 250 GB, 500 GB, 750 GB, and 1,000 GB (1 TB for short). They will all have 2.5-inch, 7 mm form factors and the SATA III 6.0 Gbps interface.
Availability is set for January 2015, so you won't be able to get one of them for Christmas. We do expect to see it at the Consumer Electronics Show though (CES 2015).
The drives will be cheaper (offer lower price per GB) than the 850 Pro series, but more expensive than the 840 EVO. Performance will be somewhere in the middle.
Expected performance parameters
Samsung hasn't really been all that talkative about the 850 EVO series, but previous reports about it are a good enough basis for speculation, now that we know the storage capacities and comparison points.
Since the 840 EVO drives read data at 540 MB/s and write it at 520MB/s, with 98,000 / 90,000 read/write IOPS (random 4K performance), the 850 EVO should be capable of a bit more. Not too much more, however, since they still need to be a consumer-oriented collection.
Finally, the buffer is of 256 MB of cache memory for the 120 GB model and 512 MB for the others.
Availability and pricing
Early pre-orders and predictions are more or less in agreement here. Prices range from €102 / $125 to €439 / $539. A bit high, but they should fall once availability actually arrives.
