Update 1/20: Samsung has lowered official pricing and this article has been updated accordingly.
When it comes to solid-state storage, Samsung has a knack for building some of the best solutions out there. Back in September it unveiled an NVMe solution with 7,000MB/s performance, and a couple months before that the company took the wraps off a 2.5-inch offering with an 8TB capacity. Today the Samsung 870 EVO has been unwrapped and it boasts “up to 38% higher performance speeds.” Continue reading to learn more.
Samsung 870 EVO delivers ‘38% improvement’
When reading that today’s release offers a significant boost in performance, you may expect to see read and write speeds go through the roof. Unfortunately, this cannot be the case, as all 2.5-inch solid-state drives rely on SATA 6, which is capped at around 550MB/s performance. Samsung takes full advantage of SATA 6 read and write speeds of 560 and 530MB/s, respectively.
The limits of SATA 6 hasn’t entirely held the Samsung 870 EVO series back, though, as it has tackled other bottlenecks in an attempt to bolster performance. This lineup of storage sports “a large variable SLC buffer” that “helps maintain its peak performance levels.” By doing this, the Samsung 870 EVO series delivers “a nearly 38% improvement in random read speed over the previous 860.” The company touts this boost as great for “multi-tasking, web browsing, or simply booting up PCs.”
‘Representing the culmination of our SATA SSD line, the new 870 EVO delivers a compelling mix of performance, reliability, and compatibility for casual laptop and desktop PC users, as well as Network Attached Storage (NAS) users,’ said KyuYoung Lee, vice president of Memory Brand Product Biz at Samsung Electronics.
Pricing and availability
The Samsung 870 EVO series has begun to show up on Amazon, which is in line with company claims that it “will be available beginning in January 2021.” Available sizes include 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB with official pricing that starts at $39.99 and goes as high as $479.99.
9to5Toys’ Take
With more devices giving 2.5-inch solid-state drives the boot, it’s actually kind of remarkable to see Samsung remaining heavily invested in this space. While there are plenty of PC configurations and NAS solutions that will continue to support 2.5-inch form factors for years to come, many would agree that NVMe storage is where to go from here.
When chasing high capacities, 3.5-inch offerings tend to still offer the best bang for your buck. So while there are arguably some folks out there that will be pleased to see some upgrades to this form factor, many others will question why Samsung didn’t call it a day after releasing its 870 QVO lineup in September.
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