Samsung 850 EVO SSD Review (1TB) – Differing Series Controllers Compared

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.0 X64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. Performance is virtually identical, regardless of data sample so we have included only that using random data samples.

In Crystal Disk Mark the 850 EVO was able to achieve an impressive maximum sequential performance of 540.9MB/s read and 523.2MB/s write. On the 4K section we can see a high of 48.29MB/s for read and 149.0MB/s for write. These results are close to the lower capacities, however, we can see 4K speeds are around 5MB/s slower on both reads and writes for the 1TB model. And again, 512K transfer speeds prove to be a little better in this 1TB model as well.

AS SSD BENCHMARK VER 1.7

The toughest benchmark available for solid state drives is AS SSD as it relies solely on incompressible data samples when testing performance.  For the most part, AS SSD tests can be considered the ‘worst case scenario’ in obtaining data transfer speeds and many enthusiasts like AS SSD for their needs. Transfer speeds are displayed on the left with IOPS results on the right.

In AS SSD, we can see the 1TB model reached a total of 1228 points. Sequential speeds reach around 517MB/s for reads and 502MB/s for writes. This result similar to that of the lower capacities. However, when looking at the 4K speeds, we can again see lower performance from this 1TB model. 4K reads hit 44.46MB/s and writes hit 127.17Mb/s. Still, this result is very impressive, the 4K reads are better than the 850 Pro’s. And finally, this gives us our first glimpse of what kind of IOPS figures the 1TB model is capable of. It reaches about 96K/82K read/write IOPS. Slightly lower than the advertised numbers of 98K/90K.

This AS SSD Copy Bench test is a true to life evaluation as AS SSD creates three files (ISO/Program/Game), and simply moves them from one part of the SSD to another, recording their top speed and total transfer time. Results prove the 1TB model to surpass the lower capacities in this benchmark.

ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL

Anvil’s Storage Utilities (ASU) are the most complete test bed available for the solid state drive today.  The benchmark displays test results for, not only throughput but also, IOPS and Disk Access Times.  Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and use in our benchmark testing.

In Anvil Storage Utilities the 1TB Samsung 850 EVO scored 5,472.32 points. Max sequential read speeds reach 518.09MB/s and sequential write comes in at 500.24MB/s. 4K speeds prove similar to the other benchmarks, 43.67MB/s for read and 137.55MB/s for write. To compare, the 120GB and 500GB models were able to hit 50Mb/s in 4K reads for this test.

Since AS SSD wasn’t able to present us with the advertised IOPS, we decided to give it ago with Anvil. Read and write IOPs are better here at 97.2K/88K read/write, however still slightly lower than the advertised.

PCMARK VANTAGE X64 HDD SUITE

The SSD Review uses benchmark software called PCMark Vantage x64 HDD Suite to create testing scenarios that might be used in the typical user experience. There are eight tests in all and the tests performed record the speed of data movement in MB/s to which they are then given a numerical score after all of the tests are complete. The simulations are as follows:

• Windows Defender In Use
• Streaming Data from storage in games such as Alan Wake which allows for massive worlds and riveting non-stop action
• Importing digital photos into Windows Photo Gallery
• Starting the Vista Operating System
• Home Video editing with Movie Maker which can be very time consuming
• Media Center which can handle video recording, time shifting and streaming from Windows media center to an extender such as Xbox
  
• Cataloging a music library
• Starting applications

PCMARK VANTAGE RESULTS

PCMark Vantage gives us our first look into real world performance. The Samsung 850 EVO returned a Total Point Score of 76,235 with a high transfer speed of 455MB/s while testing in Windows Photo Gallery.  More interesting though, is the fact that all but the last test result were in the SATA 3 result area. This was the same result as that of the Samsung 850 Pro 1TB model we tested previously. Under the application loading test the SSD was only able to hit 196MB/s. However, the lower capacities models were able to achieve speeds of around 350-360MB/s. This resulted in a much lower overall score of about 10K points less.