INTRODUCTION

   It's true that in the SATA SSD market we don't get many surprises but if i was to choose a single company that has impressed us time and again with their models that would be Samsung. Now i can't comment on their very first attempts to enter the market (never had the chance to test them out) but the since the 830 models they have introduced features and performance levels not many manufacturers in the market can go up against. For example soon after the award winning 830 models Samsung introduced the much improved 840 models which combined very good performance levels thanks to their TLC NAND flash modules (Samsung was the first to use such technology with consumer oriented SSD models) with a very tempting price tag. Today Samsung has released the brand new 850 series and having already reviewed the high-end 850 Pro model we know that by taking the next step and using 128Gbit 32-layer 3D V-NAND they now hold the first place in the SSD market both in terms of performance and endurance. However since this line is not really aimed towards consumers Samsung just released the 850 EVO line and here with us today we have the 500GB variant.

   Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in technology, opening new possibilities for people everywhere. Through relentless innovation and discovery, we are transforming the worlds of televisions, smartphones, personal computers, printers, cameras, home appliances, LTE systems, medical devices, semiconductors and LED solutions. We employ 236,000 people across 79 countries with annual sales of US$187.8 billion. Samsung's Memory Business offers the industry's most advanced and extensive range of memory semiconductor products. As a leader in both the design and manufacture of memory semiconductor since 1993, the business provides key memory products including dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), NAND flash memory, Solid State Drives (SSD) and a range of green memory solutions for use in PC, server and mobile applications. Samsung is also leading the industry in advancements of next generation DRAM and NAND flash technologies while nurturing future memory technologies. To discover more, please visit www.samsung.com.

   Samsung may have introduced the 850 EVO line as a "cut-down" version of their 850 PRO line but these two are not really that different something which is a very good thing for consumers. For example both make use of 32-layer 3D V-NAND flash modules (V stands for vertical) and so both also share the same endurance rating of 75TBW for the 120/250GB models and of 150TBW for the 500GB/1TB models (this translates to 40GB writes for the first two and 80GB writes for the last on the drive per day for a period of roughly 5 years). The 840 EVO line also features the same TurboWrite technology (a small amount of SLC NAND flash is used to accelerate write performance), DevSleep (power saving feature), TCG Opal 2.0 & IEEE-1667 (AES 256bit hardware encryption) and RAPID v2.1 (uses up to 4GB of your system memory to boost read/write performance). For the new 850 EVO line Samsung has made use of two brand new NAND flash controllers, an 2-core MGX one for the 120/250/500GB models and an 3-core MEX one for the 1TB model. Unfortunately we have no detailed specifications for the MGX controller (or for the MEX one) but we do know that Samsung gives it an MTBF (Mean Time between Failures) of 1.5 million hours.