Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSD SATA 6Gb/s Review

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Early this year, Samsung 860 EVO SSD was introduced in the market together with the 860 PRO edition and 860 EVO M.2. It’s been almost 5 years since they updated the V-NAND model of their SSD, which is one of the best selling in the market – the Samsung 850 EVO. While Samsung jump to 960 series last year for the introductory of their NVMe powered SSD, this model is dedicated for their 800 series to power up the V-NAND variants.

While the Samsung’s EVO series is the cheapest SSD model of its line-up, it is also proven that this SSD is a consumer friendly, because the other PRO series tends to work best for a sustained workloads like a 24/7 data processing machine. While the EVO series is good enough for a consumer workloads that provide a higher burst speed and a short time performance, ideal for OS, games, application and rendering works.

Compare to the previous model that has different speed for every capacity. The 860 EVO is now consistent to all lineup (256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB). The Max Sequential speed is 550MB/s for read and 520MB/s for write, then the Max random is 98K/IOps for read and 90k/IOps for write.

We’re also curious to find out if the 860 EVO will beat the 960 EVO M.2, so let’s find out on this review.

Look and Feel

If you’re looking for an RGB, Sad! there is no RGB on this SSD!

The SSD are mostly identical to the previous model, with the undying Samsung logo with the grey square on the front cover. The only changes is on the back, the sticker labeling is now colorful than the previous back cover which only has black and blueish-gray. The 4 screw’s on both back and sides are still in there for mounting purposes. The same black plastic matte cartridge for the SSD but smaller. It doesn’t come with an CD for software drivers.

Their infamous white box packaging is now replaced with the new smaller packaging similar to the 960 EVO series box cover, which is Black and a mix of orange label.

On the back, from the previous tag line “A new caliber of performance & endurance”, maximize your computing experience with optimize performance & enhanced reliability. Is now replace with better and shorter tag line “The SSD that makes the difference”, Boost your PC performance with the reliable SSD.

We’re curious to see what’s the inside of this SSD by dissecting it, but it’s not possible without damaging the warranty sticker on the SSD.

Storage and Performance

When the SSD is installed in the computer, the total capacity it will give is 931 GB of free storage or equivalent to 1 trillion bytes (1,000,186,310,656 bytes). Some people might ask why it is only 931GB and not a 1TB, this is because operating system reads the blocks in 1024KB which ends up with a 931GB only and lost the 69GB in conversion.

Running an OS in this SSD makes the Windows boot very fast with an average speed of 8 seconds. Rendering 1080p video in Adobe Premier and After Effect is also improve, a 10 minutes video will only render in 5 mins and 35 seconds.

For video recording, it also reduce the sounds delay when recording in Elgato HD60s, which some people always encountering a problem with recording on an external device. While using software recording, the video output is ultimately high res and no fps drop compare to using an HDD. The GPU we use in the testing is a GTX 1080 ti.

Benchmark

The performance benchmark result in Samsung Magician matches the advertised speed for the SSD. It has a sequential speed of 562 MB/s for read and 533 MB/s for write. The random speed reach up to 97,900 IOPS for read and 87,646 IOPS for write.

It is obvious that this SSD has no match with the M.2 counterpart, but to give you overview of the result, we have chart below comparing the M.2 SSD, to the previous model of EVO 800 series and an Seagate HDD drive.

Looking at the result, the 860 EVO and 850 EVO has almost the same speed with just a little improvement. You probably curious why the speed is almost the same, it is because SATA has a performance ceiling where it is the maximum speed limit that a SSD can perform. While the 960 EVO M.2 really outperforms the EVO 860 because the M.2 slot has lot of room for speed than the SATA port.

For people that are still using an HDD, there’s a huge speed jump from HDD to SSD it is because of the non-spinning read and write. This is why, SSD is one of the key upgrade when buying a laptop or desktop, because of it’s speed performance.

Compatibility

This is a 2.5 inch SSD, it is compatible to any SATA powered desktop or laptops. You may also use it as a external storage and can be use as well on HDD replacement for game console like PS4 and XBOX ONE, adding SSD into a console gives a very big boost in terms of speed while loading a game.

Software and Functionalities

Though the SSD didn’t comes with a disk driver, it has a software that you can download on their website called Samsung Magician, it is use for ssd checking, performance benchmark, optimization and over provisioning.

The performance optimization is very helpful when you already have lots of files that needs to TRIM in order to improve the performance of your SSD and extends it’s lifespan.

Lastly, Over Provisioning is very important but not necessary, this gives your SSD extra space to preserve the life of the SSD and optimize it. The extra space is needed in order for the SSD not to complete a cycle when you almost consume the total amount of your storage. Complete cycle in an SSD can deduct and reduce the life of an SSD.

Conclusion

Samsung makes a good improvement with this new EVO SSD, but it’s not a big performance leap from the previous model of this SSD, this is because of the SATA performance ceiling where Samsung already reach the top speed. If you come from the 840 series, upgrading to 860 is a good choice because of a big difference. But if we compare the price of this SSD to the previous generation, 850 EVO is way more cheaper than the 860 EVO. However, this SSD is pack with a good algorithm that will increase the performance and reduces the wear and tear of the SSD.

Upgrading from an HDD is a big recommendation for this SSD, because it will truly fasten your computer or laptops in to the next level.

What’s in the Box

It comes with the SSD itself, an installation guide/warranty information and the plastic cartridge. It doesn’t come with a disk for its driver.

Specification

  • Form Factor: 2.5 inch SATA III
  • Memory Type: V-NAND (3D multi-level cell)
  • Buffer Size: 1GB
  • Storage Interface: SATA
  • Internal Data Rate: 550 MBps (read) / 520 MBps (write)
  • Maximum 4KB Random Write: 90k IOPS
  • Diver Transfer Rate: 600 MBps (external)
  • Dimension: 2.7 inch (Width) x 0.3 inch (Height) x 3.9 inch (Depth)
  • Weight: 2.19 oz
  • MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures): 1,500,000 hours

The specification model we get is MZ-76E1TO (2018.03) or MZ-76E1TOB/AM. 

Warranty and After Sales

The SSD comes with a 5 years warranty and covers up to 600 Terabytes written. Servicing is to any Samsung Authorized Service Center in your area.

Samsung 860 EVO 1TB Review

Performance - 100%
Price - 95%
Warranty & After Sales - 90%
Endurance - 100%

Overall Score

96%

Samsung makes a good improvement with this new EVO SSD, but it's not a big performance leap from the previous model of this SSD, this is because of the SATA performance ceiling where Samsung already reach the top speed. If you come from the 840 series, upgrading to 860 is a good choice because of a big difference. But if we compare the price of this SSD to the previous generation, 850 EVO is way more cheaper than the 860 EVO.

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