{"id":4638,"date":"2020-06-30T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-30T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/blog\/samsung-ssd-870-qvo-review-stupendous-8tb-capacity-in-a-sata-ssd\/"},"modified":"2020-06-30T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-30T14:00:00","slug":"samsung-ssd-870-qvo-review-stupendous-8tb-capacity-in-a-sata-ssd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/samsung-ssd-870-qvo-review-stupendous-8tb-capacity-in-a-sata-ssd\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung SSD 870 QVO review: Stupendous 8TB capacity in a SATA SSD"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Samsung SSD 870 QVO review: Stupendous 8TB capacity in a SATA SSD<\/h2>\n

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The Samsung 870 QVO (\u2018Q\u2019 as in in 4-bit QLC), is our first look at a drive that will eventually ship with a whopping 8TB of NAND on board. Announced Tuesday, this is the new top capacity available, superseding a still-new flock of 4TB models. Samsung sent us the 2TB version for testing. It\u2019s a great everyday performer; however, when you run out of cache (which shouldn\u2019t be often), write pace falls off drastically.<\/p>\n

Specs and pricing<\/h2>\n

A standard 2.5-inch SATA 6Gbps SSD, the 870 QVO is currently available in $130\/1TB, $250\/2TB (tested), and $500\/4TB flavors. The 8TB model will be available in August for $900. That\u2019s considerably cheaper than the high-capacity 4TB OWC Aura P12 and 8TB Sabrent Rocket Q NVMe drives we recently covered, and a far greater savings delta than we normally see between NVMe and SATA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"samsung870qvo<\/a> Samsung<\/small>
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Samsung\u2019s 870 QVO is a definite improvement upon the older 860 QVO, and it offers excellent everyday performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Samsung uses its own MKX controller, and there\u2019s 1GB of DRAM cache for each 1TB of 96-layer, QLC (Quad-Level Cell\/4-bit) stacked\/layered\/3D NAND on board. The drives seemingly allocate about 4.5 percent of the NAND as SLC cache, if our tests with the 2TB drive are indicative.<\/p>\n

SLC cache is MLC\/TLC\/QLC treated as SLC by writing only one bit instead of four, or if you prefer, on\/off rather than one of 16 possible states. This is much, much faster operation, as there\u2019s little to no error-checking required. The contents of the SLC cache are later transferred to non-cache NAND.<\/p>\n

The 870 QVO is warrantied for three years, and is rated for 360TBW (TeraBytes Written) per 1TB of capacity. Samsung bundles its Magician software, which provides control of overprovisioning (the amount of NAND set aside for replacement of dead cells), secure erase, and diagnostics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Performance<\/h2>\n

First, the good news about the 870 QVO\u2019s performance\u2014and in truth, good news is all the average user will encounter. CrystalDiskMark 6 measured the drive as matching the speed of the competition. Most SATA SSDs already bump up against the bus\u2019s 6Gbps bandwidth limitation\u2014hence, the nearly identical scores.<\/p>\n

\"870<\/a> IDG<\/small>
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CrystalDiskMark 6 doesn\u2019t reveal a lot of difference in performance between the drives shown. Largely because modern SSD capabilities largely exceed the bandwidth of the SATA bus.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the real-world 48GB transfer tests, the 2TB 870 QVO improved over its older 860 QVO sibling. However, the 860 QVO we tested was a 1TB drive that ran out of cache at about the 45GB mark (I discussed the 4.5 percent cache), dropping to 75MBps for the last leg of the race.<\/p>\n

\"870<\/a> IDG<\/small>
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With 48GB data sets, the 2TB 870 QVO is a match for Seagate\u2019s Barracuda SSD. The 1TB version likely would\u2019ve run out of cache before the end of these transfers and turned in a longer time in the 48GB single file write. Shorter bars are better.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 1TB 870 QVO would no doubt have run out about the same time, but it probably still would have turned in a slightly faster score than the 860 QVO because of its faster write rate, off cache.<\/p>\n