Samsung Releases First 2TB Consumer SSD For Laptops

Lucas123 writes: Samsung has released what it is calling the world's first 2.5-in consumer-grade, multi-terabyte SSD, and it's issuing the new drive a 10-year warranty. With up to 2TB of capacity, the new 850 Pro and 850 EVO SSDs double the maximum capacity of their predecessors. As with the previous 840 Pro and EVO models, Samsung used its 3D V-NAND technology, which stacks 32 layers of NAND atop one another in a microscopic skyscraper. Additionally, the drives take advantage of multi-level cell (MLC) and triple-level cell (TLC) (2- and 3-bit per cell) technology for even greater density. The 850 Pro, Samsung said, can manage up to 550MBps sequential read and 520MBps sequential write rates and up to 100,000 random I/Os per second (IOPS). The 850 EVO SSD has slightly lower performance with 540MBps and 520MBps sequential read/write rates and up to 90,000 random IOPS. The SSDs will range in capacity from 120GB to 2TB and in price from $99 to $999.

Comments

Warning: DO NOT USE SAMSUNG SSDs IN LINUX SERVERS

[mcrbids]

We've been using Samsung drives in "non production" status servers, embedded servers, etc. and have had a terrible time of it. The first drives we bought a few years ago (840 Pro) were good, but we've seen Samsung SSDs run entirely through their write capacity (as reported by SMART) and then go dead when not even mounted! Turns out we aren't the only ones to get bit by buggy Samsung drives.

It also turns out that Samsung drives are even blacklisted in the Linux Kernel

I welcome Samsung's excellent cost/size value proposition! I just wish their drives were solid enough for our actual use.

Re:Big but price has stalled

[jratcliffe]

"The price-per-gig on the EVO model comes out to around $0.40/GB, which is where SSD prices have more or less been stalled for a few years now."

Really? A few years?

The 850 EVO 500GB is currently $162 at Amazon (0.32/GB). In December, it was $252 (0.50/GB).

That's a nearly 40% decline in six months.

I'm getting 500GB SSDs today for what I was paying for 250GB drives a bit over a year ago.

Good Summary

[Art3x]

This summary is well written. It is:

• Complete: It covers all of the main facts. There was no big question left in my mind after reading it. It's so complete that many will not go on to the article itself. (Not that they would anyway. This is Slashdot.) But that's what headlines and leads are supposed to do. They are supposed to tell the whole story, from beginning to end --- just not with every last detail. If you want all the last details, you read the rest of the article.
• Approachable: It defines all but the most common acroynms. For one it even goes further than just spelling out the acronym and also gives a nice little picture: ". . . 3D V-NAND technology, which stacks 32 layers of NAND atop one another in a microscopic skyscraper."
• Well-built: The English is good. Although technical, it uses plain English where it can instead of buzzwords. The sentences are not too long or tangled with several interdependent clauses. They have a good rhythm. You hear the words in your head even when reading silently, so sonic things still matter, like rhythm, alliteration, and rhyme (That doesn't mean you should rhyme all the time).

As a former professional technical writer, I am always on the look-out for good explanatory writing. I wanted to call it out here, especially since often we just complain when the summary's bad. When something's good, we're often silent. I suppose that's partly because when things are working, like the utility company, they don't attract attention and we just take them for granted. But writing like this is no accident.