The Samsung 750 EVO (120GB & 250GB) SSD Review: A Return To Planar NAND
by Billy Tallis on April 22, 2016 8:00 AM ESTRandom Read Performance
The random read test requests 4kB blocks and tests queue depths ranging from 1 to 32. The queue depth is doubled every three minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. The test spans the entire drive, which is filled before the test starts. The primary score we report is an average of performances at queue depths 1, 2 and 4, as client usage typically consists mostly of low queue depth operations.
All the Samsung drives are crowding the top of the chart for low queue depth random read speeds, and the 750 EVO is way ahead of any other planar TLC drive here.
With power usage in the middle of the pack, the 750 EVO and 850 EVO are some of the most power-efficient drives on this test, but drives like the Plextor M6V are still at the top of the efficiency ranking.
In addition to offering great performance at low queue depths, the 750 EVO scales up to reach higher speeds at QD32 than any non-Samsung drive, without power consumption getting out of hand.
Random Write Performance
The random write test writes 4kB blocks and tests queue depths ranging from 1 to 32. The queue depth is doubled every three minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. The test is limited to a 16GB portion of the drive, and the drive is empty save for the 16GB test file. The primary score we report is an average of performances at queue depths 1, 2 and 4, as client usage typically consists mostly of low queue depth operations.
Taking capacity into account, the 750 EVO provides much better random write speeds than any other planar TLC drive, and the 250GB model is competitive against many MLC drives.
The 750 EVO is high-performing for a TLC drive but at the cost of requiring more power than most planar TLC drives and much more than the 850 EVO.
The 120GB 750 EVO shows almost no scaling with queue depth, while the 250GB needs a queue depth of at least two to reach full performance. By contrast, the 120GB 850 EVO shows a little bit of performance scaling from QD1 to QD2 and the 250GB 850 EVO doesn't hit full performance until QD4.
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ewitte - Tuesday, May 24, 2016 - link
System builders will likely go even cheaper there are a lot of 240GB drives around $60. Nearly a $20 difference.Murloc - Saturday, April 23, 2016 - link
They're going to put it into computers and write "Samsung SSD inside" and it will be cheaper for the system builders, but the average customer will not be able to tell the difference.So yes, it's a winner.
lilmoe - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
You think $10 is worth the downgrade? Bruh...5th element - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
To the 3rd party selling complete machines to the everyday masses yeah. Like haukionkannel said above. Most people out there aren't tech heads and the lower £££ matters.lilmoe - Saturday, April 23, 2016 - link
Sure, but the price difference is even lower with higher volume...nathanddrews - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
Meh.Thanks for the great review - as always. The "meh" is just for the drive itself.
nathanddrews - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
The problem I have with SSDs right now is that they're so boring to me. What I need in my life are consumer grade NVMe 2TB+ SSDs. I'm sick and tired of buying multiple SSDs or splitting my application and data across SSDs and HDDs. One drive to rule them all, please.TheinsanegamerN - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
We should probably work on getting 1TB drives out and purchasable before worrying about 2TB models.vanilla_gorilla - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD are $291 on Amazon (Prime) right now. And the Samsung 850 EVO 2TB is the same price per gigabyte ($600 for 2TB).Meteor2 - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
I don't know about 2+ TB but definitely more 1 TB NVMe drives. SATA is yesterday's tech.