Samsung 850 Pro SSD Review (128GB) – 3D V-NAND Creates a New Playing Field

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.0.3 X64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. Performance is virtually identical, regardless of data sample so we have included only that using random data samples.

In Crystal Disk Mark we see a max of 550MB/s read and 468MB/s write. Here we see 4k read speeds reaching 43MB/s read and 162MB/s write. Typically we see drives reaching a high of around 30-35MB/s 4k read and 100MB/s 4k write.  The results presented to us by this drive are very befitting of Samsung’s Pro designation.

AS SSD BENCHMARK VER. 1.7

The toughest benchmark available for solid state drives is AS SSD as it relies solely on incompressible data samples when testing performance.  For the most part, AS SSD tests can be considered the ‘worst case scenario’ in obtaining data transfer speeds and many enthusiasts like AS SSD for their needs. Transfer speeds are displayed on the left with IOPS results on the right.

Our AS SSD result provided a Total Score of 1220; this is the highest score for a SATA 6Gb/s 128GB I have ever seen! The 850 Pro reaches a max of 524MB/s and 446MB/s for sequential read and write tests.  4k results are also very impressive. As mentioned earlier, its 4k reads have broken the 40MB/s barrier and 4k write reaches 139MB/s. In the IOPS we see it reaches a max of 95,836 read IOPS and 82,042 write IOPS. Just shy of its rated 100k/90k read/write specification.

To complement this,  the AS SSD Copy Bench presents us with transfer speeds averaging the mid 400MB/s range for ISO and Game, while reaching a high of 378MB/s for the Program test.

ANVIL’S STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL

Anvil’s Storage Utilities (ASU) are the most complete test bed available for the solid state drive today.  The benchmark displays test results for, not only throughput but also, IOPS and Disk Access Times.  Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and use in our benchmark testing.

Even in Anvil’s Storage Utilities, we saw 40MB/s+ 4K reads as in the other tests and a high of 151MB/s for 4k write were confirmed. The max sequential reads are just shy of 530MB/s and sequential write speed seems to have only been able to reach a high of 438MB/s.

So far we haven’t seen the IOPS rating met. We now will try Anvil’s IOPS tests and see if we can push the drive any more.

Alas, we weren’t able to reach them yet again. Max read IOPS for the drive come in at just over 98,000 for read and almost 87,500 for write.