Samsung’s NVMe SSD flagship, the 960 Pro, is one of the fastest consumer SSDs on the market, currently second only to Intel’s 900P Optane SSDs. This PCIe SSD offers high-end performance at a premium price and therefore, as the name suggests, is may be more suited towards professional users. Our real world benchmarks show that the 960 Pro has read/write speeds in excess of 4 times faster than the Samsung 850 Pro which is the next best SATA SSD. Compared to the now two year old NVMe 950 Pro the 960 Pro offers significantly higher write throughput and is less susceptible to thermal throttling. The 960 Pro is based on a denser version of Samsung’s V-NAND (3D) technology, featuring more layers of memory cells. The 960 Pro also features an upgraded and faster 5 ARM Polaris controller, compared to the 950 Pro’s 3 ARM UBX controller. The smallest capacity for the 960 Pro is 512 GB, which may make it prohibitively expensive for some. Fortunately, for those that still want the superb NVMe performance, the 250 GB Samsung 960 Evo offers a more affordable choice, albeit with lower sustained write speeds when compared to the 512 GB 960 Pro. The 960 Pro is based on MLC (2-bit) V-NAND whilst the 960 Evo is based on the slightly lower enduring TLC (3-bit) V-NAND, and this accounts for Samsung’s reduced warranty for the 960 Evo (3 years/200 TBW versus 5 years/400 TBW for the 512 GB versions of the 960 Evo and 960 Pro respectively). Unlike the 960 Evo, the 960 Pro doesn’t have an SLC cache which results in more consistent sustained write speeds. [Nov '17SSDrivePro]
The 860 Evo is the latest mainstream SATA SSD from Samsung. The 2.5-inch version of the 860 Evo will be available in several capacities ranging from 250 GB to a staggering 4TB. It’s also available in the slimmer M.2 and mSATA form factors. The 860 Evo demonstrates marginally reduced performance compared to its popular, but now three year old predecessor, the 850 Evo. In a head to head comparison the 860 looses by a very modest 6% in terms of effective speed. The 860 Evo is based on a refinement of Samsung’s consumer grade TLC V-NAND, this time featuring 256Gb and 512 Gb 64 layer V-NAND and it also features a new "MJX" controller. The 250 GB version can reach sequential write speeds of up to 520 MB/s, dropping to 300 MB/s once the SLC cache is exhausted (the 250 GB version has a 12 GB SLC write cache). Peak sequential read speeds of 560 MB/s are achievable across the different capacities. The 250GB version has a 512 MB LPDDR4 DRAM cache. All capacities have a five year warranty, but as a testament to the enhanced reliability of this new technology, the warrantied terabytes written (TBW) has doubled from 75 TBW to 150 TBW for the 250 GB 860 Evo. [Jan '18SSDrivePro]
Welcome to our 2.5" and M.2 SSD comparison. We calculate effective speed for both SATA and NVMe drives based on real world performance then adjust by current prices per GB to yield a value for money rating. Our calculated values are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top SSDs. [SSDrivePro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.