The 860 Pro is Samsung’s latest consumer-grade SATA SSD flagship, superseding the popular, but now three years old, 850 Pro. Like the 850 Pro, the 860 Pro is based on Samsung’s proprietary and revolutionary (at the time), MLC V-NAND (3D). A 10% price premium over the 256 GB 850 Pro will purchase the 256 GB 860 Pro which has an impressive 16% faster effective speed. This is achieved via an updated controller (MJX) and 64 layers of V-NAND (versus 32 layers per the 850 Pro). The 860 Pro has sequential speeds of up to 540 MB/s which almost completely saturate its SATA 3.0 interface. These peak levels of performance are slightly higher, but still comparable to the peak performance of the 860 Evo before its SLC write cache (12 GB on the 250 GB Evo) is saturated, making the 860 Evo (at around 30% cheaper) a more economical choice for users who rarely write more than 12 GB at a time. There are also reliability improvements compared to the 850 generation with Samsung now offering a warranty of 300 TBW (terabytes written) for the 256 GB 860 Pro, compared to 150 TBW for the 256 GB 850 Pro. Thanks to higher density NAND, the 860 Pro is also available in a 4 TB variant, whereas previously 2 TB was the largest capacity for a Samsung SATA MLC SSD. [Feb '18SSDrivePro]
Crucial’s BX300 SSD is a 3D MLC entry level SSD, with debut pricing in line with the Samsung's 850 Evo, the current market leader. The BX300 is one of the faster consumer SSDs available, with a 2% performance improvement over Crucial’s older MLC based MX200 and a 25% performance improvement over the TLC based MX300 which are both from Crucial’s more expensive MX product line. MLC NAND offers more consistent performance and has higher endurance than TLC NAND. Although Samsung’s 850 Evo (which is based on proprietary TLC V-NAND) has a 10% effective speed advantage over the BX300 the BX300 wins on write consistency. The 240GB BX300 has a three year warranty or 80 Terabytes Written (TBW) compared to five years or 75 (TBW) for the 250 GB 850 Evo. This makes for an interesting choice between the BX300 and the 850 Evo. Each model has an SLC cache which is proportional to its capacity, as a result the larger capacities offer better performance. The 120 GB BX300 has a 4 GB SLC cache, the 240 GB has 8 GB and the 480 GB has 16 GB. SLC caches improve burst write performance beyond the already respectable MLC write performance. Unfortunately, at least for now, the BX300 only comes in modest capacities, with the largest being 480 GB. For write consistency, thanks to its MLC NAND, the BX300 punches well above its price point. [Nov '17SSDrivePro]
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.