Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory innovations, has announced the local availability of the 850 PRO, a new solid state drive (SSD) line-up.
Featuring Samsung’s cutting-edge three-dimensional (3D) vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory technology, it is a brand new successor to Samsung’s current premium SSD product, the 840 PRO.
“With this new device, we are introducing the next major evolution of SSD technology, taking the lead in delivering high-density SSDs with outstanding endurance, performance and energy efficiency,” says Mike van Lier, divisional head of the Enterprise Business Team (EBT) at Samsung Electronics SA.
“We are fully committed to establishing an innovative computing environment by providing customers with cutting-edge products, which are ideal for use in high-end PCs, workstations and client systems.”
Samsung’s 3D V-NAND flash memory is manufactured using an innovative vertical design which stacks 32 cell layers on top of one another rather than trying to decrease the cells’ length and width to fit today’s ever shrinking form factors. This results in higher density and higher performance whilst using a smaller footprint and is a breakthrough in overcoming the density limits currently faced with conventional planar NAND architecture.
The newly launched hard drive delivers up to twice the speed of traditional 2D planar NAND flash. Its sequential read performance reaches up to 550Mbps, with write performance of up to 520Mbps.
Random read performance is up to 100,000 input/output operations-per-second (IOPS), with write speeds of up to 90,000 IOPS, and in RAPID mode, even higher speeds can be achieved. Magician software also allows for enhanced performance by processing data on a system level using free PC memory (DRAM) as a cache.
The 850 PRO has twice the endurance of a typical NAND flash and will keep working as long as the PC is running. Samsung’s 3D V-NAND technology is built to handle daily workloads of 40GB (gigabyte), which equates to 150 Tera Bytes Written (TBW) over ten years and an industry leading ten-year limited warranty is included. Further to this, it provides the same data encryption features as the 840 EVO.
Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) security technology will help keep data safe at all times. It includes an AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption engine to ensure that customers’ personal files remain secure. Being hardware-based, the encryption engine secures data without performance degradation that might be experienced with a software-based encryption.
In addition, the 850 PRO is compliant with advanced security management solutions, TCG Opal and IEEE 1667.
Advances in the design of the MEX Controller and the use of the new technology of 3D V-NAND have enabled Samsung to make the 850 PRO one of the most energy efficient drives on the market. Idle power is almost the same as the 840 PRO and the active (average) write power has been dramatically reduced by up to 40% due to 3D V-NAND technology. Moreover, when DEVSLP is enabled, the power consumption of the 850 PRO is below 2mW.
The drive also offers a Dynamic Thermal Guard feature, which maintains ambient temperature and prevents it from overheating and potential data loss.
Van Lier concludes: “With the accelerating consumer adoption of SSDs, Samsung anticipates that its new V-NAND SSDs will add to the growth of the branded SSD market.”
The Samsung 850 PRO will be available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1 terabyte (TB) storage capacities. Recommended Retail prices vary from R1,679 to R5,509 at leading IT Resellers.