Samsung 870 EVO Internal SSD (MZ-77E2T0B/AM) 2TB 2.5" SATA III

Product Information

Both these SSDs are great in terms of reliability as well. They offer a good warranty period along with the TBW limits. Let’s compare them below. Specifications

With these numbers, we can clearly see that the Samsung 870 Evo has some better things to offer. Total endurance, sequential write speed, and random read speed are better in the Samsung 870 Evo. Whereas the Crucial MX500 is winning the other things such as M.2 Form Factor, and random write speed. 2. Benchmark Scores Truth be told, there aren't that many new SATA SSDs on the market. To put this into perspective, the most recent SATA competitor we reviewed, the SK hynix's Gold S31, was launched in 2019. Switching over to sequential performance, the 1TB Samsung 870 EVO drive peaked at 7,705 IOPS or 480MB/s with a latency of 2,070µs in reads while the 4TB model hit 486MB/s and 2,043µs in reads for top spot. On paper, the 870 EVO seemed like a modest refresh of the last-gen model; however, results from our benchmarks told a slightly different story. For performance, we looked at both the 1TB and 4TB models and compared them to three other consumer-grade 2.5-inch SATA SSDs: the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro, Seagate FireCuda 120, and its predecessor, the 860 EVO. As we all know these both SSDs use the SATA protocol, and the speed would never go beyond 600MB/s. So, whether you are using any of these SSDs, don’t expect anything more than that. However, because the Crucial MX500 and Samsung 870 Evo are competing hard in this domain, various people want to know which one is the best between these both. So, in this article, we are going to reveal the same by doing some straight comparisons. Now, without any further delays, let’s get started. 1. Theoretical Specifications

High Read and Write Speed

When looking at our VDI benchmarks results, both capacities demonstrated a significant improvement over the last-gen EVO drive. In boot, the 1TB 870 EVO peaked at 26,502 IOPS and the 4TB model peaked at 27,582 IOPS, while initial Login had the 1TB with a peak performance of 14,193 IOPS and 17,021 IOPS for the 4TB model. Lastly, for Monday Login, 1TB Samsung 870 EVO had a peak performance of 12,161 IOPS and 14,323 IOPS for the 1TB and 4TB models, respectively. All of these tests leverage the common vdBench workload generator, with a scripting engine to automate and capture results over a large compute testing cluster. This allows us to repeat the same workloads across a wide range of storage devices, including flash arrays and individual storage devices. Our testing process for these benchmarks fills the entire drive surface with data, then partitions a drive section equal to 5% of the drive capacity to simulate how the drive might respond to application workloads. This is different than full entropy tests which use 100% of the drive and take them into steady state. As a result, these figures will reflect higher-sustained write speeds. Let’s see what are the key offerings given by the manufacturers of these SSDs. Comparing them will give you a good idea of what you can expect from them. Specification VDI Initial Login, the 1TB Samsung 870 EVO had a peak performance of 14,193 IOPS at a latency of 2,108ms while the 4TB model hit a peak of 17,021 IOPS at 1,755ms before taking a pretty big dip in performance at the very end (though easily taking first place among the tested drives). Samsung is one of the few companies still putting significant effort into SATA SSDs and releasing new consumer SATA models. As PC OEMs have overwhelmingly switched to using NVMe SSDs in new systems, even on the smaller capacities, the client/consumer SATA SSD market now exists almost entirely for the sake of DIY system builders and aftermarket upgrades on older systems. Most major consumer SSD brands have either stopped updating their SATA models, or decided to quietly update components without the fanfare of a new model release. Then there are companies creating odd-ball models, such as a 15.36 TB design. Either way, we don't get many new consumer SATA SSDs in for review these days.

As an upgrade to the 860 EVO, the 850 EVO, or even any other SATA SSD, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I've said it before and I'll say it again, upgrading SATA for SATA doesn't make a lot of sense. At least, not unless you have a drive failure and it needs replacing. That said, it’s been a while since we’ve seen another EVO release (the last one being the 970 EVO Plus in the summer of 2019 and even longer since a 2.5-inch release), so we are certainly happy to get our hands on it. The 870 EVO uses TLC (or 3bit MLC, as dubbed by Samsung) 3D V-NAND, is available in capacities from 256GB up to 4TB, and features the company’s newest in-house controller. The 870 EVO also offers an endurance of up to 2,400TBW for the highest capacity model. Random Read (4 KB, QD1) Up to 13,000 IOPS Random Read * Performance may vary based on system hardware & configuration ** Measured with Intelligent TurboWrite technology being activated Sequential Write Up to 530 MB/s Sequential Write * Performance may vary based on system hardware & configuration ** Measured with Intelligent TurboWrite technology being activated We generally disapprove when SSD vendors silently swap out major components without renaming a product, because changing the SSD controller or NAND flash can have a major impact on a drive's performance and power efficiency. Unfortunately, this has long been a common practice for entry-level models, and a few manufacturers have tried it on more upmarket models and been deservedly excoriated when they're caught (eg. ADATA, with the SX8200 Pro).The 4TB Samsung SSD 870 EVO is ratedat 2,400TBW with a five-year warranty (whichever happens first, the warranty end or the write limit), which is right within standard expectations for SATA-based TLC drives these days at that capacity. TBW scales with capacity, as you can see in the chart above. Of course, even with all those big wins in our games and programs testing, ultimately the SSD 870 EVO is still based on SATA, and SATA has a speed ceiling that even the best controllers and NAND flash in the world can't break through. First up is random 4K read, where the 1TB Samsung 870 EVO 74,587 IOPS at 1,715µs in latency, while the 4TB model had slightly better results with a peak of 75,310 IOPS at 1,695µs in latency. Their predecessor, the Samsung 860 EVO, wasn’t far behind. Performance-wise, the Samsung 870 EVO is quoted to deliver sequential read and write speeds of 560MB/s and 530MB/s, respectively, while random performance is expected to hit up to 98,000 IOPS read and 88,000 IOPS writes. This is only a slight upgrade in sequential read performance over the 550MB/s offered by the 860 EVO (which is expected, since the drive’s performance is capped by the SATA interface), with Samsung claiming a 38% increase in random read performance speeds. To help sustain these performance numbers, the EVO line leverages Intelligent TurboWrite technology.