Samsung Releases PM863 & SM863 Enterprise SATA SSDs: Up to 3.84TB with 3D V-NAND

Samsung Releases PM863 & SM863 Enterprise SATA SSDs: Up to 3.84TB with 3D V-NAND

URL: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9455/samsung-releases-pm863-sm863-enterprise-sata-ssds-up-to-384tb-with-3d-vnand

At CES, Samsung displayed a variety of new SSD solutions, including PM863 and SM863, the company's new SATA 6Gbps enterprise drives. At the time Samsung was only sampling its key OEM customers, but with today's announcement Samsung is making the drives available through its retail channel in early August.

The PM863 and SM863 are based on Samsung's in-house "Mercury" controller, but unfortunately I don't have any additional details on the controller architecture itself. I'm guessing it's a derivative of the client-grade controllers utilizing ARM Cortex R4, but I'll have to wait for Samsung's reply before I know for sure.

Samsung PM863 Specifications
Capacity	120GB	240GB	480GB	960GB	1.92TB	3.84TB
Controller	Samsung "Mercury"
NAND	Samsung 32-layer 128Gbit TLC V-NAND
Sequential Read	380MB/s	520MB/s	525MB/s	520MB/s	510MB/s	540MB/s
Sequential Write	125MB/s	245MB/s	460MB/s	475MB/s	475MB/s	480MB/s
4KB Random Read	86K IOPS	99K IOPS	99K IOPS	99K IOPS	99K IOPS	99K IOPS
4KB Random Write	5K IOPS	10K IOPS	17K IOPS	18K IOPS	18K IOPS	18K IOPS
Read Power	2.4W	2.7W	2.9W	2.9W	3.0W	3.0W
Write Power	2.1W	2.7W	3.8W	3.8W	4.0W	4.1W
Endurance	170TB	350TB	700TB	1,400TB	2,800TB	5,600TB
MSRP	$125	$160	$290	$550	$1100	$2200
Warranty	Three years

The PM863 is the successor to Samsung's 845DC EVO line and makes the switch to more durable and performant 3D V-NAND. As you will find out in our tomorrow's Micron M510DC review, the 845DC is actually a very good and consistent drive despite using TLC NAND, so I'm very intrigued to see how Samsung has been able to improve performance with V-NAND. At least random write performance sees a good 40-50% upgrade and the endurance is now ~1.3 drive writes per day, whereas the 845DC EVO offered only 0.35 DWPD. 

In addition to V-NAND, the other major upgrade in the PM863 is the addition of 1.92TB and 3.84TB capacities. Higher capacities allow for further cost savings by reducing the number of racks needed to achieve a specific capacity and in terms of drive prices alone the higher capacities offer more competitive cost per gigabyte. 4TB-class SSD itself isn't record breaking as SanDisk has been selling its Optimus Max for quite some time already, but the PM863 is a 2.5" 7mm product built on a single PCB, whereas SanDisk's is 15mm thick and needs multiple PCBs, giving Samsung a substantial cost advantage.

Samsung SM863 Specifications
Capacity	120GB	240GB	480GB	960GB	1.92TB
Controller	Samsung "Mercury"
NAND	Samsung 32-layer MLC V-NAND
Sequential Read	500MB/s	520MB/s	520MB/s	520MB/s	520MB/s
Sequential Write	460MB/s	485MB/s	485MB/s	485MB/s	485MB/s
4KB Random Read	97K IOPS	97K IOPS	97K IOPS	97K IOPS	97K IOPS
4KB Random Write	12K IOPS	20K IOPS	26K IOPS	28K IOPS	29K IOPS
Read Power	2.2W	2.2W	2.2W	2.2W	2.4W
Write Power	2.5W	2.7W	2.8W	2.9W	3.1W
Endurance	770TB	1,540TB	3,080TB	6,160TB	12,320TB
MSRP	$140	$180	$330	$870	$1260
Warranty	Five years

Whereas the PM863 succeeds the 845DC EVO, the SM863 is here to supersede the high-end PRO version. The 845DC PRO already made the switch to 3D V-NAND, but the SM863 upgrades the NAND from the first generation 24-layer to the latest 32-layer design for increased cost efficiency. I'm suspecting this is the same 86Gbit die that's used in the 850 PRO, but the 2TB 850 PRO appears to use a new 128Gbit die, so at this point I'm unsure about the exact NAND used in the SM863. I'll keep pinging Samsung for an answer, though.

The SM863 actually provides lower random write performance than the 845DC PRO, which is due to the reduced default over-provisioning as the SM863 only has 12% compared to 28% in the 845DC PRO. That said, the over-provisioning is user-configurable (Samsung even mentions that in the press release), so applications that require higher random write performance may increase the over-provisioning for higher performance. Endurance wise the SM863 is rated at about 3.5 DWPD for five years, which is again less than the 845DC PRO's 10 DWPD but additional over-provisioning will increase that.

Due to the more durable MLC V-NAND, the SM863 is mostly aimed for write-intensive applications that includes use cases such as online transaction processing (OLTP) and financial services, whereas the PM863 is targeted at read and mixed IO workloads, such as media streaming. Both feature tantalum capacitors for full power loss protection and support end-to-end data protection. The pricing of both drives seems fairly competitive because the PM863 only carries a ~10% premium over the 850 PRO, and the SM863 carries another 10% premium over the PM863. We look forward to getting the new drives in for review and putting them through our new 2015 Enterprise SSD Suite, so stay tuned!

Samsung Launches New 2TB SSD 850 EVO And 850 PRO Models

Samsung Launches New 2TB SSD 850 EVO And 850 PRO Models

URL: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9420/samsung-launches-new-2tb-ssd-850-evo-and-850-pro-models

Due to what Samsung is citing as a surge in demand for larger capacity SSDs, they have now launched two new models offering up to two terabytes of storage each. In order to drive the extra capacity, they have also launched a new SSD controller in the MHX controller. Our resident SSD expert Kristian expects the MHX to be similar in design to the MEX controller, but with additional DRAM to track the extra blocks.

The 2TB 850 EVO leverages the same 32-layer 128 Gbit TLC V-NAND that we have already seen in the smaller capacity 850 EVO products, but the 850 PRO will use a new 128 Gbit 2-bit MLC die, but still at 32-layers. It should be a nice addition to the 850 PRO series, especially with the rise of 4K video and the extra storage it requires.

Samsung 2TB SSD Specifications
Model	850 PRO	850 EVO
Controller	Samsung MHX
NAND	Samsung 128Gbit 40nm MLC V-NAND 32-layers	Samsung 128Gbit 40nm TLC V-NAND 32-layers
DRAM (LPDDR3)	2GB
Sequential Read	550MB/s	540MB/s
Sequential Write	520MB/s	520MB/s
4KB Random Read	100K IOPS	98K IOPS
4KB Random Write	90K IOPS	90K IOPS
Power	5mW (DevSLP) / 3.3W (read) / 3.4W (write)	5mW (DevSLP) / 3.7W (read) / 4.7W (write)
Encryption	AES-256, TCG Opal 2.0 & IEEE-1667 (eDrive supported)
Endurance	300TB	150TB
Warranty	10 years	5 years
Price	$1000	$800

Samsung will still package these drives in the same 7mm 2.5” SSD enclosure which means they will be SATA based for now, but Samsung has said they will be moving their 3D NAND to mSATA and M.2 form factors as well. Endurance ratings for the drives are 10 years or 300 TBW (Terabytes Written) for the PRO, and 5 years or 150 TBW for the EVO model.

The 850 Pro retails for $1000, and the 850 EVO retails for $800. Although not inexpensive by any means, and still much more than the $75 of a spinning disk, the prices are right around double the 1TB models in the lineup so there is not any extra premium to get the larger models at this time.

Kristian should have a full review of the new models soon.