The Samsung 870 QVO (1TB & 4TB) SSD Review: QLC Refreshed
by Billy Tallis on June 30, 2020 11:40 AM ESTA year and a half ago, Samsung introduced the first consumer SATA SSDs to use QLC NAND flash memory, squeezing an extra bit into each memory cell, yielding the 860 QVO to join the existing lineup of 860 EVO and PRO. Samsung's second-generation QLC NAND is now ready, and the 870 QVO is the first 870 model to be launched.
The industry put a lot of effort into preparing for the arrival of QLC NAND: beefing up error correction to compensate for lower write endurance, and tuning cache algorithms on consumer drives to forestall dealing with lower performance after SLC caches run out. But in spite of all the work it took to make QLC SSDs viable, they haven't made much of a splash and definitely aren't displacing TLC from the market yet.
The new Samsung 870 QVO SSDs arrive into a market landscape that doesn't look all that different to what the 860 QVO faced at the end of 2018. Samsung is no longer the only brand selling consumer SATA SSDs with QLC NAND, but it's not a big club. Most of the other QLC SATA drives are so low-end that the manufacturers won't commit to using any particular memory inside, and they're using whatever is cheapest at the moment. Some months, there's more to be saved by going with a DRAMless controller and TLC NAND that fell off the back of a truck, rather than using Samsung's strategy of pairing theoretically cheaper QLC NAND with a solid controller.
QLC NAND has had a bit more of an impact in the NVMe SSD market, where a few more brands are experimenting with using QLC to make big drives cheaper, rather than simply making cheap drives even cheaper. That's the same goal that Samsung had for the 860 QVO and now the 870 QVO: bringing multi-TB SSDs into the mainstream. Samsung's most visible contribution to that goal will be the introduction of the first 8TB consumer SATA SSD: the 8TB 870 QVO. That model is due to arrive a little bit later in August, and we don't have a sample yet. Today, we're looking at the 1TB and 4TB capacities of the 870 QVO.
Samsung MKX controller and LPDDR4 DRAM
The Samsung 870 QVO is an incremental update to the 860 QVO. The QLC NAND has been updated from Samsung's 64-layer V-NAND to their 92-layer V-NAND. For their NVMe product line, this change produced the 970 EVO Plus as a successor to the 970 EVO without even updating the controller, and the 970 PRO didn't get updated at all. The 870 QVO does bring a controller update, replacing the MJX with the MKX in Samsung's long line of SATA SSD controllers. Samsung hasn't disclosed any particular enhancements to their controller or firmware architecture, and we suspect this iteration is a more minor update than the last one. We know that the older MJX controller was already capable of supporting 8TB drive capacities, so that wasn't the driving force for this controller update.
Samsung 870 QVO Specifications | ||||||
Capacity | 1 TB | 2 TB | 4 TB | 8 TB | ||
Form Factor | 2.5" 7mm SATA | |||||
Controller | Samsung MKX | |||||
NAND Flash | Samsung 1Tbit 92L 3D QLC | |||||
LPDDR4 DRAM | 1 GB | 2 GB | 4 GB | 8 GB | ||
Max SLC Cache Size | 42 GB | 78 GB | 78 GB | 78 GB | ||
Sequential Read | 560 MB/s | |||||
Sequential Write |
SLC | 530 MB/s | ||||
QLC | 80 MB/s | 160 MB/s | ||||
Random Read IOPS (4kB) |
QD1 | 11k (SLC) 5k (QLC) |
11k (SLC) 5k (QLC) |
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QD32 | 98k (SLC) 45k (QLC) |
98k (SLC) 74k (QLC) |
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Random Write IOPS (4kB) |
QD1 | 35k (SLC) 22k (QLC) |
35k (SLC) 34k (QLC) |
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QD32 | 88k (SLC) 22k (QLC) |
88k (SLC) 42k (QLC) |
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Power Consumption |
Read | 2.1 W | 2.1 W | 2.2 W | 2.4 W | |
Write | 2.2 W | 3.0 W | 3.2 W | 3.3 W | ||
Idle | 30 mW | 30 mW | 35 mW | 45 mW | ||
DevSlp | 3 mW | 4 mW | 7 mW | 10 mW | ||
Warranty | 3 years | |||||
Write Endurance | 360 TB 0.3 DWPD |
720 TB 0.3 DWPD |
1440 TB 0.3 DWPD |
2880 TB 0.3 DWPD |
||
MSRP | $129.99 (13¢/GB) |
$249.99 (12¢/GB) |
$499.99 (12¢/GB) |
TBA |
Samsung continues to provide more detailed performance specifications than any other consumer SSD vendor. The big top-line numbers that everybody reports are hardly worth mentioning for a SATA drive; almost any drive can saturate the 6Gbps interface under ideal conditions, with random or sequential reads or writes at a high enough queue depth. Samsung goes the extra mile to provide specs for performance at queue depth 1, and performance after the SLC cache runs out. Some of those numbers look pretty brutal: sequential write speeds dropping to a mere 80MB/s for the 1TB model, and even random reads are considerably slower when accessing QLC data rather than the SLC cache. But overall, these specs are very similar to the 860 QVO. Random write performance at QD1 appears to have taken a bit of a hit, but everywhere else performance for the 870 QVO is rated to be equal or slightly better than its predecessor.
The 870 QVO product line still starts at 1TB, the minimum size needed to put 8 controller channels to work when using 1024Gbit NAND dies. That smallest capacity model comes with some significant performance deficits relative to the multi-TB models, in much the same fashion as 256GB TLC drives fall behind their larger counterparts, or 512GB capacities for high-performance NVMe SSDs. The most notable limitations of the 1TB 870 QVO are the post-cache write speed of 80 MB/s compared to 160 MB/s, and the cache size that is almost halved. Together that means the 1TB model is more at risk of exhibiting unacceptable performance when the SLC write cache runs out, but at 42GB this model's cache can still handle more writes than many users perform in an entire day of desktop usage.
Samsung's warranty for the 870 QVO is 0.3 drive writes per day for 3 years. This is comparable to many low-end consumer TLC drives and a step up from most other consumer QLC drives that are rated for 0.1 to 0.15 DWPD (sometimes over a 5-year warranty period, but that's still fewer total writes than the 870 QVO is rated for).
Introductory MSRPs for the 870 QVO are reduced from what the 860 QVO debuted at, with $50 off the 2TB and $100 off the 4TB. But that merely puts the 870 QVO's launch MSRP on par with the current street prices for the 860 QVO. And because it's Samsung, the pricing isn't low enough to rule out comparing against mainstream TLC SATA SSDs and entry-level NVMe SSDs, especially for the lower capacities.
In a way, that's good for this review, because the 870 QVO doesn't have much direct competition in the form of other large QLC SATA drives. Most of the SSDs that are considerably cheaper than the 860/870 QVOs are DRAMless SSDs, usually TLC but occasionally QLC. The cheapest entry-level NVMe SSDs are all either DRAMless with TLC, or use QLC with a more mainstream controller.
For this review, we are comparing the 870 QVO against the following:
- The 870 QVO's immediate predecessor, the 860 QVO
- The ADATA Ultimate SU750 and Patriot P200, two different DRAMless TLC SATA drives. The SU750 uses a Realtek controller and the 2TB P200 used a Maxio controller, both budget options.
- The Crucial MX500 and Samsung 860 EVO as mainstream SATA SSDs with TLC NAND. The MX500 has always been one of the most affordable mainstream SATA SSDs from a major brand, and the 860 EVO generally marks the most it makes sense to pay for SATA SSDs—any more, and the money would be better spent on a good NVMe SSD.
- The Intel 660p: one of the handful of QLC NVMe SSDs on the market. The 660p is being replaced by the newer 665p but both are still widely available. Even though the 665p is a bit faster, the 660p still has no trouble running circles around SATA drives under the right conditions.
We don't have any non-Samsung 4TB consumer SSDs to compare against; the Western Digital Blue is pretty much the only other 4TB consumer SATA SSD, and Sabrent's Phison E12-based Rocket and Rocket Q drives are the current options on the NVMe side. The rest of the 4+ TB SSD options are enterprise drives that lack SLC caching and idle power management and are way more expensive than anything else this review is looking at.
Ultimately, most of the competition against multi-TB SSDs comes from hard drives, the incumbent alternatives for high-capacity drives. Multi-TB hard drives are still vastly cheaper than multi-TB SSDs, but for many consumers the big question posed by drives like the 870 QVO is whether it's reasonable yet to move all their storage over to solid-state. That doesn't necessarily require SSDs to match hard drives on a $/GB basis, because there are plenty of advantages to SSDs that are worth paying at least a bit extra for.
Representing the hard drive market, we have a Western Digital WD Red 4TB, the pre-SMR WD40EFRX model. It's the newest and largest hard drive I have on hand, because my home office has been drowning in SSDs for years. (A nice problem to have.)
AnandTech 2018 Consumer SSD Testbed | |
CPU | Intel Xeon E3 1240 v5 |
Motherboard | ASRock Fatal1ty E3V5 Performance Gaming/OC |
Chipset | Intel C232 |
Memory | 4x 8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws DDR4-2400 CL15 |
Graphics | AMD Radeon HD 5450, 1920x1200@60Hz |
Software | Windows 10 x64, version 1709 |
Linux kernel version 4.14, fio version 3.6 | |
Spectre/Meltdown microcode and OS patches current as of May 2018 |
- Thanks to Intel for the Xeon E3 1240 v5 CPU
- Thanks to ASRock for the E3V5 Performance Gaming/OC
- Thanks to G.SKILL for the Ripjaws DDR4-2400 RAM
- Thanks to Corsair for the RM750 power supply, Carbide 200R case, and Hydro H60 CPU cooler
- Thanks to Quarch for the HD Programmable Power Module and accessories
- Thanks to StarTech for providing a RK2236BKF 22U rack cabinet.
64 Comments
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FunBunny2 - Wednesday, July 1, 2020 - link
"QLC is garbage."alas, which manufacturers are going to ignore QLC? unless we, the consumers, stop buying QLC SSDs, vendors will continue to spit them out. and, yes, in due time, the SSD will perform much like HDD. progress and capitalism seldom coincide.
Great_Scott - Thursday, July 2, 2020 - link
QLC isn't garbage. There's a bunch of uses for this kind of drive.8TB of bulk storage for seldom-played games or music/movies? Sign me up!
The real problem here is that all SSDs cost roughly the same amount per GB, so there's no reason not to buy a better drive.
Maybe someday when there's a bigger pricing delta between "DRAM-less SATA" and "midrange PCIe" the numerous speed categories will make more (any) sense...
descendency - Friday, July 3, 2020 - link
The problem with QLC is that there aren't really substantial price savings from that of TLC or MLC that are passed onto the consumer. In the US (at least), the QVO drives are more expensive than some respectable TLC drives of the same capacity but without the performance limitations of QLC.I'm not going to call it garbage, but I would say these drives (the 8TB) models make more sense at ~650-750 USD given the compromises over EVO drives and other TLC drives. It's basically insane to see the 4TB QVO at $500 when some TLC drives are $480 (like Sandisk).
Gigaplex - Saturday, July 11, 2020 - link
"8TB of bulk storage for seldom-played games or music/movies? Sign me up!"You can do that now with an HDD. At a much cheaper price, and with somewhat equivalent performance.
Mitch89 - Thursday, July 2, 2020 - link
Wow, I’m disappointed at my ignorance as to how slow these QVO drives get once you exhaust the SLC cache, I had no idea they crashed to 2.5 inch HDD speeds.Sure, the “limited time only!!!!” speed of the SLC cache will be enough for many, but those speeds are still incredibly disappointing.
Great_Scott - Thursday, July 2, 2020 - link
They're still better than spinning rust, especially for burst performance. The real problem here is that they cost the same as other SSD technology.Dragonstongue - Friday, July 3, 2020 - link
I am sure Sammy can do much better pricing then this on QLC tech (just cause they fancy it up by calling QVO) does not mean an automatic $50+ price is in order.Worse overall flash memory style, therefore better pricing should be very much part of the thought process, but I suppose they must have thought, 80mb/s is plenty fast, so therefore, $400+ for 4tb is more then acceptable.
IMO make
4tb $325 max (consider horrendous perf. specs) the 1tb 120 flat, 2tb $215
does not matter what others are doing, or if their perf. power use etc is better or worse is how you price your product, @#$ on that logic lol
Lolimaster - Monday, July 6, 2020 - link
Thing is you can already get 2TB ssds for that price or less. MX500 2TB hovers around $189-219.Oxford Guy - Friday, July 3, 2020 - link
"QLC isn't garbage. There's a bunch of uses for this kind of drive."That's true.
It can be used as a Christmas tree ornament, if dissected.
The case can be used to provide a protective cover for a number of earwigs.
The innards can be strapped to a vinyl suit for a retro sci-fi show.
The mind boggles at the potential usefulness.
Slash3 - Sunday, July 5, 2020 - link
Great for sliding underneath a wobbly table leg, too.