Introduction

As one of the world leaders in digital technology, Samsung pretty much makes any type of electronic device you can think of. Their products are used by millions of people around the world.

Being a leader in DRAM and flash memory production, it comes as no surprise that they are also a huge player in the SSD business. Their EVO and PRO Series SSDs are highly popular among upgraders, system builders, and enthusiasts.

Today's SSD review will cover the Samsung 870 QVO in its 1 TB variant. Earlier this week, on Monday, I reviewed the Seagate BarraCuda 120 and was impressed with it as an offering for the 2.5" SATA segment. Samsung positions their 870 QVO slightly differently—on the package, it reads "Quality and Value Optimized SSD". Unlike the Seagate 120, which uses TLC, Samsung chose to go with QLC, which is more cost-effective because it stores four bits per flash cell, whereas TLC stores only three. This creates a significant cost per GB advantage, which is important because competition in the market is tough; it also enables the creation of larger SSDs because the cell capacity of each NAND chip is used more efficiently. The downside is that writing to QLC is much slower than writing to TLC.

Internally, the Samsung 870 QVO uses Samsung's own MKX controller—a new version that replaces the MJX controller we've seen on their first-generation QLC SSD (860 QVO). The flash chips are also new, they are 96-layers 5th generation V-NAND QLC now. As expected, the SSD includes pseudo-SLC caching to improve performance. The 870 QVO also has a DRAM cache chip to avoid the random write performance issues of DRAM-less SSDs.

Samsung is offering their 870 QVO in capacities of 1 TB ($130, this review), 2 TB ($250), 4 TB ($500), and 8 TB ($800). Endurance for these models is set at 360 TBW, 720 TBW, 1440 TBW, and 2880 TBW respectively. Samsung also includes a three-year warranty, which is considerably shorter than the five years offered on EVO and PRO models.

Packaging

The Drive

The drive conforms to the dimensions set forth by the 2.5" form factor. It is made out of metal to improve its durability and is only 7 mm thick, which ensures it will fit into modern notebooks.


Samsung's 870 QVO uses the SATA 6 Gbps interface. It is compatible with any older SATA standard, but will, in such a case, work at reduced performance.


Taking the drive apart, we see a tiny PCB inside the mostly empty SSD case.


On the PCB, you'll find the controller, one flash chip, and a DRAM chip.

Chip Component Analysis

The Samsung MKX S4LR059 controller is a new variant with support for QLC. It uses eight flash channels. The previous model, 860 QVO, used the MJX controller.


As expected, the flash chip is made by Samsung, too, using V-NAND V5 technology, which is their second-generation QLC NAND flash, with 96 layers.


A Samsung LPDDR4-1866 chip provides 1 GB of fast DRAM storage for the controller to store the mapping tables.