Closer Look: Samsung 860 PRO

Samsung SSD 860 PRO solid state drives are available for 2.5″ SATA, M.2, and mSATA form factors, and offered in five capacities: 250GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB. The 1TB Samsung SSD 860 PRO solid state drive we’re testing is available online for $379.99 (Amazon | Newegg). This kit includes the SSD, install guide, and warranty.

Solid state storage has become standard equipment for performance-minded consumers because they work equally well in PC, Linux, or Apple computer systems. Likewise, these storage devices easily install into desktop and notebook platforms without any necessary modifications. 860 PRO is designed to give personal computers a much faster response time that can really help boost productivity and user experience.Samsung’s 64-cell layer 2-bit MLC V-NAND technology is designed to deliver stronger endurance over 3-bit NAND (which is itself stronger than planar NAND), and offer superior sequential performance. The 1TB model boasts 1200 Terabytes Written (TBW) endurance over five years, coinciding with Samsung’s 5-year limited warranty.

Unlike fragile Hard Disk Drive (HDD) magnetic storage products, SSDs are not nearly as sensitive to impact damage and do not require (or benefit from) any kind of special vibration dampening or shock-proof enclosures.

The Samsung 860 PRO features a 7mm thick chassis that comes with a matte black metal finish. Samsung utilizes a standard two-piece metal enclosure for the 860 PRO, with their branding at the top and product information label on the bottom. Internal components are revealed by removing two small counter-sunk screws located at the underside of this solid state drive (removing screws or label will void warranty).

Standard 2.5″ drive bay mounting points are pre-drilled into the SSD chassis with fine screw threading, allowing this drive to fit directly into notebook computers that use SATA connections. For older notebooks that fit a 9mm drive, users should purchase a plastic adapter that fits atop this 7mm SSD. The threaded mounting positions matched up to the drive bracket on my notebook computer.In the next few sections we’ll test the Samsung SSD 860 PRO, and compare this solid state drive to other SATA 6G storage products intended for notebook and desktop installations. For reference, Samsung advertises up to 560 MB/s read and 530 MB/s write speeds for all their 860 PRO solid state drives.