Samsung is taking SSDs to the next level with the new 850 PRO

Samsung just unveiled a new series of solid state drives targeted at client systems, dubbed the SSD 850 PRO. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a couple of drives in the lead-up to today’s launch (in 128GB and 1TB capacities) and found their performance to be outstanding. You can see all of the juicy shots of the drives’ internals and peruse the performance numbers here if you’re so inclined. At the heart of the drives is the same triple-core MEX controller used in the older SSD 845 EVO series, but the new SSD 850 PRO series features bleeding-edge, 32-layer 3D V-NAND flash memory in lieu of traditional MLC or TLC NAND. In a press release that hit the wire a few months back announcing mass production of its 3D V-NAND, Samsung claimed it showed not only an increase of a minimum of 2X to a maximum 10X higher reliability, but also twice the write performance over conventional 10nm-class floating gate NAND flash memory. It’s too early to tell if the reliability figures hold up in the real-world, but performance was certainly very good. Samsung’s new 3D V-NAND offers a 128 gigabit (Gb) density in a single chip, and employs the company’s proprietary vertical cell structure that leverages 3D Charge Trap Flash (CTF) technology and vertical interconnect process technology to link the 3D cell array. According to Samsung, using both of these technologies allows the 3D V-NAND to provide over twice the scaling of 20nm-class planar NAND flash.