Conclusion

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With the 845DC Series Samsung Electronics have launched their first enterprise grade SSD. Samsung Semiconductor on the other hand is active in that area since a long time, generating know-how that can now be found in the latest drives launched by Samsung Electronics. The most impressive new feature available on the 845DC PRO is undoubtedly the 3D V-NAND Flash memory. Thanks to its cylindrical structure two pressing issues with NAND Flash memory could be addressed at the same time, since the new memory cells use 40nm process technology, accounting for significantly higher endurance, combined with stackability which allows for Die density of up to 128Gbit. This result was achieved by using 24 layers. Samsung is already working on 48 layer as well as 96 layer 3D V-NAND Flash memory. This would then enable NAND Flash dies with 1Tbit density.

In terms of raw performance our test drive was able to score 500 MB/s sequential write and 544 MB/s sequential read throughput. When it comes to 4K IOPS we measured 92'100 IOPS regarding random read and 85'800 regarding random write. In case of sequential write the drive could be a little bit quicker. Regarding random read we see that the SATA-III inferfce is being maxed out with and therefore performance is where it should be. When it comes to random read IOPS performance we measured almost point blank the same Samsung is advertising. On the other hand, when it comes to random write performance we were in for quite a surprise, since Samsung claims this drive can "only" do 51'000 IOPS 4k random write. We measured a whopping 34'800 IOPS more. On another note we also had a look at performance with different queue depths as you can see on page 10. In case of random read performance we see 7'500 IOPS (1'000 less than communicated by Samsung) and when it comes to random write we see 37'750 IOPS (twice as much as communicated by Samsung). 

The single most important aspect in case of an enterprise-grade SSD is endurance and this is where the 3D V-NAND Flash memory can show off. Samsung promises up to 10 Drive Writes Per Day for five years, which translates into 14'600 TBW. This is an exceptional value and we are going to run an endurance test on this drive ourselves to see if we can confirm this result.

Last but not least there is the pricing. The Samsung 845DC PRO 400GB comes with an MSRP of 959.99 US-Dollar whereas the samsung 845DC PRO 800GB is recommended to sell for 1'829.99 US-Dollar. Price per gigabyte is therefore somewhere inbetween 2.40 and 2.29 US-Dollar, which is actually in-line with competitors offers.

Should you be looking for an enterprise-grade SSD, which can easily deal with write intense workloads, then we highly recommend considering this drive.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 7 - Random read KByte/s
Page 2 - Impressions	Page 8 - Random write IOPS
Page 3 - How do we test?	Page 9 - Random read IOPS
Page 4 - Sequential write KByte/s	Page 10 - QD1/4/8/16/32 Performance
Page 5 - Sequential read KByte/s	Page 11 - Conclusion
Page 6 - Random write KByte/s

Authors: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch