The memory market is one of the most competitive there is
today. Just look at what is happening with SSDs in the most requested memory
cuts, with the cost of 1Tb models often aligned between SATA and M.2 PCIe,
despite the huge difference in performance between the two standards. Samsung
has always been a protagonist in this sector, being the world's leading
manufacturer of NAND memories, and with the range of SATA QVO SSDs, the stated
goal is to offer increasingly capacious SSDs at more competitive prices,
without sacrificing performance.
The first model of this product line, which we analyzed in
our review of the SSD 860 QVO , led the way for the arrival of QLC memories,
but now the Korean house has decided to raise the bar, creating the first 8 TB
model aimed at the consumer world, the 870 QVO, offered at the list price of
985.99 euros.
A consumer product but for professionals
Two years ago, Samsung was the only company to use QLC
memory, which is cheaper than the others. The secret of their lower cost,
explained in simple words, is all in their density: in the same space it is
possible to enter more data. TLC memories, for example, are able to store 3
bits per cell, with QLCs it goes up to 4 bits per cell, this simple data is
enough to understand the reason for their lower cost. Conversely, QLC memories
are generally slower and less durable over time. Today we are facing the second
generation of QLC memories, which promise more performance and greater
reliability over time. Speaking of performance, a mistake, however, is to think
that all SSDs with these memories are the same, but this is a not the case.
Very often in fact in the cheaper modelsno cache memory is used , a ploy to lower
costs at the expense of performance.
Samsung has integrated LPDDR4 memories in each model of the
QVO range, starting from 1 GB for the 1 TB one, 2 GB for the 2 TB one, 4 GB for
the 4 TB one and 8 GB in the 8 TB variant we tested. . Added to this is a 42 GB
SLC cache for the entry level and 78 GB for all the others.
Why is it important to have a lot of cache in an SSD? Simply
because when this is saturated, or worse still when it is absent, the
performance declines to the point of reaching below 100 MB / s in sequential
writing, a figure far from the performance offered by an SSD, albeit SATA.
Given the amount of cache available, it is difficult to
experience a performance degradation in a context of real use with this 870
QVO, which also has slightly higher performance than the previous model , a
sign that the second generation of QLC memories has brought a another welcome
novelty, albeit not revolutionary compared to the past. After all, the SATA
interface has very specific limits and it is impossible to overcome them, to do
this you have to go to the M.2 PCIe models, there is no alternative.
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