When Samsung released its 750 EVO lineup of SSDs based on planar TLC NAND flash memory earlier this year, it seemed like a big surprise, as the company was first to ramp up production of 3D NAND memory and to use it for SSDs. Apparently, Samsung not only decided to expand the lineup with a 500 GB model, but also to make such drives available worldwide and even change their positioning.

Earlier this year Samsung introduced its 750 EVO drives with 120 GB (MZ-750120BW) and 250 GB (MZ-750250BW) capacities, which are based on simplified version of the company’s MGX controller with only two cores and TLC NAND chips produced using 16 nm fabrication process. The drives are equipped with 256 MB of DRAM cache, AES-256 encryption, and support various performance improving technologies typically found in TLC-based SSDs, such as pseudo-SLC cache and so on. Samsung’s 750 EVO 500 GB drive (MZ-750500BW) is based on the company’s 16 nm TLC NAND and offers similar levels of performance as already released SSDs — up to 540 MB/s sequential read and up to 520 MB/s sequential write speed. Besides, the higher-capacity version is rated for 100 TB total bytes written (TBW) endurance.

Samsung TLC SATA SSD Comparison
Drive 750 EVO 120 GB 750 EVO 250 GB 750 EVO
500 GB
850 EVO 120 GB 850 EVO 250 GB 850 EVO
500 GB
Controller dual-core MGX MGX MGX
NAND Samsung 16nm TLC Samsung 32-layer 128Gbit TLC V-NAND
DRAM 256MB 256 MB 512 MB 1 GB
Sequential Read 540 MB/s
Sequential Write 520 MB/s
4KB Random Read 94K IOPS 97K IOPS 97K IOPS 94K IOPS 97K IOPS
4KB Random Write 88K IOPS
4KB Random Read QD1 10K IOPS 10K IOPS
4KB Random Write QD1 35K IOPS 40K IOPS
Encryption AES-256, TCG Opal 2.0, IEEE-1667 (eDrive)
Endurance 35 TB 70 TB 100 TB 75TB 150 TB
Warranty Three years Five years

Initially, Samsung positioned its 750 EVO SSDs as inexpensive solutions primarily designed for system builders in select markets, but with the addition of a 500 GB model into the family, the company also changes positioning of the lineup. Starting from early June, the 750 EVO family of SSDs will be offered in 50 countries, including the U.S., Europe, China, Korea, and other regions. Moreover, the drives will be marketed not only to system builders, but also to end-users.

The 750 EVO SSDs are positioned just below the V-NAND-based 850 EVO and replace the discontinued 840 EVO, which faced writing performance degradation scandal and caused some troubles for Samsung. Despite formal positioning, performance levels of the 750 EVO are very similar to those offered by the 850 EVO drives. However, endurance of the planar TLC-based drives is unsurprisingly somewhat lower compared to the 850 EVO (which uses 3D V-NAND). Besides, the more advanced drives also come with a five-year warranty.

The 750 EVO 500 GB’s MSRP is $149.99 and the drive is covered with a three-year warranty (or 100 TB TBW). By contrast, the 120 GB version costs $54.98, whereas the 250 GB model is priced at $83.99 at Amazon.

Source: Samsung

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  • SkiBum1207 - Wednesday, May 25, 2016 - link

    Hey guys! I have a feeling that the title should be GB (rather than MB) :)
  • Flunk - Wednesday, May 25, 2016 - link

    Man, are they really making it difficult to buy any other brand of SSD. This drive is cheap and outperforms all the other low-end drives and they lead all the way up to the high end with the 950 PRO.
  • RMSe17 - Wednesday, May 25, 2016 - link

    If only 950PRO came in 1TB size :( Or how about they take that 2TB 850Pro, and put NVMe instead of AHCI?
  • extide - Wednesday, May 25, 2016 - link

    Because it is SATA. NVMe only works on PCIe.
  • RMSe17 - Thursday, May 26, 2016 - link

    I know, so how about they take that 2TB 850Pro and release the NVMe PCIe version...
  • Samus - Wednesday, May 25, 2016 - link

    That's the power of their vertical integration. When everything is designed in-house, the margins are higher so they can sell lower.

    Of course, you love Samsung SSD's until you have had to deal with their support. Which is needless to say, awful. I mean they still don't even acknowledge the 840 EVO's were outright defective (the firmware update did little to fix the problem, all it did was tell the drive to move static data around.) That level of response is just damning to an OEM, which is why some OEM's (such as HP) have dropped Samsung in favor of Micron. Apple would love to get away from Samsung storage products but...as you said, hard to ignore.
  • vladx - Thursday, May 26, 2016 - link

    Another one who spreads FUD, 840 EVO is perfectly fine after the 2nd fix with no perormance degradation, I have one and don't see any need to change in the future. Yes, the fix is consuming 1 p/e cycle every 2 weeks but considering the reliability of todays SSDs (Samsung especially) the drive will be obselete long before its memory cells are going to die. Please stop continuing the same false myths about this drive and inform yourself better next time.
  • Cellar Door - Thursday, May 26, 2016 - link

    I completely agree with vladx - just a ton of misinformation this person keeps spreading.
  • emn13 - Thursday, May 26, 2016 - link

    I ordered quite a few 840 evos where I work, and I've got to agree with vladx... *and* with Samus. Yes, performance is not generally an issue, but Samus is also right that the perf fix did not entirely work, and furthermore, Samsungs response on that issue has not been brilliant - I mean, there are considerably cheaper drives out there, so performance was definitely a selling factor, and if they can't deliver - yeah, that's a defect. We've also had one drive brick itself after a few weeks, and never had that issue with the crucial's (but the sample size is too low to be significant).

    All else being equal, I would not pick Samsung drives again - but all else is not equal - Samsung drives are simply faster, and often cheaper too. And though their reputation for reliability has had a scratch, it's not a big one.
  • Samus - Thursday, May 26, 2016 - link

    Basically what I'm saying is the 840 EVO isn't unreliable, and it is *partially fixed* but it should have been recalled.

    Samsung is just too proud to do such a thing. The drive is not as fast as it was when the original (pre-"fix") firmware was released and numerous benchmarks back this up. The fix is a bandaid, not a fix. If Samsung has properly validated the drive it wouldn't have even come to market the way it is, the TLC technology just wasn't ready for prime time. Even Anand was shocked when the drive was confirmed to have TLC because the whole industry was years behind Samsung in releasing TLC-based NAND and now we know why.

    That said, I have never seen an 840 EVO outright fail, but I have seen them, even with the latest firmware, have read performance on par with a hard drive.

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