The Samsung 750 EVO (120GB & 250GB) SSD Review: A Return To Planar NAND
by Billy Tallis on April 22, 2016 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
The Samsung 750 EVO is a drive for a limited audience. It is intended for use as the primary boot drive of a system that will not be subjected to particularly intense storage workloads, and the limited capacity options preclude using it to hold a large game or multimedia library. Seen through this lens, the 750 EVO offers great performance for a budget drive. The peak performance of the 750 EVO is close to the Samsung 850 EVO and even the 850 Pro in many cases. On tests simulating lighter real-world usage the 750 EVO is generally the fastest budget TLC drive and also sometimes competes well against low-end MLC drives.
That said, if the 750 EVO is subjected to a more strenuous workload, things start to fall apart. The performance of this drive suffers greatly if it is operated in a near-full state and when sustained writes overflow its SLC cache. The same is also true of any other budget TLC drive, but most of the competition handles the pressure better than the 750 EVO. The best way to make use of the 750 EVO is probably to pair it with a large hard drive to hold bulk data and large applications. This is especially true of the 120GB model, as that much space can quickly fill up if used to store even a few movies or games.
As a cost-cutting exercise, the 750 EVO produces interesting results. Samsung's in-house SSD controller design was already the cheapest option for Samsung to use, and they didn't produce a crippled cut-down version for the 750 EVO. Instead, the 750 EVO gets the same higher-performance controller from the lower capacity 850 EVO, and broad feature set of the full 850 series. The NAND flash is where almost all of the cost savings occur and that does have an impact on performance, but under reasonable usage scenarios the Samsung controller is able to compensate for that better than most others. The warranty and endurance ratings on the 750 EVO are lower than for the 850 EVO but are normal for the budget segment of the market.
| SSD Price Comparison | ||
| Drive | 240GB/250GB | 120GB |
| ADATA SP550 | $57.99 | $34.99 |
| PNY CS1311 | $59.99 | $39.99 |
| PNY CS2211 | $79.99 | |
| OCZ Trion 150 | $59.99 | $45.99 |
| SanDisk Ultra II | $74.99 | $54.79 |
| Samsung 750 EVO | $79.95 | $59.99 |
| Samsung 850 EVO | $87.89 | $68.95 |
The current pricing for the Samsung 750 EVO accurately reflects where it ranks in terms of performance and features. For consumers who would otherwise consider getting a small 850 EVO, the 750 EVO saves some money while making only modest sacrifices in performance.
At the same time however due to this higher performance, Samsung is charging a higher price for it, and consequently compared to budget drives from other companies the Samsung 750 EVO doesn't look very attractive from a total price or price-per-gigabyte basis. There are MLC drives like the PNY CS2211 at the same price as the 250GB 750 EVO. There are 240GB TLC drives at or below the price of the 120GB 750 EVO, and the $25 gap between the 120GB ADATA SP550 and the 120GB Samsung 750 EVO is huge. In the end I suspect that most users who don't have a hard requirement for drive encryption would be better served by either a slightly lower performing drive with much better price per GB, or a higher-performing option than the 750 EVO.
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lilmoe - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
Meh. I'll wait until it's half price.haukionkannel - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
Well, this is 10$ cheaper that 850evo, so this will be very popular among system builders and other with tight budget. Normal upgrade user will definitely go for 850. But this is good enought to most customers.Space Jam - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
$10 for considerably worse performance does not a winner make.I have a hard time swallowing the cheapo, terrible performance $60 TLC drives. If Sammy thinks anything more than $65 is a good price they have another thing coming.
$60 for a budget 120GB SSD is some audacity.
I and most others will stick to BX100s @ $70 and 850 EVOs @ $75 during the (frequent) sales.
jabber - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
And if it's upgrading a lot of the older machines desktops and laptops that still only run on SATA II...it doesn't matter. As long as it pushes 285MBps (ish) all day that's all it needs. A lot of kit out there is still SATA II.Alexvrb - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
Yeah it's got a sequential speed cap. Not all tasks are about peak speeds. I'm pretty sure in terms of IOPS a decent SSD will still beat the snot out of an OEM-grade penny-pinching budget model, even on old SATA 2. Which brings us back to the idea that this is for OEMs and builders - truly this is a "builder-grade" component. If you're upgrading or building for yourself, you'll likely pay a few extra bucks for an 850 Evo or similar unit.With that being said, any of the modern SSDs are better than a mechanical drive. Blech.
leexgx - Wednesday, April 27, 2016 - link
this drive will likely be perfect for the older apple laptops that have that dodgy cable that does not support SATA 3 but the controller does (the cable fails if a high speed cable is used) i had to use a DVD HDD caddy on number of apple laptops due to that issue where it will not detect the SSD or HDDleexgx - Wednesday, April 27, 2016 - link
high speed drive is used (not cable is used) edit be nice on here but that's unlikelyDeath666Angel - Friday, April 22, 2016 - link
I'm guessing the marketing value for "Performance Samsung SSD inside" is considerably higher than comparable Sandisk or Crucial SSDs. And the 10 bucks off compared to the 850 means the margins remain. And if current 1TB laptop drives get replaced by these 250GB 750s, I think everyone is a winner. :DSamus - Monday, April 25, 2016 - link
It's funny you mention that because I would prefer a Sandisk or Crucial/Micron drive over a Samsung anyday.Have you ever tried warranting a Samsung drive? They are hell to deal with. And yes, I still have a sour metallic taste after the 840 Evo debacle that essentially was never fixed.
I also think Crucial/Sandisks Marvell drives, albeit slower, are more consistent, stable and deal with power loss substantially better than the MGX. The fact Samsung is making an SSD with 35TBW endurance in 2016 is pretty damning. I've seen 20GB racked up on old Intel X25-M's in a matter of years so 35GB in a 5 year period isn't out of the question. Just about any other SSD or hard disk for that matter will handle double that no problem at the rated capacity.
vladx - Monday, April 25, 2016 - link
" after the 840 Evo debacle that essentially was never fixed."Don't know what you mean, I also have a 840 EVO and can confirm the performances issues are gone after the 2nd fix.