After we reviewed the 850 Pro 512GB model and heard that Samsung would also send us the 850 EVO 500GB we thought that there would be a sufficient performance gap between those two to "justify" both the different target areas and the difference in price.

- Build Quality / Endurance (150TBW / 1 Million Hours MTBF; - Excellent Overall Performance; - Features (TurboWrite/RAPID Mode/eDrive Support; - Samsung Magician Software; - 5 Year Warranty; - Available In 1TB

- Price (For Some

Once again, Samsung delivers a great product, taking the lead in the SSD space with its advanced technology. 3D V-NAND is really a game changer. The 3rd TCL generation offers pretty much everything the consumer would want to see from an SSD, performance, high endurance, encryption, low power...

Throughout testing, the 1TB Samsung 850 EVO has proven to be quite the performer. Utilizing the same controller as the 850 Pro and 840 EVO, we were able to see great speeds in our synthetic tests. Reads and writes both pushing past 500MB/s.

TRIM Performance: While SSDs offer many benefits, there are some downsides to using flash memory. One of the biggest issues people run into is performance degradation. Over time, an SSD will run out of fresh blocks and will have to write over data the file system has marked as deleted.

Equipped with 3-bit 3D V-NAND; Available in 120GB; 250GB; 500GB and 1TB capacities; Features RAPID mode and TurboWrite technology; Excellent sequential read and write speeds under most conditions; Good random read performance; Performs equally well with compressible and incompressible data; Good...

Mediocre random write performance; RAPID mode is Windows only

Faster, significantly increased longevity and at the same time lower production costs. These three seemingly contradicting aspects are what Samsung are said to have succeeded with 3D V-NAND.

TurboWrite cache accelerates esp; smaller models, Supports Microsoft eDrive (encryption, Very good everyday performance, Five-year warranty

Loss of performance under extreme load

I spent days (DAYS!) trying to get their software to create an image of my existing Win7 disk that were bootable. I failed and installed a clean OS. Still no boot. Finally moved it to the SATA2 ports on the MoBo. Booted! Moved it back to the SATA3 ports, no boot.

After getting this, i'd never go back to a HDD. It's just so much faster.

Great, fast SSD and apart from one issue easy to install. Beware that this does not come with a USB/SATA cable and that putting it in some enclosures for the cloning step will not work.

Sometimes, even if you're only spending a small amount of money, it's worth shelling out that little bit more and getting yourself a superior piece of technology. That edict is very much true when it comes to getting a new solid state drive for your PC, actually.

Excellent performance; Great warranty conditions; Great bundled Magician software

More expensive than competitors; Competition also from cheaper high-end drives; Magician only on Windows

Good product from Samsung with five year warranty