Samsung 870 QVO 4TB V-NAND SATA SSD Review

TweakTown's Rating: 90%

The Bottom Line

Samsung proves QLC can perform with the 870 QVO offering ample performance for entry-level machines and even better capacity options.

With the release of the 860 QVO near the end of 2018, Samsung brought QLC to SATA for the first time. While pricing certainly at the time put it up against its own 860 EVO counterpart, we were more concerned with performance for this entry-level solution.

Now in its second generation, SATA QLC and the 870 QVO looks to improve reliability and performance along with ushering in higher capacity solutions for consumers.

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With that said, the 870 QVO will be available in capacities ranging from 1TB through 4TB as of today with a higher 8TB solution available in late August. Marketing performance suggests a fitting 560 MB/s read and 530 MB/s write for the QVO over a SATA 6Gb/s interface.

The MSRP of the Samsung 870 QVO comes in at $499.99 for the 4TB capacity, with warranty listed at three years or 1440 TBW.

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The 870 QVO is offered in sleek packaging capacity listed at the top and performance along the bottom.

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	£389.75	£389.75	£359.61	Buy
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Unboxing, we have the drive in its gunmetal enclosure and simple Samsung branding on top with the manual.

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On the backside, we find a sticker offering regulatory information, including model and capacity.

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Opening the drive, we find a familiar setup, custom PCB with a PMIC at the top next to the Samsung MKX controller, 1GB LPDDR4, and two packages of QLC on this side. Flipping the PCB, you will find another two packages of QLC NAND.

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A closer look at the PCB is seen here. The controller is labeled S4LR059 with K9XVGB8J1A for the QLC.

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CDM is a staple in performance testing; version 7 has seen some updates in the workloads used for testing. Sequential performance tops out at 552 MB/s read and 435 MB/s write, followed by 32.9 MB/s read and 109 MB/s write for 4KQ1.

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ATTO is yet another popular benchmark for storage performance that breaks down performance based on file size. Here we see a peak of 528 MB/s read and 415 MB/s write starting at 64K.

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We finished testing with PCMark10, where the QVO pulled a score of 1021 in the quick system workload. This put it in front of the MX500 and Electra 6G in our testing.

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Full System Drive had the QVO at 646, closer to the bottom of the charts, but still better than the BX500 from Crucial.

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Price/Performance is pretty decent, near the top for the 4TB variant of the 870 QVO.

The 870 QVO has a lot going for it starting with top notch build quality. We don't often think much of the enclosures that protect the hardware in our 2.5" drives, but the fit and finish of the 870 QVO, let alone materials really give this solution a solid feel to it. Hardware is next on the list starting with the MKX controller, a solution Samsung has refined from the MJX over the last few years.

Performance, while not at the peak for the interface, is admirable for a QLC solution. We found 552 MB/s read and 435 MB/s write for the 870 QVO in sequentials with a decent 109 MB/s write for 4KQ1. The 870 QVO didn't back down from PCMark10 either reaching a score of 1021 in quick system drive - the more critical test for everyday use.

As for pricing, the QVO is set up quite well with the 4TB MSRP at $499.99. This makes it $100 less than the 860 QVO and on par with current 4TB SATA solutions, like the SanDisk Ultra or WD Blue.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair VIII Formula X570 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H60 (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Carbide 275R (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Corsair MP600 1TB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)