Samsung

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Samsung has announced the newest members of its SATA line up, the high performance 860 Pro and 860 Evo solid state drives (SSDs).

The two SSD models are the second generation of Samsung's consumer SSDs with 64-layer V-NAND and are aimed at those who need professional performance to handle heavy and graphic intensive workloads, such as high-resolution photos and 4K video.

The Pro model offers read/write speeds of 560/530 MB/s while the Evo model supports up to 550/520 MB/s read/write speeds.

The 860 Pro SSD has a 2.5-inch design and is available with 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB of space, while the 860 Evo comes in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities. The Evo model is available in a 2.5-inch, mSATA, and M.2 form factors.

Samsung has configured each model with 1TB or more storage capacity, with 1GB of Low Power DDR4 SDRAM per TB. The two smaller capacity models have 512MB Low Power DDR4 SDRAM.

The 860 Pro starts at $139 while the 860 Evo starts at $95. People who need 4TB models can expected to spend $1,900 and $1,400 respectively, according to CNET.

Also see: Quick glossary: Storage

Samsung notes the maximum capacities of the M.2 and mSATA designs are 2TB and 1TB, respectively.

While the read/write speeds aren't a major step up on the performance of the 850 Pro and 850 Evo models from last year, Samsung claims the new MJX controller enables faster communication with the host system, and improves compatibility with Linux systems.

Samsung has also tweaked its warranty compared to the previous generation. The 850 Pro had 10 years' coverage or up to 600TB written while the 850 had five-year warranty or 75 to 300 terabytes written, whichever came first. The 860 Pro offers a five-year warranty or up to 4,800 TB written, while the 860 Evo offers up to 2,400 TB written, in both instances whichever comes first.

The 860 Pro and 860 Evo are due to ship by the end of January.

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