Take the Samsung 850 Pro and 850 EVO, add some Tantalum Capacitors for enhanced power loss protection, tune their firmware for enterprise workloads and QoS, and what do you get?

…you get the Samsung PM863 and SM863 lines of enterprise SSDs! These 2.5" SATA units were just announced, and as we suspected after reviewing the new 2TB 850 EVO and Pro, these new models can include even more flash packages, dramatically increasing the flash capacity. Here is a breakdown of the launch pricing and capacities:

SM863 (2-bit MLC VNAND):

  • 120GB – $140 ($1.17/GB)
  • 240GB – $180 ($0.75/GB)
  • 480GB – $330 ($0.69/GB)
  • 960GB – $870 ($0.91/GB) < possible typo $640 ($0.67/GB)
  • 1.92TB – $1260 ($0.66/GB)

PM863 (3-bit MLC VNAND):

  • 120GB – $125 ($1.04/GB)
  • 240GB – $160 ($0.67/GB)
  • 480GB – $290 ($0.60/GB)
  • 960GB – $550 ($0.57/GB)
  • 1.92TB – $1100 ($0.57/GB)
  • 3.84TB – $2200 ($0.57/GB)

Aside from the possible typo in the pricing I informed Samsung of the pricing oddity and they have replied with a correction. Their site should be updated to reflect this correction shortly.

These are some very competitive prices for enterprise SSDs, and the fact that the TLC version can cram just under 4TB into a 7mm 2.5" form factor is just astounding. The MLC version capacities appear to still follow that of the 850 Pro, minus a bit of available capacity due to higher levels of over-provisioning.

More impressive is the endurance ratings of these SSDs. The SM863 line is rated (varying by capacity) from 770 Terabytes Written (TBW) to an astonishing 12,320 TBW for the 1.92TB model! That's over 12 Petabytes! The PM863 is rated lower as it is TLC based, but is still no slouch as it ranges from 170 to 5,600 TBW for the 3.84TB capacity. The SM863 carries a 5-year warranty, while the PM863 drops that to 3-years.

We've been waiting to see Samsung's 32-layer VNAND appear in enterprise units for some time now, and look forward to testing them just as soon as we can get our hands on them!

Full press blast after the break.

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today introduced its latest lineup of high performance SATA solid state drives (SSDs) for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) — the Samsung PM863 and SM863. These next-generation drives deliver faster speeds and improved reliability in much higher capacities, as well as greater power efficiency, in order to support the heavy demands placed on the data center.

“Companies around the world are racing to digitize their business processes, which is putting increased strain on the data center and extreme pressure on IT managers to find a solution quickly,” said Un-soo Kim, Senior Vice President of Branded Product Marketing, Memory Business, at Samsung Electronics. “The PM863 and SM863 solid state drives are the ideal solution, offering much higher density in the 2.5” form factor, which saves IT managers at small and medium sized businesses precious real estate in the data center without sacrificing power or performance thanks to our breakthrough V-NAND technology.”

Powered by Samsung’s leading-edge V-NAND technology – which improves the performance of SSDs — the PM863 and SM863 deliver outstanding performance and reliability while still achieving low power consumption levels.

The 3-bit MLC V-NAND-based PM863 is developed for mixed pattern applications and ideal for use in content delivery networks and streaming or Web servers. Alternatively, the write-intensive SM863 based on 2-bit MLC V-NAND is an optimal choice for online transaction processing (OLTP) and serves as an ideal choice for email and database servers.

The Samsung PM863 comes in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB, 960GB and now 1.9TB and 3.8TB capacities. It also offers read speeds up to 540 MB/s, and for the 240GB drives and above provides random read speeds of up to 99,000 Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS). The Samsung SM863 provides more options for configurable overprovisioning and is available in 120 gigabyte (GB), 240GB, 480GB, 960GB and now 1.9TB capacities. It also features read speeds up to 520 megabytes per second (MB/s) and write speeds up to 485 MB/s.

Both drives will be available to SMBs in early August 2015. They are already available for the enterprise.