Samsung today has officially taken the lid off their latest consumer-oriented SATA SSDs, the 870 EVO. The 870 EVO series from Samsung don't push the maximum storage density ceiling on traditional SATA consumer drives, topping out at a maximum 4 TB, but they do achieve that ceiling whilst making use of Samsung's 128-layer TLC (Triple-Layer-Cell) NAND, which offers increased endurance (and higher theoretical performance than) more widespread QLC-based SSDs (of which Samsung launched the 870 QVO back in July 2020).

Samsung quotes SATA sequential read and write speeds of 560 MB/s and 530 MB/s respectively, with a "variable SLC" cache (which means it decreases in maximum size as the available free drive space decreases). The drives are also quoted at 98K IOPS Random Read, and 88K IOPS Write, and feature the company's Intelligent TurboWrite to maintain the interface's SATA 6 Gbps saturation as long as possible before sustained performance degradation appears. Samsung claims the 870 EVO also delivers a nearly 38% improvement in random read speeds over the previous 860 model, and quotes a (TBW) rating of 2,400 TB (or a 5-year limited warranty, whichever comes first) for its 4 TB model. The 870 EVO is available in either 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, or 4 TB capacities, with the drives' RAM buffer scaling almost accordingly (512 MB DDR3 for the 256/512 Gb models, 1 GB for the 1 TB, 2 GB for the 2 TB drive, and 4 GB for the 4 TB one. Pricing starts at $49,99 for the 256 GB model; 500 GB for $79.99, 1 TB for $139.99; 2 TB for $269.99; and 4 TB for $529.99.

Samsung is reportedly readying the 870 EVO line of SATA SSDs, with the drives succeeding the 860 EVO series. While there's no word on the type of NAND flash chips used with these drives, it's very likely that they feature a new generation 3D TLC (3 bits per cell) NAND flash memory, as QLC (4 bits per cell) has been marketed by Samsung under the 870 QVO series, which the company launched back in July 2020. The new-gen 3D TLC NAND could enable the 870 EVO drives to reach capacities as high as 4 TB, and offer slightly higher sequential transfer rates, with WinFuture.de reporting up to 560 MB/s sequential reads, and up to 530 MB/s writes, compared to 550/520 MB/s for the 860 EVO series. Being based on TLC (3 bpc) should also give these drives higher write endurance than the 870 QVO series.