Samsung 870 QVO SATA SSD Review: Taking Baby Steps With QLC (Updated)

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New hardware brings higher capacity, but minuscule performance gains
 

Our Verdict

Samsung’s 8TB 870 QVO is a quality-built SATA SSD that answers the call of those in need of high capacity and security. At $900, it’s still quite an expensive investment for a product based on QLC flash, and it only has a three-year warranty.

For

• 8TB of storage
  
• Improved and more competitive performance
  
• AES 256-bit encryption
  
• Software suite
  

Against

• 3-year warranty
  
• Slow write performance after SLC cache fills
  

Update 9/27/2020: We have updated this article with new testing for the 8TB Samsung 870 QVO SATA SSD on page 2.

Original Review published 6/30/2020:

Samsung still hasn't released an 8TB M.2 NVMe SSD, but today’s 870 QVO launch encompasses a range of second-gen QLC SSDs that will stretch up to 8TB of capacity and should vie for a spot on our list of best SSDs. However, unlike Sabrent's monstrous 8TB Rocket Q that landed in the M.2 form factor, the Samsung drives come with the SATA interface. 

Packing the company's V5 V-NAND 9x-Layer QLC flash and a new controller, the Samsung 870 QVO aims to be the highest-capacity 2.5" SSD you can get your hands on, but the king of the hill 8TB model doesn’t come out until August. For now, we have the 1TB model in for testing to give us an idea of how the new drives stack up.

We're no stranger to high capacity storage, but we were a bit surprised to see a third-party product like Sabrent’s 8TB Rocket Q SSD come to market before the almighty Samsung SSD storage division dropped an 8TB bomb on us. However, while Sabrent's Rocket Q offers high performance in addition to its copious capacity, it's still very expensive. In contrast, Samsung says it doesn't like to jump ahead and introduce a product to the market prematurely. Instead, the company says it waited patiently until both customer demand and pricing both made sense, which is why we haven't seen the company release an 8TB consumer SSD until today. 

Right now, aside from the avid videographer or data scientist, there aren’t many users that need to cram 8TB into a laptop. Sure, there are data hoarders that eat, sleep, and breathe SFF PC, but how many users really need the combination of 8TB of capacity and NVMe speed? For most users on the hunt for bulk flash storage, a cheap high capacity SATA SSD is usually is a great step up from an HDD, especially in terms of durability on the move.

The 8TB 870 QVO's price was recently leaked at upwards of $900, but Samsung says it will announce final pricing when it actually ships the drives. Until then, we will just have to make do with the available 1TB-4TB options that Samsung priced at up to $500 (at the time of writing). Unfortunately the QVO's QLC flash, which enables up to 8TB of storage, requires sacrifices in both performance and endurance, and the measly three-year warranty and high pricing make other alternatives more attractive.
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