Saturday, March 12, 2016

Samsung 850 EVO 250GB Unboxing

Along with the WiFi card (unboxing coming soon) and the 6600K unboxing, I also purchased a 250 GB 850 EVO (or 'Evo', really) for a mere $54. I was able to get a really good deal on a brand new one, as well!

To be fair, this is actually my first experience with an SSD. I wanted to get my hands on what most would consider to be the best brand for consumer-level SSDs at the moment. Thus, welcome to the 850 Evo.


Packaging

For someone who is new to the SSD space, I'd say that I was quite impressed with the packaging of Samsung's SSDs. It's nothing as "premium" as what OnePlus did with the OnePlus One, but I still think that it's nice nonetheless.
One thing that I learned about Samsung's packaging is that the paper "case" on the back of the SSD tray is not meant to be removed. Instead, just lift up the paper flap and remove whatever you need. I learned this the hard way, because I actually ripped the back part of the paper case. I managed to glue it back on though, so no photo will really show that I tore it. Well, maybe the next photo because that's before I fixed the box.
Indeed, the 850 Evo did include a software disc. I checked it out, and it bundles two pieces of software: 1) a data migration tool, and 2) a utility for checking the drive health of the SSD. It's more tailored to the SSD than a more generic product like CrystalDiskInfo, though.

The Drive Itself

On the flip side of the SSD tray, you (of course) get the SSD in all of its glory. The drive itself is incredibly light for what I'm used to. It's even lighter than any 2.5" hard drive that I've ever handled, and after doing some quick thinking, it's easy to figure out why. It's all just flash memory chips inside of a metal case. That's great though, because it helps conduct heat away from the chips, which will in turn improve efficiency.

And with that, I believe that this unboxing post should come to a close. I'll talk more on how good this SSD is when the final build post for Redshift is eventually released. However, at the time of this post, I don't know when that post will be released -- the GPU is still required in the build.