Pricing and Availability

Low Street price for 12-MARCH-2018

Sources:

• ANZ: staticice.com.au
• EU: geizhals.at
• NA: staticice.com, Amazon US, Newegg
• Manufacturer: Crucial.com, Crucial & Samsung Official Amazon Store

Although I have listed the LOW Street price for all drives mentioned, the 850 EVO in higher capacities would be difficult to obtain in stock especially at the listed price which has been my first-hand experience during February 2018. Resellers with stock of this end of life drive are selling for similar money to the 860 EVO which itself is in short supply on two week back-order.

Amazon.com only offers the 860 series as ‘new - sold and fulfilled by amazon’, If I change the selection for 850 EVO 500 GB or higher amazon.com only offers me used parts or third party resellers.

The pricing comparison is mainly for reference to compare regions, models and generations, stock will swing the representation way too much.

At its current price I do not recommend buying a MX300 new unless the following reasons. a) Every dollar counts b) there is a clearance special below the price we have listed. c) That’s all you can get.

Crucial’s online store lists limited quantity for MX300 and charges MORE for a MX300 than a MX500 since older parts often get sought after for RAID array replacement drives and some MX300 models are slightly higher capacity than their equivalent MX500 but this bucks the trend of the channel.

The Samsung 860 Series Question

Samsung’s latest client drive both the 860 EVO and 860 PRO using newer V-NAND and controller was released after the MX500. While it improves endurance mainly, cost is high due to recent introduction. Value (dollar per GB) is poor against Crucial offerings and even the outgoing Samsung 850 series which is gradually being discontinued. At time of writing fresh stock of 2TB 850 EVO is near non-existent, with smaller capacities available via existing stock. 860 EVO has a price premium of $100 currently over 850 EVO. Stocks are also selling fast and resellers are having trouble restocking with longer lead times. The most recent batch of 2TB 860 EVOs we purchased took 2 weeks to be ordered in.

Stock of Crucial MX500 in all capacities esp. 2TB at distributors I have checked is high.

Based on the comparative benchmarks against the 850 series, MX500 has now bridged the gap and is good enough for overall performance but significantly, it is cheaper.

North American stock of newer specific 860 and 960 series Samsung drives come with a free activation code sent by email from the reseller for the anticipated Far Cry 5 game from Ubisoft which changes the value proposition for the more expensive 860 series. https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/far-cry-5/ Samsung have done this before with their SSDs in the NA market with the offer not available in other regions. When shopping for an 860 series, check that the price difference over an 850 or MX500 is not equal to or more than the retail price for the game. Also some users will be buying SSDs for notebook and the bonus is of no use to them.

I was not able to include either the 860 EVO or 860 PRO for testing in this roundup however I will be reporting back on their stability as I have several pieces of both models in field production use. Future articles will includes these drives.