Samsung announces their 970 PRO and 970 EVO series of NVMe SSDs

Samsung announces their 970 Pro and 970 Evo series of NVMe SSDs

Samsung announces their 970 Pro and 970 Evo series of NVMe SSDs

Samsung has released their third generation of high-end NVMe SSDs, delivering to consumers their new 970 PRO and EVO series of M.2 drives with the company’s latest 3D V-NAND technology alongside a new memory controller. 

Thanks to Samsung’s new 64-layer3D NAND, the company has been able to offer increased capacities on their 970 EVO lineup, allowing them to fit 2TB of NAND onto a single-sided M.2 2280 (80mm long) SSD. Right now it looks like Samsung has decided to release no 970 PRO models with over 1TB of storage space, a strange decision given the presence of a 2TB model in their 960 PRO lineup.  

The main differentiating factor between these two SSDs is the type of 3D NAND that each model utilises, with the EVO making use of TLC memory with an SLC Write cache while the 970 Pro uses MLC NAND without an SLC cache. The 970 Pro remains as Samsung’s fastest model, while also offering double the write endurance and faster random reads and writes. 

When compared to their last-generation 960 counterparts, both the 970 PRO and EVO offer increase performance, particularly when it comes to random access times. The biggest change in Samsung’s 970 lineup is their increased focus on the low-cost affordable EVO series, increasing its warranty up to five years (which is the same as the PRO series), offering a 50% increase in write endurance while also offering an increased maximum capacity of 2TB.  

Another change to Samsung’s 970 series is their move to LPDDR4 memory as a storage cache, which will offer lower power consumption than LPDDR3 while also providing somewhat faster performance.   
 

Samsung announces their 970 Pro and 970 Evo series of NVMe SSDs  (Tables from Anandtech)

 

While the performance improvements offered by the 970 PRO and EVO are not revolutionary when compared to their last-generation counterparts, their focus on increased write endurance and random I/O performance will undoubtedly serve Samsung well moving forward. 

Today Samsung remains at the top of the SSD market when it comes to pure performance, at least when it comes to NAND-based SSDs. Most of Samsung’s competitors are currently trying to catch up with 2016’s 960 Pro and Evo, nevermind Samsung’s latest offerings, securing their dominance in the high-end NVMe SSD market for another while.  

Samsung’s 970 PRO and 970 EVO are currently available for Pre-Order on Amazon UK, with a listed shipping date of May 7th.  

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