The new Samsung SSD 980 is the primary retail-ready entry-level NVMe SSD from Samsung. Compared to earlier SSDs from Samsung, it lacks any three-letter suffix on the finish: it is not a PRO, nor an EVO, or perhaps a QVO drive, as a result of it would not match into the established conventions for these product tiers. The SSD 980 slots into the product stacl on the backside, however leaves a large enough hole for one more, presumably higher, mannequin to come back in later. Samsung is advertising the SSD 980 as a successor to the 970 EVO.
Samsung’s First Push into Entry NVMe at Retail
The SSD 980 is an entry-level NVMe SSD, utilizing TLC NAND with a DRAMless controller. This makes it a brand new class of product for Samsung within the retail market, one it has by no means produced earlier than. This form of drive, with TLC and with out DRAM, is already prevalent out there from different turn-key resolution distributors, and any such drive has been fairly standard with OEMs: it permits them to promote a NVMe SSD with out paying the price of a high-end drive.
The new Samsung SSD 980 will are available three capacities, 250 GB, 500 GB, and 1 TB. In this overview we now have the 2 highest capacities, that includes a Samsung customized controller and a wide range of TLC NAND (defined extra intimately beneath). As an NVMe drive rated for PCIe 3.Zero x4, peak sequential learn speeds are rated as much as 3.5 GB/s for the 1 TB drive. The drives might be rated as much as 0.Three drive writes per day (so 300 GB/day on the 1 TB mannequin) for 5 years.
| Samsung SSD 980 Specifications | |||||
| Capacity | 250 GB | 500 GB | 1 TB | ||
| Form Factor | Single-Sided M.2 2280 | ||||
| Interface | PCIe 3.Zero x4, NVMe 1.4 | ||||
| Controller | Samsung Pablo | ||||
| DRAM | None | ||||
| NAND Flash | Samsung 92L 256Gb TLC |
Samsung 128L 512Gb TLC |
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| Sequential Read | 2900 MB/s | 3100 MB/s | 3500 MB/s | ||
| Sequential Write | 1300 MB/s | 2600 MB/s | 3000 MB/s | ||
| Max SLC Cache Size | 45 GB | 122 GB | 160 GB | ||
| Random Read IOPS |
QD1 | 17ok | |||
| QD32T16 | 230ok | 400ok | 500ok | ||
| Random Write IOPS |
QD1 | 53ok | 54ok | ||
| QD32T16 | 320ok | 470ok | 480ok | ||
| Power | Read | 3.7 W | 4.Three W | 4.5 W | |
| Write | 3.2 W | 4.2 W | 4.6 W | ||
| Idle | 45 mW | ||||
| Idle (L1.2) | 5 mW | ||||
| Warranty | 5 years | ||||
| Write Endurance | 150 TB 0.Three DWPD |
300 TB 0.Three DWPD |
600 TB 0.Three DWPD |
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| MSRP | $49.99 (20¢/GB) |
$69.99 (14¢/GB) |
$129.99 (13¢/GB) |
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The Samsung SSD 980 is constructed round its “Pablo” controller. This is not really a brand new NVMe controller, however it has has been transport within the Samsung Portable SSD T7 household for over a yr. This controller has half as many NAND channels because the controllers utilized in Samsung’s high-end NVMe drives (4 fairly than eight), and no DRAM interface. Using the excessive NAND IO speeds supported by latest generations of 3D NAND, the Pablo controller is ready to saturate a PCIe 3.Zero x4 host interface with out needing eight NAND channels.
For this technology, Samsung has determined to make use of completely different NAND in several capacities of the SSD 980 household. Our 1TB overview pattern has Samsung’s 512Gbit 128-layer 3D TLC NAND, which is similar NAND discovered within the 2TB 980 PRO. Our 500GB overview pattern is utilizing 256Gbit NAND dies, that means it has to make use of the identical variety of bodily dies. The die depend within the 500 GB unit helps alleviate the everyday efficiency drops we might in any other case see from a lower-capacity drive, however the 256 Gbit NAND is Samsung’s older 92-layer TLC (as seen on the 970 EVO Plus), comapred to the 128 layer TLC we see within the 1 TB mannequin. Due to the die counts, the 500GB mannequin finally ends up close to the efficiency of the 1 TB mannequin, however barely slower as a result of older NAND.
Mixing NAND like this inside a product line is more and more widespread, particularly for low-end SSDs the place commodity margins is perhaps tighter. It additionally may assist clarify why Samsung’s advertising supplies for the SSD 980…
