Tuesday, January 22nd 2019

Samsung Launches the 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD Family

Press Release by
btarunr
 Discuss (57 Comments)
Samsung today introduced the Samsung 970 EVO Plus, the newest enhancement in its Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) SSD portfolio. With industry-leading performance and up to two terabytes in capacity, Samsung's 970 EVO Plus sets a new bar for high-performance storage, enabling IT professionals, tech enthusiasts and gamers to handle intensive workloads on PCs and workstations with more ease.

"Since introducing the first NVMe SSDs to the consumer market in 2015, Samsung has continued to challenge technical barriers in SSD design and performance," said Dr. Mike Mang, vice president of Brand Product Marketing, Memory Business at Samsung Electronics. "The new 970 EVO Plus powered by Samsung's latest fifth-generation V-NAND technology will now offer unrivaled performance in its class when taking on demanding tasks like 4K content editing, 3D modeling and simulation as well as heavy gaming."
By integrating the company's most advanced V-NAND chips with optimized firmware, the 970 EVO Plus achieves significant performance improvements - up to 53 percent in write speed - as well as increased power efficiency over its predecessor, the 970 EVO. The new drive delivers sequential read and write speeds of up to 3,500 megabytes per second (MB/s) and up to 3,300 MB/s, respectively, while random speeds come in at up to 620,000 IOPS for read and up to 560,000 IOPS for write operations.

Users can easily upgrade their devices as the 970 EVO Plus comes in a compact M.2 form factor using the PCIe Gen3 x4 interface found in most modern computers. The 970 EVO Plus also offers a five-year limited warranty or up to 1,200 terabytes written.

The 970 EVO Plus comes in a variety of capacity options; the 250 GB, 500 GB and 1 TB capacity versions are now available for purchase worldwide, and the 2TB capacity will become available in April.

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57 Comments on Samsung Launches the 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD Family

#1
BadFrog
only difference is memory type? 64 layer to 9x layer? Anyone have info about this 9x layer flash?
Posted on Reply
#2
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
BadFrogonly difference is memory type? 64 layer to 9x layer? Anyone have info about this 9x layer flash?
Fancy way of saying 96-layer.
Posted on Reply
#3
bug
BadFrogonly difference is memory type? 64 layer to 9x layer? Anyone have info about this 9x layer flash?
When "memory" is the main ingredient of the product, that makes quite the difference. But we'll have to wait for benchmarks, of course.

Edit: What do you know, Anand already obliges. Minor improvements across the board, nothing you'd feel in real life. There's a sharp drop in sustained reads compares to the 970 EVO that may hurt in some scenarios.
Posted on Reply
#4
ironwolf
Available worldwide huh? Not seeing it on Newegg, anyone see it anywhere in the US?
Posted on Reply
#5
Valantar
"3-bit MLC". Now there's an obvious euphemism if I ever heard one. While technically true (as there are multiple levels per cell), MLC has never been used as a designation for three-bit flash cells in consumer products. Kind of weird, really, given that the stigma against TLC is (deservedly) all but gone. I suppose one could argue for consistency (single, multiple, triple, quadruple? That's not how numbers work, no), but the answer to that would be to re-name MLC into ... DLC (dual level cell)? That would probably be misunderstood by quite a few gamers ("Have you heard of this new SSD with DLC? And it's really expensive too!"), but calling TLC "3-bit MLC" is just misleading.

As for the difference, as stated above, switching out the flash can be pretty major. 96-layer flash (at least from other manufacturers) is supposed to be noticeably faster than 64-layer flash per chip. Just in time for PCIe x4, I suppose? Now we just need new controllers.
Posted on Reply
#7
Wavetrex
Simply a way for them to make these a bit cheaper.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Posted on Reply
#8
BadFrog
How come they didn't just "save it" for the 980 evo/pro series? And offer this as a marketing gimmick telling the avg buyer that this new 9x layer is way better than previous gen when it seems like it's not that much different? idk
Posted on Reply
#9
Valantar
BadFrogHow come they didn't just "save it" for the 980 evo/pro series? And offer this as a marketing gimmick telling the avg buyer that this new 9x layer is way better than previous gen when it seems like it's not that much different? idk
Too soon to launch a new product line, and 96-layer is (or at least will be once yields are where they should be) cheaper to produce than 64-layer. They likely don't have an updated controller for the 980 ready yet either, and it's likely they'll want PCIe 4.0 compatibility for that.
Posted on Reply
#10
Blueberries
The 96-Layer MLC is finally pushing the limits of the Phoenix controller, this will replace the 970 Pro as soon as stock runs out.
Posted on Reply
#11
pigulici
But 970 EVO don't have TLC and, Pro the MLC, why they say MLC for EVO?
Posted on Reply
#12
BadFrog
piguliciBut 970 EVO don't have TLC and, Pro the MLC, why they say MLC for EVO?
960 evo was TLC, 970 Evo is now MLC
Posted on Reply
#14
Valantar
BadFrog960 evo was TLC, 970 Evo is now MLC
No it's not. They're just calling TLC '3-bit MLC'. It's marketing BS.
Posted on Reply
#15
Unregistered
Let's see...

QLC is 4 bits per cell
TLC is 3 bits per cell
MLC is 2 bits per cell
SLC is 1 bit per cell

Silly Samsung Marketing jargon...
Posted on Edit | Reply
#16
bug
ValantarNo it's not. They're just calling TLC '3-bit MLC'. It's marketing BS.
The confusion is actually in our heads. MLC = Multiple Level Cell. Anything having at least 2 levels qualifies, yet we somehow equate MLC with two bits, because, well, the first MLC implementation only used two bits per cell.
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#17
Valantar
bugThe confusion is actually in our heads. MLC = Multiple Level Cell. Anything having at least 2 levels qualifies, yet we somehow equate MLC with two bits, because, well, the first MLC implementation only used two bits per cell.
Ahem.
Valantar"3-bit MLC". Now there's an obvious euphemism if I ever heard one. While technically true (as there are multiple levels per cell), MLC has never been used as a designation for three-bit flash cells in consumer products. Kind of weird, really, given that the stigma against TLC is (deservedly) all but gone. I suppose one could argue for consistency (single, multiple, triple, quadruple? That's not how numbers work, no), but the answer to that would be to re-name MLC into ... DLC (dual level cell)? That would probably be misunderstood by quite a few gamers ("Have you heard of this new SSD with DLC? And it's really expensive too!"), but calling TLC "3-bit MLC" is just misleading.

As for the difference, as stated above, switching out the flash can be pretty major. 96-layer flash (at least from other manufacturers) is supposed to be noticeably faster than 64-layer flash per chip. Just in time for PCIe x4, I suppose? Now we just need new controllers.
Posted on Reply
#18
bug
ValantarAhem.
Eh, we just need to read the specs and not buy based on a sticker on the box. As usual.

And since you brought up performance, this still sits at 55MB/s 4k random reads. Pretty sure that's not bottlenecked by PCIe x4.
Posted on Reply
#19
xorbe
Valantar"3-bit MLC". Now there's an obvious euphemism if I ever heard one
Because they are prepping to use the phrase "4-bit MLC" instead of QLC. Instead of explaining MLC/TLC/QLC to Average Joe, this might not be a bad change, 2-bit / 3-bit / 4-bit MLC.
Posted on Reply
#20
Animalpak
Hey guys a simple question i know that sticker is a heatsink itself ( samsung says ) and is made of metal acting as a dissipation.

Do you need to peel it off if you buy a custom heatsink that comes with thermal pads ?

Or also in case you put it under your motherboard heatsink ?
Posted on Reply
#21
Wavetrex
xorbeBecause they are prepping to use the phrase "4-bit MLC" instead of QLC. Instead of explaining MLC/TLC/QLC to Average Joe, this might not be a bad change, 2-bit / 3-bit / 4-bit MLC.
Waiting for 64-bit MLC and price of 1 ExaByte solid state memory being under 1 cent.



* Note for people who might feel the need to educate me: I am aware that number means 18.446.744.073.709.551.616 possible states, and obviously impossible with any kind of technology in this universe, and I'm just trolling.
Posted on Reply
#22
Prima.Vera
Amazing. This fully saturates the PCI-E 4x lanes. So even a RAID of this is useless. Time for PCI-E 8x drives or PCI-E 4(5?) :rockout:
Posted on Reply
#23
Valantar
bugEh, we just need to read the specs and not buy based on a sticker on the box. As usual.

And since you brought up performance, this still sits at 55MB/s 4k random reads. Pretty sure that's not bottlenecked by PCIe x4.
Sequential speeds, obviously. Might be a minor improvement in random (looks like it from the on-paper IOPS, but we'll need reviews to verify that), but flash won't saturate a PCIe 3.0 x4 link with 4k random reads unless you have a massive controller and a ridiculous amount of flash channels. That's just not how flash works.
xorbeBecause they are prepping to use the phrase "4-bit MLC" instead of QLC. Instead of explaining MLC/TLC/QLC to Average Joe, this might not be a bad change, 2-bit / 3-bit / 4-bit MLC.
I agree that that sounds easier to understand, the problem is changing the nomenclature years into a product line, when another set of terms have been established as industry standard. It's not immediately obvious to consumers that "M" is better than "Q", but neither is it obvious that "2" is better than "4", so at best the improvement in consumer understanding of the product is minor. Besides that, the use of "MLC", while technically correct, could also lead to further confusion unless they very clearly emphasize the 3/4-bit prefix.
Posted on Reply
#24
goodeedidid
Last SSDs I purchased was about 2 years ago, the 960 PRO and 960 EVO. I remember that they were extremely expensive, but now looking at prices, at least to me, 1TB and 2TB, especially 500GB NVME-drives look super affordable, I hope that this trend continues.
Posted on Reply
#25
Gungar
BadFrog960 evo was TLC, 970 Evo is now MLC
You are ranking for best misinformation of the year?
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