Thursday, March 4th 2021

Samsung 980 is a Cost-Effective, DRAM-less PCIe Gen 3.0 M.2 SSD

In a move that could confuse some of the lesser informed buyers, Samsung is ready with the new 980 M.2 NVMe SSD (not to be confused with the 980 PRO). Unlike the 980 PRO, the 980 is a cost-effective drive that uses PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface, and a DRAM-less controller. Luckily, Samsung didn't take the QLC route with these drives, as they feature 136-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory of the same kind used in the 980 PRO.

The Samsung 980 offers sequential transfer speeds of up to 3,500 MB/s reads, with up to 3,000 MB/s writes, and comes in capacities of 250 GB, 500 GB, and 1 TB. It offers 4K random access performance in the neighborhood of 500,000 IOPS reads (4K, QD32), with up to 480,000 IOPS random writes (4K, QD1). Samsung is expected to formally launch the 980 on March 30, 2021.
Source: Tom's Hardware
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34 Comments on Samsung 980 is a Cost-Effective, DRAM-less PCIe Gen 3.0 M.2 SSD

#26
INSTG8R
Vanguard Beta Tester
billESTsn550 is an sn750 Dram less

perf are very good , and sometime better

cost 50% less .!
Hmm I have a 1TB SN750, didn't know it was Dram less. It's just a games drive and is "almost" as fast as my 500GB 970 Plus I use for my OS drive
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#27
rodneyhchef
He meant the SN550 is a Dramless version of the SN750 - SN750 has Dram
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#28
INSTG8R
Vanguard Beta Tester
rodneyhchefHe meant the SN550 is a Dramless version of the SN750 - SN750 has Dram
Thanks for the clarification.
Posted on Reply
#29
Aquinus
Resident Wat-man
OctopussSomeone explain the difference between DRAM and SLC cache to me please. I mean I know the technical difference, but what's it actually do in this context?
To me, assuming a DRAM or SLC cache both saturate the bus, SLC has the advantage of being persistent storage whereas DRAM is not. On the other hand though, DRAM can be written to a lot more than an SLC cache, but SLC is pretty resilient when it comes to flash storage. So, the advantage is that data isn't lost when power is unexpectedly lost when the data hasn't been flushed to persistent storage. If the cache itself is persistent, it can flush the cache when power has been restored. Assuming the cache is being used as a write-back cache and not just for reads, which is a different story.
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#30
trparky
Yes, but isn't the onboard DRAM also used to store the flash translation table as well? If it keeps having to go back to the NAND flash memory itself instead of loading it up once from the flash and storing it in the DRAM cache of the SSD, you're going to have a performance hit.
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#31
TheLostSwede
News Editor
DemonicRyzen666I am not up to date on SSD's, but aren't mostly all SSDs limited to the speed of the controller on it anyways?
I would think a cpu with highly developed controller, much like the memory controllers on the I/o of cpu would be far better than any SSD controller, or just better for these Dram-less NVMe SSD's.
I would think a direct link controller to that from the Pci-express lanes that it is using. That can be turn on and off when it needed would seem like a good idea.
Most SSDs use multiple real time processors, such as the ARM R5 series. A general purpose CPU wouldn't have a chance compared to them when it comes to what they're designed to do.
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#32
goodeedidid
Nowadays all nvme drives are so good so it makes zero difference if you buy the fastest or the slower cheaper offerings.. difference is just zero in real world scenarios
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#33
Tartaros
goodeedididNowadays all nvme drives are so good so it makes zero difference if you buy the fastest or the slower cheaper offerings.. difference is just zero in real world scenarios
Yeah. For most day to day tasks, even gaming, any drive from the last 5 years more or less is good, I have just purchased a sata WD Blue cheap mid ground drive for an os installation and I'm very satisfied with it, I've just given up on mapping personal folders on hdds, this one will last as much and has a lot of capacity.

The only thing that needs to happen is less "accidentally turning the lights off for 5 minutes" in manufacturing plants and things like that. If they were honest about these things I believe we could be really close in ssd to hdd gb/$ parity.
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#34
efikkan
goodeedididNowadays all nvme drives are so good so it makes zero difference if you buy the fastest or the slower cheaper offerings.. difference is just zero in real world scenarios
While the performance difference between a good and a poor SSD is nowhere close to the difference between a SSD and a HDD, there is a huge difference in endurance. QLC has terrible reliability, so stay clear of those SSDs.
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