The Samsung 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 SSD Review: A Spirit of Hope – AnandTech

L1.2.
5 mW.

Samsung 980 PRO SSD Specifications.

Form Factor.
M. 2 2280 Single-sided.

Idle Power.
APST.
35 mW.

Capacity.
250 GB.
500 GB.
1 TB.
2 TB.

Write Endurance.
150 TB0.3 DWPD.
300 TB0.3 DWPD.
600 TB0.3 DWPD.
1200 TB0.3 DWPD.

As we march onto a world where PCIe 4.0 is going to begin being offered to the vast majority of customers in all segments of computing, the move is on in order to allow support for these new standards. Benefits such as increased peak speed, or decreased power usage, are obvious essential specs that PCIe 4.0 brings to the table, and thus having actually optimized products to accompany it has actually constantly held true as brand-new generations surpass the told. Samsungs first PCIe 4.0 x4 offering for customers is the 980 PRO, a series of M. 2 drives with capacities up to 2.0 TB..

Max.
49 GB.
94 GB.
114 GB.

LPDDR4 DRAM.
512MB.
1GB.
2GB.

The Samsung 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 SSD

Random WriteIOPS (4kB).
QD1.
60k.
60k.
60k.

TLC.
500 MB/s.
1000 MB/s.
2000 MB/s.

Consecutive Read.
6400 MB/s.
6900 MB/s.
7000 MB/s.

Random ReadIOPS (4kB).
QD1.
22k.
22k.
22k.

These new drives feature the latest in Samsungs controller design, but also mark the modification from 2-bit cells to 3-bit cells for the Pro line of drives. Samsungs Pro line of storage drives have actually constantly been created to impress, always being in the upper echelons for efficiency for the market.

Sequential Write.
SLC.
2700 MB/s.
5000 MB/s.
5000 MB/s.

Guarantee.
5 years.

It may be a bit later than originally planned, however Samsungs very first customer SSD to support PCIe 4.0 is here. The Samsung 980 PRO was first previewed at CES in January, but we didnt hear anything further until leaks began appearing towards the end of summertime.

SLCWrite Cache Size.
Min.
4 GB.
4 GB.
6 GB.
TBD.

Introduce MSRP.
$ 89.99( 36 cents/ GB).
$ 149.99( 30 cents/ GB).
$ 229.99( 23 cents/ GB).
TBD.

Today we are testing the 250 GB and 1 TB designs, representing the existing minimum and optimum of what is on offer. The 2 TB model is set to pertain to retail at a later date, along with its respective specs.

Write.
3.9 W.
5.4 W.
5.7 W.

Max.
600k.
1000k.
1000k.

NAND.
Samsung 128L 3D TLC.

Active Power.
Read.
5.0 W.
5.9 W.
6.2 W.

User interface.
PCIe 4 x4, NVMe 1.3 c.

Controller.
Samsung Elpis.

Max.
500k.
800k.
1000k.

2 Waves of PCIe 4.0 Storage: Wave One.

Variety Of IO Queues.
128.
32.
7.
8.
1.

Client OEMProducts.
PM9A1.
SM981PM981.
SM961PM961.
SM951PM951.
XP941.

It may be a bit later on than initially prepared, but Samsungs very first customer SSD to support PCIe 4.0 is here. Historically, the PRO line of SSDs use some of Samsungs fastest and most resilient NAND offered – this is what provides the items the PRO name. This time around, Samsung is altering things to assist broaden its Pro line client base – Samsung is deserting the use of the two bit per cell (MLC) memory that has actually been the trademark of the PRO item lines, and with the 980 PRO, Samsung is finally switching to three bit per cell (TLC) NAND flash memory. After the PCIe 4 assistance and 8nm fab process, the next most essential function of the new Samsung Elpis is its assistance for 128 IO lines, up from 32 in the previous Phoenix controller. Now that CPU core counts have actually grown well beyond 32, it makes sense for Samsung to support more queues– particularly given that these NVMe controllers are likewise utilized in Samsungs entry-level enterprise and datacenter NVMe SSDs.

Retail ConsumerProducts.
980 PRO.
970 PRO970 EVO970 EVO Plus.
960 PRO960 EVO.
950 PRO.
( None).

DRAM Support.
LPDDR4.
LPDDR4.
LPDDR3.
LPDDR3.
LPDDR2.

Write endurance has actually always been an important concern to keep an eye on, however the SSD industry has actually successfully prevented it from becoming a serious issue for customers. The total write endurance of a SSD scales roughly linearly with its capability: a 2TB drive can handle about twice as many TB of writes over its life expectancy as a 1TB drive.

Procedure Support.
NVMe 1.3 c.
NVMe 1.3.
NVMe 1.2.
NVMe 1.1( or AHCI).
AHCI.

The NVMe protocol hasnt added any major must-have features since the version 1.1 used by the 950 PRO, however Samsung has actually preserved compliance with later variations and carried out some of the brand-new optional features. The 980 PRO does not promote compliance with the most recent NVMe 1.4 spec and instead claims compliance with version 1.3 c, but this has essentially no practical effect.

Wave Two Starts With Samsung.

Samsung Client/Consumer PCIe SSD Controller History.

Fabrication Process.
8nm.
14nm.
?
?
?

Historically, the PRO line of SSDs utilize some of Samsungs fastest and most long lasting NAND available – this is what provides the items the PRO name. This time around, Samsung is changing things to assist broaden its Pro line customer base – Samsung is deserting making use of the two bit per cell (MLC) memory that has been the trademark of the PRO item lines, and with the 980 PRO, Samsung is lastly changing to 3 bit per cell (TLC) NAND flash memory. This change is not unmatched: Samsung has actually been nearly completely alone in their continued usage of 2-bit MLC NAND. By comparison, the remainder of the SSD market (customer and enterprise) has moved from MLC to TLC, even on the leading edge designs..

As always, comparisons against other drives can be used our Bench tool.

Along with switching to TLC NAND, Samsung has cut the compose endurance scores in half to 0.3 DWPD and dropped the functional capacities down to the typical TLC/EVO levels of 250/500/1000 GB instead of 256/512/1024 GB. Samsung has actually offset this by configuring the 980 PRO to use considerably bigger SLC cache sizes than their previous EVO drives, and this is what will give it the Pro name more than anything else.

For todays review, were focused specifically on high-end consumer SSDs. The drives to focus on are:.

All the major players in the SSD controller market have actually been preparing for this second wave of Gen4 drives, but Samsung is making the very first move in this round. The 980 PRO presents the new Samsung Elpis controller, constructed on their 8nm process and designed to double the peak efficiency provided by PCIe Gen3 SSDs.

The 980 PROs use of TLC rather of MLC may be the end of a period for SSDs, however it doesnt necessarily indicate that the drive isnt worthwhile of the “PRO” name; the 980 PRO is still extremely clearly at the luxury of the customer market.

The standard layout and look of Samsungs M. 2 NVMe SSDs has actually changed little throughout the years even as the elements have been updated. The Elpis controller is their second to feature a metal heatspreader on the controller package. This is the third generation of drives to use copper foil in the label on the back of the drive as an additional heatspreader.

Were also going to include in a PCIe 3.0 x8 business drive, the Samsung PM1725a. The PM1725a is an intriguing option as it is a 6.4 TB high-end business SSD thats a few years old. It has as much PCIe bandwidth as brand-new PCIe 4.0 x4 SSDs, however the PM1725a is tuned for enterprise usage cases: its absence of SLC caching injures peak compose efficiency, however its read throughput is still excellent at over 6GB/s for sequential and over 1M IOPS for random checks out. The drawback is that it can need 20+ Watts to deliver that sort of efficiency. We shall see if the dive from PCIe 3.0 x8 to PCIe4.0 x4 of its own makes it worth it.

Codename.
Elpis.
Phoenix.
Polaris.
UBX.
Unknown.

Host Interface.
PCIe 4.0 x4.
PCIe 3.0 x4.
PCIe 3.0 x4.
PCIe 3.0 x4.
PCIe 2.0 x4.

AMD began the shift to PCIe 4.0 in 2015 with the release of their Zen 2 family of CPUs. This began the first phase of PCIe 4.0 SSDs, beginning with Phison.

In addition to the new Elpis controller, the 980 PRO introduces a new generation of 3D NAND flash memory from Samsung. Formally, Samsung isnt revealing the layer count, but theyve declared its 40% more than their previous generation which was 92L, so this must be 128L 3D NAND. Samsung isnt the very first to market with 128L NAND (SK hynix by less than a month), but it reveals that layer counts are increasing and capability should be.

TLC NAND might be slower than MLC NAND in basic, however that doesnt suggest that TLC SSDs have to be slower than MLC SSDs. The efficiency benefits of MLC NAND for consumer usage have actually been significantly decreased by the universal adoption of SLC compose caching on TLC SSDs, and the pattern towards larger SLC caches.

Part Number.
S4LV003.
S4LR020.
S4LP077.
S4LN058.
S4LN053.

Samsung 970 Pro (64L MLC).
Samsung 970 Evo (64L TLC).
Samsung 970 Evo Plus (92L TLC).
Any Phison E16 Drive at PCIe 4.0, such as Seagate FireCuda 520 (96L TLC).
Any Phison E12 Drive at PCIe 3.0, such as Seagate FireCuda 510 (64L TLC).
Any Silicon Motion SM2262 PCIe 3.0 drive, such as Kingston KC2500.
Other Flagships: WD Black SN750, Intel Optane 905P, SK hynix Gold P31.

Max Queue Size.
16384 (per line).
32.

After the PCIe 4 assistance and 8nm fab process, the next most essential function of the brand-new Samsung Elpis is its support for 128 IO lines, up from 32 in the previous Phoenix controller. The most common use case for several IO queues on a NVMe SSD is for the OS to designate one queue per CPU core, so that no core-to-core synchronization is required for software application to send new IO commands to the SSD. Now that CPU core counts have actually grown well beyond 32, it makes sense for Samsung to support more lines– particularly because these NVMe controllers are likewise used in Samsungs entry-level business and datacenter NVMe SSDs.

This Review.

Phison was the only SSD controller supplier prepared with a PCIe 4.0 solution at the time; its E16 controller has enjoyed over a year on the marketplace as the only option for customer PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Were reported a lot about it too. However the Phison E16 was a little bit of a rushed style, with a minimum of modifications to their extremely effective E12 controller to allow PCIe 4.0 assistance. That left the E16 with some notable imperfections: it only offers slightly more peak bandwidth supplied by the upgrade to PCIe 4.0, and the extra efficiency features a great deal of additional power usage. The rest of the SSD market decided to take the PCIe 4.0 shift a bit more slowly, preparing more mature controller styles to be manufactured on smaller sized process nodes that can supply the efficiency necessary to use the full speed of a PCIe 4.0 x4 link while remaining within the thermal and power restrictions of a M. 2 drive.