The new Samsung SSD 980 is Samsung’s first retail-ready NVMe SSD. Compared to previous Samsung SSDs, there is no three-letter suffix at the end: it is not a PRO, nor an EVO, or even a QVO drive, because it does not fit the conventions established for these product layers. The SSD 980 fits into the product stacl at the bottom, but leaves a gap large enough for another, possibly better, model to enter later. Samsung is marketing the SSD 980 as a successor to the 970 EVO.
Samsung’s first push to enter NVMe in retail
SSD 980 is a basic NVMe SSD, using TLC NAND with a DRAM-free controller. This makes it a new product class for Samsung in the retail market, a class it has never produced before. This type of drive, with TLC and without DRAM, is already prevalent in the market of other turn-key solution providers, and this type of drive has been quite popular among OEMs: it allows them to advertise an NVMe SSD without paying the cost of a high quality unit.
The new Samsung SSD 980 will come in three capacities, 250 GB, 500 GB and 1 TB. In this review we have the two highest capacities, featuring a Samsung custom controller and a variety of TLC NAND (explained in more detail below). As an NVMe drive rated for PCIe 3.0 x4, maximum sequential read speeds are rated at up to 3.5 GB / s for the 1 TB drive. The units will be evaluated for up to 0.3 unit writes per day (ie 300 GB / day in the 1 TB model) for five years.
| Samsung SSD 980 specifications | |||||
| Capacity | 250 GB | 500 GB | 1 TB | ||
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 on one side | ||||
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.4 | ||||
| Controller | Samsung pablo | ||||
| DRAM | None | ||||
| Flash NAND | Samsung 92L 256Gb TLC |
Samsung 128L 512Gb TLC |
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| Sequential Reading | 2900 MB / s | 3100 MB / s | 3500 MB / s | ||
| Sequential Recording | 1300 MB / s | 2600 MB / s | 3000 MB / s | ||
| Maximum SLC cache size | 45 GB | 122 GB | 160 GB | ||
| Random Reading IOPS |
QD1 | 17k | |||
| QD32T16 | 230k | 400k | 500k | ||
| Random Writing IOPS |
QD1 | 53k | 54k | ||
| QD32T16 | 320k | 470k | 480k | ||
| Power | Reading | 3.7 W | 4.3 W | 4.5 W | |
| Write | 3.2 W | 4.2 W | 4.6 W | ||
| Idle | 45 mW | ||||
| Inactive (L1.2) | 5 mW | ||||
| Warranty | 5 years | ||||
| Type Endurance | 150 TB 0.3 DWPD |
300 TB 0.3 DWPD |
600 TB 0.3 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 built around its “Pablo” controller. In fact, this is not a new NVMe controller, but it has been in the Samsung Portable SSD T7 family for over a year. This controller has half of the NAND channels of the controllers used in Samsung’s next-generation NVMe units (four instead of eight) and no DRAM interface. Using the high NAND IO speeds supported by recent generations of 3D NAND, the Pablo controller is able to saturate a PCIe 3.0 x4 host interface without the need for eight NAND channels.
For this generation, Samsung decided to use different NAND in different capacities of the SSD 980 family. Our 1TB sample analysis has Samsung’s 512Gbit and 128-layer NAND 3D TLC, which is the same NAND found in the 2TB 980 PRO . Our 500 GB analysis sample is using 256 Gbit NAND arrays, which means it must use the same number of physical arrays. Matrix counting on the 500 GB drive helps to alleviate the typical performance drops we would see from a smaller capacity drive, but the 256 Gbit NAND is Samsung’s oldest 92-layer TLC (as seen on the 970 EVO Plus) , compared to the 128-layer TLC that we see in the 1 TB model. Due to the matrix count, the 500GB model ends up being close to the performance of the 1TB model, but a little slower due to the older NAND.
Mixing NAND in this way in a product line is increasingly common, especially for low-cost SSDs, where commodity margins may be lower. It can also help explain why Samsung’s marketing materials for the SSD 980 refer to the 970 EVO as its predecessor, rather than the 970 ‘EVO Plus’. We’ve already seen Samsung mix NAND generations with the 850 PRO and 850 EVO SATA SSDs, but this was more of a direct transition during the middle of the product cycle, rather than mixing from the beginning. It wouldn’t be surprising to see the smaller 980s eventually transition to 128L NAND as Samsung’s production changes, as long as the SSD 980 remains on the market long enough and performance levels can be equivalent.
Updates with SSD 980
With the SSD 980, Samsung switched to a more aggressive SLC cache strategy, more than tripling the maximum cache size compared to the 970 EVO (Plus). They made a similar change with the 980 PRO. This follows a general industry trend towards larger, more noticeable SLC caches on NVMe QLC SSDs, which helps improve performance across many benchmarks and some real-world workloads. While it is good for performance numbers in short burst tests, it usually has a performance cost when the cache or drive fills up. For an entry-level unit that is not intended for heavy workstation-type workloads, this optimization towards maximum performance makes a lot of sense.
Even though it is a simpler product than any of its previous NVMe SSDs, Samsung is still giving the SSD 980 a five-year warranty with a resistance rating of 0.3 DWPD, the same as all of its recent EVO drives.
A key part of Samsung’s plans to achieve good performance in the real world with the SSD 980 is the NVMe Host Memory Buffer (HMB) feature, which we’ve covered in depth in the past. In short: PCIe’s DMA capabilities allow an NVMe SSD to efficiently access main CPU / DRAM memory. The memory buffering feature of the NVMe host allows the operating system to supply the SSD with a small amount of DRAM for use in the SSD’s internal accounting. Performance is not as good as having DRAM on the SSD itself, and the amount of memory allocated is generally very small, the default is around 64 MB, but up to 1 GB, but it is enough to improve performance on many load loads. real world work.
Assuming that the unit’s Flash translation layer is typically designed, a 64MB HMB is sufficient to cache logical to physical address mappings for approximately 64GB of storage. It is a very small amount of host RAM, but 64 GB of storage is much more than typical consumer workloads need to actively use at the same time. The main part here is ‘in use’ – the HMB will only be populated (and expanded) as the data is used on the unit for that session. So while a top-tier game has 250 GB to install, it can only use 50 GB to play at a certain level.
| NVMe Host Memory Buffer sizes |
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| Minimum | Default | |
| Samsung 980 | 16 MB | 64 MB |
| WD Blue SN550 | 3 MB | 32 MB |
| Mushkin Helix-L | 32 MB | 64 MB * |
| Toshiba RC100 | 10 MB | 38 MB |
The Samsung SSD 980 requires 64 MB of host RAM for its HMB, but is willing to use only 16 MB. These values are similar to other non-DRAM NVMe SSDs that we tested. For this review, we ran the synthetic benchmarks with HMB enabled (the default in recent operating systems) and with HMB disabled to illustrate its impact.
The exception is the Mushkin Helix-L with the Silicon Motion SM2263XT controller: we didn’t see any significant performance difference between HMB on and HMB off, even in tests designed specifically to illustrate the effect of HMB, so it’s quite clear that the drive’s firmware he never really gets to use the 64 MB he asks for.
Samsung and entry-level: the story
Historically, Samsung has distanced itself from making real basic units for the retail SSD market, preferring to maintain some degree of premium status and maintain a more comfortable profit margin. This is a strategy that its vertical integration has supported very well.
However, Samsung has covered some of the basic needs before, with QLC QVO SATA SSDs. But even here, Samsung maintained slightly premium prices, so the main appeal has been how affordable these units are in extremely large capacities. Samsung has not yet brought QLC NAND to its NVMe product line for the consumer, so the other obvious formula for a low-cost unit is to go DRAM-free while maintaining the TLC NAND.
The break with Samsung’s typical PRO / EVO / QVO division is not entirely unprecedented: in the past, there have been a few other occasions when Samsung needed an extra product layer, resulting in the 750 EVO and SSD 850. Since then, Samsung has added the QVO layer of products, but the 980 does not qualify because it is using TLC NAND instead of QLC. Samsung also has no room to decrease any part of the model number, as there is no gap between its 800 series SATA SSDs and the 900 series NVMe. So, we keep the simple 980 while Samsung keeps an open slot for a best 980 EVO.
The competition
We were unable to evaluate the WD Blue SN550 when it launched in late 2019, but we got a sample to include in this analysis because the SN550 is the most important competitor to the Samsung SSD 980. The previous WD Blue SN500 significantly raised the bar for SSDs without DRAM, and the SN550 enhances it in almost every way. The Samsung SSD 980 is rated for much higher peak performance in sequential and random IO, but for a more real workload, the SN550 will not be that easy to beat. We also have results from the old Mushkin Helix-L, although with seemingly inoperative HMB support, it is not as competitive. Also in the low-cost NVMe market segment, we have a pair of QLC drives: the Corsair MP400 with the 8-channel Phison E12 controller and the Intel SSD 670p with the new Silicon Motion SM2265 controller.
In the most common TLC NVMe market segment, the motivation to keep an eye is the SK hynix Gold P31. Like the Samsung SSD 980, it uses a four-channel controller, but the P31 has the normal amount of on-board DRAM, making it a superior class of drive. If Samsung launches a 980 EVO in the near future, it will almost certainly go after the P31’s position in the market, although Samsung may also try a slight performance advantage including support for PCIe gen4.
We also have results from several other recent Samsung SSDs in different market segments: the 870 EVO TLC SATA, the 970 EVO Plus PCIe Gen 3 advanced and the 980 PRO advanced PCIe Gen 4. The latter was tested again with firmware updated a few weeks ago, but we did not find any noticeable change in performance in our test suite.