Samsung's Next Gen NVMe SSDs Appear Online

[Guest]

The OEM version of Samsung's upcoming flagship NVMe SSD, 980, have appeared online. The PM981 NVMe SSD was designed for system builders using the same components as the retail models. The initial pricing looks good, but we don't expect high availability.

Samsung's Next Gen NVMe SSDs Appear Online : Read more

 

[vern72]

Why stray from the EVO / Pro designations? That's so handy to tell the difference between the consumer and pro versions.

 

[the nerd 389]

Any idea what kind of write endurance we can expect from these drives?

Will they be similar to current models, or are they cutting endurance again?

 

[derekullo]

Any idea what kind of write endurance we can expect from these drives?

Will they be similar to current models, or are they cutting endurance again?

It should be similar to current models due to using TLC.

The switch to QLC is when endurance will get cut.

 

[tom10167]

According to Newegg the 960 Pro is 3,500 Mbps/2,100 and 440,000/360,000... so this is slower?

 

[donkellogg]

No 2TB or greater this time??

 

[Xajel]

Why stray from the EVO / Pro designations? That's so handy to tell the difference between the consumer and pro versions.

I guess to make the name shorter, there's no meaning in having both words and number to name a product unless it was a pure marketing reason.

 

[phthdoan85]

https://scontent.fhan5-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/22448395_1891788340849121_3247711375814001090_n.jpg?oh=53d6361411de48b0f99877b59e9869a8&oe=5A848489

 

[modeonoff]

I was hoping that they were PCIe 4.0.

 

[JamesSneed]

I was hoping that they were PCIe 4.0.

No motherboards to certify on so that is just a dream for now. Since PCIE 4 was just finalized in June I would expect mid 2018 to see motherboards coming out to support it then 6 more months for products like SSD drives.

 

[jeffreydanielbyers]

Why would it matter if they were PCIe v4 anyway?

They will still work on PCIe v4 motherboards, and it won't affect the performance.

 

[JamesSneed]

Why would it matter if they were PCIe v4 anyway?

They will still work on PCIe v4 motherboards, and it won't affect the performance.

It doesn't really today. In the future they could push 2x more bandwidth out of a x4 slot once we have PCIE 4.0. Its just cart before the horse, need PCIE 4.0 to make it to mass production in motherboards then we can see products developed and tested to use more bandwidth.

 

[exnemesis]

What's keeping PC's from instant on Windows 10, not just hibernation? Is it hardware, software or both limiting this?

 

[Darkbreeze]

According to Newegg the 960 Pro is 3,500 Mbps/2,100 and 440,000/360,000... so this is slower?

This is my concern. If the performance is decreased from current models, what's the point?

 

[Gillerer]

Why stray from the EVO / Pro designations? That's so handy to tell the difference between the consumer and pro versions.

I guess to make the name shorter, there's no meaning in having both words and number to name a product unless it was a pure marketing reason.

According to Newegg the 960 Pro is 3,500 Mbps/2,100 and 440,000/360,000... so this is slower?

This is my concern. If the performance is decreased from current models, what's the point?

The difference is TLC versus MLC. 960 Pro uses MLC. These 98x and 97x drives seem to use TLC (like 960 EVO).

If they're doing away with MLC, the old Pro/EVO nomenclature would just be misleading. Obviously Samsung doesn't want to actively remind people that these are all TLC drives by naming them all "EVO".

The upside here is that the performance at least seems to be *almost* as good as 960 Pro, only using cheaper components.

Everyone in the SSD business is always looking to cut costs of consumer products, so this seems to be what's happening here: Samsung instead of having two tiers of NVMe SSDs using MLC and TLC, has both using TLC - probably with different enough performance profiles. The 97x series may even have less parallellism, fewer controller channels, fewer PCIe lanes and/or less or no RAM (or a some combination of these) to have it double-duty as both the budget and low-power alternative.

 

[JamesSneed]

I'm glad I picked up a 960 Pro for my build this spring had a feeling endurance and maybee performance was going to take a hit on the next generation. Payed a premium but should be a great desktop drive for a decade.

 

[jeff.beougher]

Why would I want this over a 960 evo let alone a 960 pro? Cost is not worth 12GB

 

[didgetmaster]

SSD prices have not come down for several years now. I bought a 256GB SSD for $75 almost 3 years ago and they are the same price today.

$430 for 1 TB is still about 15x more expensive than HDD space. A small SSD to store your most accessed data makes a lot of sense, but I laugh every time I hear someone say that HDD is dead because SSD is going to replace HDD soon for bulk storage. I can buy a 4TB HDD for about $110. That much storage on SSD costs more than my whole computer (and its a high end one).