Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD

Update: Since early 2019, a newer model of this drive is available. See our page about the successor 970 EVO Plus.

Samsung’s 970 EVO has dominated the consumer SSD market throughout 2018 and will likely continue to do so in 2019. Some of the reasons are high performance, a reputation for reliability, and not least a more attractive pricing than the similar 970 PRO model.

Overview: Memory Type, Controller and Cache

The main difference between the EVO and Pro models has been – and continues to be – that Samsung uses MLC NAND memory for the Pro lineup and TLC NAND for the EVO SSDs. MLC is a more expensive type of memory chips that includes two bits per cell, whereas TLC is denser, cheaper and includes an extra bit per memory cell for a total of three. In this case, the memory chips are stacked in 64 layers’3D’, or V-NAND TLC chips.

Both the 970 EVO and PRO use the same Samsung Phoenix controller. This controller is a successor to Polaris, which was used in the 960 series.

Performance

This difference in the memory chips used affects both relative performance and the Samsung 970 EVO’s endurance rating. Performance is still quite close to the 970 EVO’s MLC counterpart PRO thanks to an SLC (single-level cell) write cache that allows for very fast transfers as long as the cache doesn’t fill up completely.

Sequential read/write speeds for the 500 GB model are 3,500 MB/s (read) and 2,500 MB/s (write). Random performance at a queue depth of 32 is 370K IOPS (read) and 450K IOPS (write). See our frequently updated roundup of the best M.2 drives to find out what SSDs are currently the top performers.

Power Consumption (Laptop Suitability)

As is usually the case, the higher capacities of the Samsung 970 EVO use a bit more power than the lower capacities. The 250 GB model has an average power consumption of 5.4 W up to a maximum of 9 W during load, on the system level, whereas the 1–2 TB models increase those numbers to 6 W and 10 W. Idle power consumption is rated at up to 30 mW.

Compared to the competition, these numbers are very competitive. But some drives seem to perform better, including Samsung’s own predecessors in the 950 series as well as Intel’s 760p.

Warranty and Endurance Rating

Samsung offers a 5-year warranty for all drives in the 970 series, but the endurance rating in TBW (terabytes written) will of course vary by capacity. The 970 EVO drives are rated to withstand approximately half as many writes as the PRO model.

• 150 TBW for 250 GB model
• 300 TBW for 500 GB model
• 600 TBW for 1 TB model
• 1,200 TBW for 2 TB model

Expert Reviews

StorageReview:

The Samsung 970 EVO is an M.2 NVMe SSD aimed at mainstream users, but Samsung’s grip on the industry-leading spots is starting to slip as the 970 EVO delivers an uneven performance profile with comparatively high price.

HardwareInfo

The 970 Evo and 970 Pro are not a revolution, but evolution: 3d-nand with a higher density and a higher clocked controller are the most important changes.