Update 2/17/2021: We have updated this article with new testing for the 2TB Samsung 980 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD on page 4. Original Review published 9/22/2020: Samsung’s 980 Pro is set to redefine the company’s product line up, and perhaps the entire high-performance market, with a combination of the speedy PCIe 4.0 interface paired with a new controller and flash, all of which delivers brutal performance in many types of applications. That isn't too surprising given the drive's rated speed of up to 7/5 GBps of sequential read/write throughput and 1 million IOPs. For the first time, the company’s flagship Pro series SSD doesn't come with 2-bit MLC flash. Instead, the 980 Pro uses Samsung’s latest 3-bit TLC flash to reduce costs, essentially making it the high-end evolution of the more economical 970 Evo Plus series. But, with a very robust PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe controller under the hood, the 980 Pro still ensures efficient and responsive performance along with AES 256-bit security for both gamers and prosumers alike. Aside from its slower sustained write speed than the previous-gen 970 Pro, Samsung’s 980 Pro is the fastest flash-based SSD we’ve laid our hands on. The 980 Pro proves that even while Samsung no longer uses 2-bit MLC flash in the design, its newest 1xx-layer layer V6 V-NAND 3-bit TLC scales to new heights and brings impressive performance to the table. Samsung’s 980 Pro is the SSD to get if you’re building a high-end gaming or work machine with bleeding-edge performance in mind. The 980 Pro also doesn’t cost too much more than Phison E16-based SSDs, like Seagate’s FireCuda 520 or Sabrent’s Rocket NVMe 4.0, making it surprisingly competitive against other prosumer-class drives at checkout, too. Specifications
Samsung’s 980 Pro is available in capacities spanning from 250GB up to 1TB, but unlike the last-gen 970 Pro, the 980 Pro will bring back the 2TB capacity point. Unfortunately, Samsung will not release the 2TB model until late 2020. As expected of Samsung’s flagship SSD, each capacity commands a premium over competing drives. Prices range from $90 for the 250GB capacity up to $230 for the 1TB model, with the latter having the best price-per-GB. The company rates the 980 Pro to hit peak sequential speeds of up to 7/5 GBps read/write and upwards of 1 million random read/write IOPS. These performance figures aren’t consistent across the capacity of the device like they were on the 970 Pro, however, so the larger drives are faster than their slower counterparts.
Samsung’s 980 Pro features Intelligent TurboWrite 2.0 to enable fast burst performance, but as we see with all SLC caching mechanisms, Samsung’s direct-to-TLC write speed is much slower after the cache fills. Samsung’s Intelligent TurboWrite 2.0 improves upon the 97O EVO Plus’s implementation so that the end-user can write faster for longer, though.  Not only is the sustained after-TurboWrite performance higher across the board, but Samsung significantly increased the capacity of the TurboWrite cache. Samsung left the same static 4GB/6GB default cache values, but tweaked the dynamic cache by expanding its capacity to be up to five times larger.
Even with the new TurboWrite 2.0 implementation, Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) ECC, and 9% over-provisioning, Samsung still pulled back on the 980 Pro’s endurance ratings due to the TLC flash, matching the 970 EVO Plus within the same five-year warranty period. This is a bit of disappointment, not only for us, but also for the potential buyers who have already expressed some grief on forums. This change is a calculated move by Samsung, though. According to Samsung’s statistics on over 661,000 NVMe SSDs, the company says 99% of users write up to 156 TB of data within five years, and 99.7% write less than 600 TB. Furthermore, unlike most SSDs on the market, Samsung’s 980 Pro supports AES 256-bit hardware-accelerated encryption that is TCG Opal V2.0 and IEEE1667-compliant for protection of data at rest. It supports secure erase via the Format NVM command and crypto erase capability, as well as S.M.A.R.T. data reporting and Trim. Software and AccessoriesFrom drive monitoring to benchmarking and security configurations, Samsung Magician leads the market in both SSD Toolbox design and capability. The company also supports NVMe SSDs with a custom driver tuned by the company. And for those who need to migrate their existing data over to their new Samsung SSD, the company provides its Samsung Data Migration Software to clone it over easily. A Closer LookOverall, Samsung’s 980 Pro looks to be an overhauled and scaled up 970 EVO Plus. The 980 Pro comes in an M.2 2280 form factor and features a quality black PCB and components. The SKU numbers on the top sticker take away from the aesthetic appeal of the 980 Pro, though. The company could have easily placed these markings on the backside along with the compliance information. With the 980 Pro's small footprint yet massive performance, the device is bound to generate some heat. To help keep it cool, the company continues to use a copper heat spreader on the backside of the device to help absorb the thermal load when heavy workloads hit. Additionally, the controller features a nickel coating that Samsung says imProves cooling by roughly 7%. The drive also supports Active State Power Management (ASPM), Autonomous Power State Transition (APST), and the L1.2 ultra-low power mode to regulate overall power consumption, as well as further refinements to dynamic thermal guard (DTG) technology that allows you to write for longer without the device slowing down. The new SSD controller, dubbed Elpis, measures 16.5 x 16.5mm and features a DRAM-based multi-core Arm architecture built on Samsung’s 8nm manufacturing process node. While the previous-gen Phoenix leveraged five Arm Cortex R5 cores, Samsung hasn’t specified what type of cores, or how many, power this new controller. Samsung also doesn’t specify the channel count, although it’s probably an eight-channel design. Samsung did mention some other interesting points on the controller’s IO processing capability, however. The company states that the new PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.3c controller can natively process up to 128 concurrent I/O queues, which is up from 32 queues on the previous PCIe 3.0 controller, leading to a more responsive latency profile. The 980 Pro leverages DRAM for caching its FTL metadata, and for this task, the company outfitted the SSD with LPDDR4. These DRAM ICs interface at up to 1866 MHz and need as little as 1.1V to operate. The 250GB and 500GB models come with 512MB of DRAM while the 1TB and 2TB receive 1GB and 2GB, respectively. Over the years, Samsung has led the way in NAND design, and the company’s V-NAND was the first vertical-channel 3D charge trap flash brought into volume production. Samsung’s 1xx-layer V6 V-NAND TLC is the company’s most refined flash yet - it scales the layer count up to new heights and consumes 15% less power than the V5 flash. Although it hasn’t confirmed, Samsung’s V6 V-NAND reportedly features up to 136 layers (opens in new tab), up 40% from the 970 EVO Plus’s 92-layer count. Unlike competing types of 3D flash, Samsung didn’t need to use a multi-stack design to achieve such a high layer count. Instead, the company uses its unique channel hole etching technology to enhance scalability within a single stack. By sticking with a single stack design, the company says it can maintain high-quality production and achieve good yields without the risk of stack channel hole misalignments. There are just two NAND packages onboard the 980 Pro’s PCB, which applies to all capacities. The 250GB to 1TB 980 Pros come with 256Gb dies while the 2TB model, when available, will feature 512Gb dies. This means that both the 1TB and 2TB models feature 32 dies in total for optimal interleaving and peak performance characteristics. To boost performance, Samsung’s V-NAND features two planes per die (independent regions of die access) for further interleaving. Competitors like SK hynix and Micron now feature four-plane designs, which doubles parallelism, but this adds to overall periphery circuity, which in turn takes up precious die space. To overcome that die space limitation, most companies use, or are transitioning to, Periphery Under Cell (PUC) or CMOS Under Array (CUA) technology.
By placing the additional periphery, page buffer, and other select circuitry under the cell array rather than its border, companies can increase bit density per wafer. Lacking this design component, Samsung’s V6 V-NAND suffers in regards to bit density. Samsung's next-generation V7 V-NAND will most likely implement both multi-stack and Cell Over Periphery (COP) concepts for improvement. The current design splits each of the two 16kB plane cell arrays into two 8kB sub-planes with even/odd sensing for even faster performance capability with the limited space budget. This, in conjunction with some other modifications like an enhanced bit line precharge scheme, couple-capacitance-minimizing technique, progressive Vth window scheme, and random pre-pulse sensing scheme, enables Samsung’s V6 V-NAND TLC to respond 10% faster to both read and program requests over the last generation of flash. The new flash operates down to 45/450 microseconds (820/82 MBps) read/write, respectively. Although the company didn’t specify the exact speed that the flash interfaces with the controller at, Samsung specified the flash operates at Toggle DDR 4.0 speeds, which ranges from 800 MTps up to 1,400 MTps, at a 1.2V supply voltage. This most likely matches the speed of SK hynix’s 128-Layer TLC, which is 1,200 MTps. Page 2
Samsung's new SSDs tend to bring best-of-breed performance that dominates the market, and the 980 Pro is no exception – after a long wait for the company's first PCIe 4.0 SSD, the 980 Pro redefines high-end SSD storage. The company's new and powerful Gen4 Elpis NVMe SSD controller, built from the ground up to pair with its newly refined V-NAND, propels the Samsung 980 Pro to the upper echelons of the SSD market. This devastating combo delivers up to 7/5 GBps of sequential read/write throughput and upwards of 1 million IOPS across the PCIe 4.0 bus. However, the Samsung 980 Pro doesn't go without rivalry or fault. Both Intel's Optane SSD 905P and Samsung's older 970 Pro can write at a faster rate for longer periods of time. Samsung does have a hidden strength in sustained workloads, though. The company strove to find the right balance to make the 980 Pro the best overall drive for prosumers, and that entailed ensuring the drive would provide leading performance after the TurboWrite cache is entirely full. In contrast, competing SSDs powered by Silicon Motion's SM2262EN controller, and even PCIe 4.0 SSDs sporting Phison's E16 NVMe SSD controller, suffer from reduced performance after the cache is full. Those controllers also aren't as efficient. Phison's leaned heavily on an existing design for its hastily-built E16 SSD controller, so there wasn't much innovation beyond the faster-than-PCIe 3.0 sequential performance. While the company scaled sequential speeds and improved performance in random workloads slightly, the E16 lagged PCIe 3.0 competitors in some areas. That's why Samsung tuned the 980 Pro for fast sequential performance both with and without TurboWrite. The 960 Pro also offers incredible random read performance: We hit 22K IOPS at a QD of 1. The 980 Pro also delivers among the fastest response times we've seen from a flash-based SSD (Intel's Optane is another story, though). SSD makers try to balance a few key features, like price, capacity, performance, and warranty. When it comes to storage, long warranties convey high quality, and premium pricing emphasizes it more. With an emphasis on quality over cost, Samsung's Pro series SSDs built the company's reputation over the years with a premium pricing strategy, which worked very well. The 980 Pro marks a shift in the company's pricing strategy, though. Samsung didn't focused on being 'just' the best in terms of features or performance, it is also focused on price this time, too. The new focus on more competitive pricing for its Pro series also suggests we'll see its entire portfolio shift into more cost-competitive positions, too. At the time of launch, the 1TB 980 Pro costs just $229.99, which is much less expensive than its predecessor. That's still quite a premium over the more cost-effective Adata XPG SX8200 Pro or SK hynix Gold P31. However, it's also $120 cheaper than the previous-gen 1TB 970, and only slightly more expensive than any Phison E16-based SSD. We also don't see the long 10-year warranty or higher endurance ratings we're accustomed to with Samsung's premium drives. While the 980 Pro comes with more than enough performance for most users, the TLC flash under the hood isn't as endurant - the drive comes with half the endurance of the previous-gen 970 Pro. This is the unfortunate trade-off for the lower price point. You'll have to buy the 980 Pro at twice the capacity to match the last-gen 970 Pro's endurance, or buy a Phison-powered SSD that comes with a much higher endurance rating, like the Seagate FireCuda 520 or Corsair MP600, if you're looking for higher endurance at similar capacity points. According to Samsung's usage profiling, the lower endurance shouldn't matter to most customers. But surely there are still many customers seeking SSDs with higher endurance ratings. Samsung might think those customers could convert over to an enterprise drive, but the reduced endurance could actually hurt the company's 'Pro' brand image instead. Phison's next-gen E18 NVMe controller is just around the corner, and it should bring up to three times the endurance of Samsung's 980 Pro. The next wave of E18 controllers should also be significantly faster than the prior-gen models, setting the stage for a heated contest. Samsung may have some minor holes to fill, but the 980 Pro is still a stellar SSD that touts near-superiority in every aspect over its competition. It is fast, efficient, and runs cool under most use cases thanks to its advanced thermal design and manufacturing process. If you're searching for a top of the line PCIe 4.0 SSD for your build, you might not need to look any further - the Samsung 980 Pro is the best SSD for the task. MORE: Best SSDs MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs MORE: All SSD Content |
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