Samsung SSD 960 EVO Drives Are Affordable and Fast

By Nathan Kirsch September 21, 2016

The Samsung 960 Pro might be the flagship consumer M.2 NVMe SSD, but the new Samsung 960 EVO is far from being a slouch. The Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 drive will blend an affordable price point with high performance speeds that will leave you wanting one of these drives. The Samsung SSD 960 EVO 250GB drive is aimed at mainstream users that boasts 3,200 MB/s sequential read speeds and 1,500 MB/s sequential write speeds. The 4K Random (QD32, 4 Thread) performance on the 960 EVO 250GB drive is 330,000 IOPS read and 300,000 IOPS write. Those performance numbers are thanks to the new Samsung Polaris controller and the use of 3rd Generation 3bit MLC VNAND. The Samsung Polaris controller has 5 cores versus 3 cores in the previous UBX controller, which plays a big role in the performance numbers.

To get the high write performance numbers on 3bit MLC VNAND Samsung is using Intelligent TurboWrite technology. This allows Samsung to use a larger SLC bugger buffer (13GB on the 250GB, 22GB on the 500GB and 42GB on the 1TB drive) to get improved write performance.

Compared to the previous Samsung SSD 950 Pro 250GB (2bit MLC NAND) the Samsung SSD 960 EVO by 45% on the sequential writes and 67% on the sequential writes (1500MB/s versus 900 MB/s). The Random Read/Write IOPS went up 22% on the 4K reads and 253% on the 4K writes.

To help effectively control temperatures, Samsung is using a heat spreading label that has a layer of copper in it that helps lower temperatures by dispersing the heat of the critical SSD components. This along with the new low power controller and VNAND has allowed Samsung Dynamic Thermal Guard Technology to improve the trigger point for throttling.

On the Samsung 950 PRO you used to be able to do a sustained write the drive for 63 Seconds. Now we are at 79 seconds on the 960 EVO and 95 seconds on the 960 PRO. That might be impressive, but it means that you used to be able to write 158GB of data to the drive before it got too hot and now you can write 253GB (960 EVO) and 333GB (960 PRO) to the the drive before any throttling should take place.

What will all that performance cost? The Samsung 960 EVO 250GB M.2 NVMe SSD will be available worldwide in October 2016 with a suggested retail price of $129.99 ($0.26 per GB). Samsung has placed a 3-year warranty on the Samsung EVO 960 EVO 250GB drive and also 100TB TBW rating.

Not bad at all right and that is the the base drive for the series and performance gets better as the capacity increases. The Samsung SSD 960 EVO series will be available in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities and you can see how the perform in the performance table below that we just tossed together.

Samsung SSD 960 EVO Specifications:

Ideal for mainstream NVMe users looking for next generation PC performance
Available in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities
First Samsung product to integrate Samsung Intelligent TurboWrite technology, accelerating sequential read and write speeds
Sequential read speeds up to 3,200 MB/s
Sequential write speeds up to 1,900 MB/s
Three-year limited warranty up to 400 TBW for 1TB capacity, whichever occurs first.
Dynamic Thermal Guard technology to manage performance levels and prevent overheating
M.2 form factor ideal for ultra-thin notebooks and PCs.
Features PCIe Gen.3 x4 lane interface
Compliant with all NVMe specifications

Samsung SSD 960 EVO Performance Details:

	SSD 960 EVO 250 GB	SSD 960 EVO 500GB	SSD 960 EVO 1TB
Sequential Read	3,200 MB/s	3,200 MB/s	3,200 MB/s
Sequential Write	1,500 MB/s	1,800 MB/s	1900 MB/s
4KB Random Read QD32/4T	330,000 IOPS	330,000 IOPS	380,000 IOPS
4KB Random Write QD32/4T	300,000 IOPS	330,000 IOPS	360,000 IOPS
4KB Random Read QD1/1T	14,000 IOPS	14,000 IOPS	14,000 IOPS
4KB Random Write QD1/1T	50,000 IOPS	50,000 IOPS	50,000 IOPS
DRAM Cache	512MB	512MB	1GB
Power (Load/Idle)	5.3W/1.2W	5.4W/1.2W	5.7W/1.2W
TBW	100 TB	200TB	400TB
MSRP	$129	$249	$479

Let us know if you have any questions and we’ll ask them at the SSD Summit!