Samsung 960 EVO 250GB NVMe SSD Benchmarks
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250GB Benchmark Results
Comparison Products
Intel SSD 600p (256GB)
MyDigitalSSD BPX (240GB)
Toshiba OCZ RD400 (256GB)
The Samsung 960 EVO 250GB is a different animal compared to the two high capacity models. Samsung reverted this model back to 128Gbit die to increase the number of CE (Chip Enable) channels. SSDs are fast because they read and write to several blocks at the same time. Inside of every SSD is a complex RAID array that keeps performance high. At the heart of every RAID array is a controller, and in this case, it’s a flash processor. Each NAND die acts as a target, but the controller has to optimize data placement to sustain a high level of performance. By moving back to older 32-layer NAND with a smaller die, the controller has more targets for incoming and outgoing data.
Unlike the large capacities, the 256GB class of NVMe SSDs is full of strong competition. The 850 EVO is not the first mainstream NVMe in this capacity, and there are even two entry-level products swimming in the same pool. In this section, we will see if the 960 EVO 250GB is a shark like the 1TB model we just covered on the previous page, or if it is a minnow.
The standout NVMe SSD in this capacity is the newcomer MyDigitalSSD BPX that sparked interest in entry-level NVMe, which is a fire the Intel 600p failed to ignite. The BPX is a low-cost product that still utilizes 2-bit per cell multi-level cell (MLC) flash. The Patriot Hellfire M.2 isn’t far behind. It delivers better performance than the BPX, but it also costs significantly more.
The OCZ RD400 came to market in a budget-friendly 256GB capacity, but it also fails to match the BPX’s price point.
Samsung has two other products in the 256GB-class. Even though the company chose not to release the retail 960 Pro in this capacity, the OEM division released the SM961 with MLC NAND and the 5-core Polaris controller. All of these products still have to contend with the 950 Pro 256GB SSD, which was the industry standard for performance enthusiasts in 2015.
Sequential Read Performance
To read about our storage tests in-depth, please check out How We Test HDDs And SSDs. We cover four-corner testing on page six of our How We Test guide.
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It shouldn’t surprise anyone to see Samsung at the top of these charts. Much like the previous page, Samsung’s MLC-based SSDs dominate the low-capacity NVMe test pool. The new 960 EVO 250GB takes its place right under two such products, but it is actually faster than both during a QD1 sequential read workload.
Sequential Write Performance
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With the EVO 250GB, we have to worry about data write workloads. We encounter a wavy performance profile during the sequential write test, but it doesn’t originate from the thermal throttling feature. The low and inconsistent sequential write performance stems from the smaller SLC buffer and much lower native TLC write speed. Samsung’s specification sheet for the 960 EVO lists the 250GB model with 300 MB/s of sustained write performance, but that is an optimistic value. We measured less than 160 MB/s after the buffer fills up and clogs with data. Even with the extra 128Gbit die, the performance dips very low when the SSD is pressed with incoming data.
The HD Tune Pro chart indicates that the TurboWrite buffer fills up with only a few gigabytes of data. Samsung claims the fixed SLC buffer capacity is 4GB, and that appears to be accurate. The dynamic SLC buffer fluctuates up to 13GB. The real story is what comes after the 300 MB/s of Intelligent TurboWrite performance.
Unlike the 1TB 960 EVO we tested on the previous page, we observed an unadvertised third tier on the 250GB model that kicks the sequential write performance down another notch after we write 45 gigabytes of data to the drive.
There are two key aspects at play here. We’ve noted that companies need to hide native TLC write performance. The largest single file transfer for most users is a Blu-Ray ISO, and those files measure between 40 and 50 gigabytes. Samsung can mask a Blu-Ray ISO transfer, more-or-less, but only if the drive is fairly empty. The dynamic size of the TurboWrite SLC buffer means that the algorithms shrink the buffer when the drive is nearly full. With only 250GB of total storage capacity, we don’t think users will keep too many large files on this specific 960 EVO. However, the buffer will shrink faster than larger drives.
Random Read Performance
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The 960 EVO 250GB is still a very snappy boot drive. This model just missed the 16,000 random read IOPS mark set by the larger 1TB model we tested on the previous page.
We love the MLC-based MyDigitalSSD BPX, but the 960 EVO 250GB with TLC and a small dose of an SLC buffer just winked in our direction.
Random Write Performance
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Over the last several product cycles we’ve watched programmed SLC buffers evolve from a gimmick to a powerful system tool that increases the user experience. At this point, most of the companies have a firm grip on how the algorithm should work, but there are different levels of success. The new-and-improved Intelligent TurboWrite is the best yet, and the updated version overtakes the previous iteration that Samsung last updated in the 850 EVO.
80 Percent Sequential Mixed Workload
We describe our mixed workload testing in detail here and describe our steady state tests here.
Both of our 960 EVO samples suffer from low mixed sequential performance. With the larger model, we saw how the low performance in a mixed data environment hurt real-world application performance.
That, along with the low sustained write performance, could really hurt Samsung’s chances of putting the lowest-cost EVO model in your PC. We’ll examine application performance with the 960 EVO 250GB later in this review.
80 Percent Random Mixed Workload
The mixed random test takes the 960 EVO 250GB down another notch. Between QD2 and QD8, the drive follows the same path as the abysmal Intel 600p. That is not where Samsung needs to be with the EVO 250GB. The 600p is actually slightly faster at QD4.
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The larger 1TB 960 EVO products may make it into some professional workloads due to their overall value with users who dabble in video editing and other high-write environment applications. The smaller 250GB capacity increases the chance and frequency that users will drive the SSD into steady-state conditions. The performance appears low during this test, but the numbers are actually decent compared to SATA-based products.
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The Samsung 950 EVO dedicates four of its five ARM cores to flash management.
For many years we’ve heard about performance consistency from some companies and very little about it from others. It seems the tables have turned. Now, Intel SSDs have trouble holding a steady performance rate and Samsung delivers the best consistency. The chart shows only two 3D TLC-based NVMe SSDs, the Intel 600p 256GB with new 384Gbit TLC NAND flash and the 960 EVO 250GB with 128Gbit TLC. The EVO doesn’t deliver a high random steady-state performance measurement, but it is very consistent.
PCMark 8 Real-World Software Performance
For details on our real-world software performance testing, please click here.
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The low mixed performance carries over to the 960 EVO’s application performance. We don’t feel that the low native TLC performance affected the results of this test. The software in this section does not push enough data to the drives to get past the EVO 250GB’s SLC buffer.
Application Storage Bandwidth
The 250GB model has a steep hill to climb with so many other 256GB NVMe products on the market.
The MyDigitalSSD BPX leads the charge and delivers 120+ MB/s more performance than the 960 EVO 250GB. We discussed how NVMe unbinds the flash from the legacy SATA bus that was designed when Abit was still shipping motherboards. The 960 EVO series will not follow the same path as Abit, but the lowest capacity model might. I don’t think Samsung expects this to be a big seller.
PCMark 8 Advanced Workload Performance
To learn how we test advanced workload performance, please click here.
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The Samsung 960 EVO 250GB has a difficult time surpassing the Intel 600p 256GB during heavy workloads. We had several harsh words for the 600p, so it’s only fitting to light the fires for the EVO in the same capacity class. The question is where it all went wrong, and if Samsung can fix it. We will get to those details on the next page.
During moderate workloads with ample idle time, the EVO 256GB recovers much better than the 600p. I can’t believe we’re even comparing these two drives with serious analysis.
Total Service Time
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The service time tests reveal extreme latency during heavy workloads. The 850 EVO running on the SATA bus does not have the same latency issues that bog the 960 EVO down under heavy workloads, which is worrisome. Again, the EVO 250GB recovers with idle time, so this condition will not affect most users. However, the performance will decrease when the drive is nearly full, and some users will notice.
Disk Busy Time
The disk busy time test shows us that the 960 EVO 250GB doesn’t work as long processing data compared to the Intel 600p, but there is a great divide between the EVO and the other products on the chart. This is very rare territory for a Samsung SSD.
Notebook Battery Life
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The EVO 250GB SSD suffers the same condition we discovered with the 1TB EVO model and the new Samsung NVMe driver. The driver increases performance, but it comes at the cost of battery longevity. As it stands now, the 950 Pro 256GB with Samsung’s first generation NVMe driver is the best option if you want to achieve the longest battery life.
The 950 Pro has dominated the NVMe field since we began testing on the Lenovo Y700-17 with the latest version of MobileMark 2014. Users will lose around 40 minutes of power-on time by moving to the 960 EVO with this notebook.
Notebooks built for long battery life will see an even larger difference. The larger your battery is, the wider the divide. Our Lenovo Y700 is a gaming-focused notebook that delivers high performance. We chose it for our test bed because it was the first (and only at the time) notebook that supports both NVMe and SATA in the same unit.
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Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom’s Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.
Samsung 960 Evo review | Rock Paper Shotgun
When Samsung first launched their pair of flagship 960 SSDs at the tail-end of 2016, they were the fastest NVMe SSDs on the planet.
Coming in 960 Evo and 960 Pro flavours, they were five times faster than your typical SATA3 SSD and offered almost as much speed as their PCIe-based interfaces could manage.
Today, little has changed, and both remain widely regarded as the best around, NVMe or otherwise, with the 960 Evo in particular often being the favoured choice over its more expensive sibling. Available in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB size options, the 960 Evo is still a lot more expensive than SATA3 SSDs like the Crucial MX500 or even Samsung’s own 860 Evo, but with 250GB sticks starting from around £110 / $120, at least it doesn’t feel like you have to remortgage your house just to get your foot in the door.
First things first, a small word about NVMe. Also known as ‘non-volatile memory express’, NVMe SSDs use a different interface to SATA3 SSDs and are mounted directly on your motherboard via an M.2 slot. As such, you’ll need a fairly modern motherboard to take advantage of an NVMe SSD, so you may want to check your PC actually supports it before you rush off and buy one.
Provided you’ve got the right board, though, then the 960 Evo certainly won’t disappoint.
I was sent the 1TB version for review, which has better write speeds than the 250GB and 500GB models according to Samsung’s spec sheet, but its read speed should be more or less identical. My test rig also consists of a 3.6GHz Intel Core i5-8600K processor, 16GB of Corsair Vengeance 3000MHz RAM and an Asus Prime Z370-P motherboard, so all the results below should be broadly representative of what you’ll get on a modern PC.
Got an M.2 slot (above) on your motherboard? Then you can use NVMe SSDs.
First up in the benchmark arena was AS SSD’s 1GB sequential test, which reads and writes 1GB of files in adjacent locations on an SSD’s storage. Here, the 960 Evo produced a phenomenal 2484.64MB/s read speed and 1916.56MB/s write speed, which is pretty damn nippy.
Admittedly, the former isn’t quite as quick as Samsung’s claimed figure of 3200MB/s read (its write speed, however, is spot on), but when you stack it up against what a SATA3 SSD is capable of — say, Samsung’s own 860 Evo, which managed 524.
45MB/s read and 496.29MB/s write in the same test — that’s still a heck of a lot faster than what you’re probably used to.
Indeed, when I ran Samsung’s own performance benchmark in its Magician software tool, the 960 Evo did in fact hit a 3328MB/s sequential read and 1925MB/s sequential write speed, so it’s certainly capable of producing some astonishing results under the right circumstances.
Of course, sequential tests don’t really provide the best picture of an SSD’s overall speed day-to-day. Normally, SSDs have to read and write data from all over an SSD’s storage, which makes AS SSD’s random 4K test a much better indicator of everyday performance. Here, 1GB of files are read and written to random locations on an SSD’s storage in small 4K chunks.
The 960 Evo scored highly here, too, but its read speed of 42.35MB/s isn’t actually much better than the 860 Evo, which managed 40.27MB/s in the same test. This is still pretty great, all told, but not exactly revolutionary.
Instead, the 960 Evo’s main strength is its exceptional write speed, which came in at a massive 143.92MB/s. That’s the highest I’ve ever seen, and puts the 860 Evo’s 98.25MB/s to shame.
The 960 Evo also held up well in CrystalDiskMark’s strenuous 4K 8-queue-8-thread test, too. This is the kind of workload you’d expect to see on a server or workstation, but the 960 Evo handled it all beautifully, producing a read speed of 1635MB/s and a write speed of 1473MB/s.
In fact, the 960 Evo either outperformed or came in just behind its more expensive sibling, the 960 Pro, in almost every test I threw at it (which you can see in the graph above), making the Evo a much more competitive SSD despite a couple of shortcomings. Indeed, the only slight irritation about the 960 Evo is that its warranty only covers three years as opposed to the five years you get with the 960 Pro. Its endurance rating isn’t as high as the 960 Pro, either, but 100 terabytes written (TBW) for the 250GB version, 200 TBW for the 500GB model and 400 TBW for 1TB owners is still pretty standard considering it came out around eighteen months ago.
All in all, the Samsung 960 Evo is a pretty tempting SSD. It’s a huge leg up over traditional 2.5in SATA3-based SSDs, and much better value for money than the 960 Pro. It also looks a heck of a lot neater inside your PC case, too, as it slots right into your motherboard without the need for any extra cables. Just be aware that the 960 Evo doesn’t come with a mounting screw in the box, so you’ll need to buy one separately in order to fix it onto your board. While not technically necessary, it’s probably safer to have it secured than flapping around in the breeze. As long as you’ve got the right motherboard, then, the Samsung 960 Evo comes highly recommended.
Test & Review: Samsung SSD 960 EVO 1 TB — Mid-Range with NVMe
With the Samsung SSD 960 PRO, the Korean manufacturer introduced the fastest NVMe SSD for the consumer market. However, it costs quite decently, so it is not suitable for everyone. If you need a cheaper SSD, albeit a little slower, then pay attention to the Samsung SSD 960 EVO.
The drives differ primarily in terms of memory, since the 960 PRO is equipped with more expensive MLC chips, while the 960 EVO uses less expensive TLC memory. Anyway, 960 EVO is also aimed at the rapidly growing NVMe SSD market. How interesting is it in terms of price / quality ratio? You will learn about this in our article.
With the «PRO» addition, Samsung offers high-end drives, while the EVO line targets the mass market. The 960 EVO has replaced the 850 EVO, although it is very different. Recall that the 850 EVO belongs to the SATA SSD category (in versions 2.5 «and M.2), and the 960 EVO is available only in M.2 format with the NVMe protocol, the connection is made via four PCIe 3.0 lanes. Thus, we can expect Significantly higher levels of performance compared to previous generation drives that were bottlenecked by the SATA interface.0005
The biggest drawback of the M.2 format remains the limited storage capacity. If the Samsung SSD 850 EVO offers a capacity of up to 4TB, then the 960 EVO boasts only 1TB.
In the case of 960 PRO, the maximum capacity is higher — two TB.
Intel has also shown with recent 600p SSD models that NVMe drives can be quite cheap. In many tests, the Intel SSD proved to be faster than the SATA models, especially the serial data transfer rate wins. The price is at the level of SATA SSD, so it is quite interesting how the Samsung SSD 9 will perform60EVO.
The table shows the technical specifications:
| Manufacturer and model | Samsung SSD 960 EVO 1 TB |
|---|---|
| Price | from 460 euros |
| Manufacturer website | Samsung SSD 960 EVO |
| Specifications | |
| Form factor | M.2 |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x4 |
| Protocol | NVMe |
| Firmware | 1B7Q |
| Capacity (manufacturer’s information) | 1TB |
| Capacity (after formatting) | 932 GiB |
| Container options | 250, 500GB, 1TB |
| Cache | 512MB LPDDR3 |
| Controller | Samsung Polaris |
| Memory chips | TLC 3D NAND (Samsung) |
| Reading speed (manufacturer information) | 3. 200 MB/s |
| Write speed (manufacturer information) | 1.900 MB/s |
| Manufacturer’s warranty | Three years |
| Delivery set | — |
<>Test & Review: Samsung SSD 960 EVO 1 TB — Mid-Range with NVMe
Samsung SSD 960 EVO | In Detail
Samsung 970 Evo SSD Review 250 GB to 1 TB
2018 SSD Test Method0154 expensive ) solid state drives, in which the Samsung 960 Evo 1 TB SSD also took part. In the same place, we noted that for all the attractiveness of this family, it also has one serious drawback: only a three-year warranty. Even then it was known that this problem was fixed in the new 970 Evo family, but at that time we had not yet been able to get acquainted with the novelty in practice. Now such an opportunity has appeared, so we will not delay with its implementation.
Samsung V-NAND SSD 970 Evo 250 GB
Samsung V-NAND SSD 970 Evo 500 GB
Samsung V-NAND SSD 970 Evo 1 TB
The Evo was just three years old with a «mileage limit» of just 100TB for every 250GB of capacity, now it’s five years and 150TB respectively. It is clear that, in many ways, Samsung was forced to take this step, let’s say, by external circumstances: at the time the previous line appeared, the idea of a “fast SSD on TLC” was revolutionary in itself, and a three-year warranty was generally standard for TLC devices. Now, competitors have solved their problems with the production of 3D NAND, so they have “pulled themselves up” in terms of speed, and five-year warranties are increasingly being offered (regardless of the interface), so you have to match. Moreover, Samsung is striving to confirm its title of leader in the field of NAND flash, which has long mastered 3D NAND TLC and offers the market the next generation of it — on «cost-effective» 64-layer crystals of 256 Gbps.
Note that similar memory is also used in the already well-known 860 Evo line, but only in the younger modification, and 512 Gb crystals are used from 500 GB. Since line 970 Evo is positioned a level higher, it was decided not to save money: “large” crystals are used only in the 2 TB capacity modification. On the other hand, the company did not “strengthen” the junior modification of the line, although this was done not only in the 860 Pro, but also in the 960 Evo: there, 128 Gb crystals were used to build a 250 GB array, and in older models — the same 256 Gb, which is now. Thus, the younger model 970 Evo may turn out to be slower than the previous development, and even noticeably lag behind the older ones.
In addition, the size of the SLC cache, which is vital for TLC-memory drives, also depends on the full capacity. In the 970 Evo it is dynamic (as in the 960 Evo or 860 Evo): a small piece is allocated from the reserve pool of cells, to which, if possible, a part of the free pages of the main one is added.
The capacity of the dynamic part has not changed. it is 9 GB for every 250 GB of capacity. But the static part in the younger versions even decreased to 3 GB (it used to be 4 GB), remaining at the level of 6 GB only in the older versions of 1 and 2 TB. However, for model 970 Evo at 500 GB, this is not much of a problem: at full speed, this SSD can write more than 20 GB, which is enough for most practical scenarios, and only after that it will begin to “compress” data with a corresponding performance drop. With a capacity of 250 GB, the total cache capacity does not exceed 12 GB — more than many competitors (even larger capacities), but may not be enough in practice. We’ll check a little later.
For now, it remains to be said that the new line uses the new Phoenix controller, which is also used in top-end drives. However, this also applies to the previous development (Polaris), and in general the models are very similar — five-core eight-channel. True, as we have already written more than once, there is not much point in being strongly «attached» to Samsung controllers: the company’s products fully comply with Juche, so both controllers and memory are found only in combinations that Samsung seems to be optimal, and one under the other can be «customized» to a certain extent in the production process, not only at the software level.
Such vertical development is one of the reasons for Samsung’s success in the market, so any change in concept would be strange. They are not: in fact, the buyer gets the finished device, and the new line gradually replaces the old one. And even without changing the speed performance, the new line looks more advantageous — just progress in warranty conditions is already enough. But the speed, however, we will check.
Competitors
Of course, we will compare the novelty with some other devices — both Samsung and other manufacturers. As for the former, we previously tested the 1TB 960 Evo and 512GB 960 Pro, and in some scenarios the former was faster, despite the formally lower positioning. Accordingly, it is interesting to see how the 970 Evo 1 TB looks against the background of this pair. But for comparison with the younger modifications of the new line, we can use a pair of Intel 760p drives of the same capacity, since these are devices of a similar class: comparable in price and with similar warranty conditions.
And the speed indicators in Intel 760p «pulled up» to a good level — in contrast to the rather indistinct Intel 600p, which had to compete with 960 Evo.
Testing
Testing procedure
The procedure is described in detail in separate article . There you can get acquainted with the hardware and software used.
Performance in applications
As usual, the high-level results of all participants are approximately equal — a budget SATA drive is almost never a bottleneck in the system, but we, nevertheless, today work with a higher class SSD. Now, if we remove the delays that occur due to the fault of other components of the system, something can already be compared. And it is clearly seen that it does not go beyond the limits of one’s class — 9The 60 Pro, even at its lowest capacity, remains the fastest Samsung drive we’ve tested. We did not test its successor in the face of the 970 Pro, but it is clear that it will work at least no slower.
However, if we consider only drives based on TLC memory, then the Evo line remains one of the fastest on the market, and the change of generations has only strengthened its position. In fact, if even the older 960 Evo has already begun to yield slightly to some of the newer developments of competitors, then even the younger 9The 70 Evo is already reaching a similar level. Older modifications are even faster. Again, in practice, it is still difficult to realize the potential performance of these devices, since application software is written based on much lower speeds. But a lot is not a little.
Sequential operations
The speed of sequential operations is something akin to the amount of memory on video cards: both make a certain contribution to the overall performance, but not at all a priority. However, many buyers pay attention to both, so manufacturers continue to compete in such parameters. And in this regard, one cannot fail to note a radical increase in reading speed compared to its predecessors — in fact, even 960 Pro does not shine compared to the new products.
But this is understandable — in comparison with many competing developments, he also stopped “shine”, which needed to be corrected. Moreover, it was not so difficult to do — after all, such scenarios practically do not depend on the type of memory, and the interface has a solid performance margin. The company took full advantage of all this when creating new controllers, used, in particular, in the 970 Evo.
But with recording, the situation is much more complicated — the native speed of TLC memory is still not that high. SLC caching comes to the rescue, but by increasing the working area to 16 GB in the test method, we are sometimes already able to “defeat” it. This is what is observed in the example of the younger modification — which, recall, can «accept» no more than 12 GB of data at full speed: this is the maximum capacity of the SLC cache in it (3 GB of the statistical part and about 9GB dynamic — if there is free space). But then you need to write directly to the flash memory array, which, with such a capacity, is also the slowest (compared to others), since it is impossible to evenly “load” all eight channels of the controller.
But compared to competing designs, it is not so slow, it should be noted, so the 250 GB 970 Evo turns out to be the slowest in the line, but one of the fastest NVMe SSDs on TLC memory of the same capacity. But if you increase it, the maximum cache size also increases — up to 21 GB (with a full 500 GB) or even up to 42 GB (in a terabyte drive). Accordingly, in these cases, we are actually testing only the cache. However, with such a capacity, it can be argued that in practical scenarios, all write operations will “fall” into it. Yes, and in the smallest 970 Evo, this will happen at least in half of the cases, or even more often — it is not often necessary to write down tens of gigabytes of information at once in a regular personal computer.
Random access
As expected, the read performance in the most parallelized mode depends almost linearly on the drive capacity, since all modifications use the same flash memory chips, but in different numbers. However, there is no particular superiority over the previous development, and in the «extra long» queue mode 970 Evo has become even slower.
However, this is quite synthetic — at the moment, situations when some application manages to generate hundreds of commands in one thread are practically never found, not only in desktop systems. Why manufacturers do not optimize this scenario too much.
When writing, we once again observe the high efficiency of SLC caching in high-capacity models — which, in general, was also inherent in the 960 Evo. The smallest representative of the new line, as expected, does not show records, but «keeps» at a normal level for this market segment. Let this in itself not be too high.
Note that with “less degenerate” scenarios (and queues of 4-16 commands on one thread are much more realistic than 1×512 or 8×8), the picture is generally similar, but there are nuances: peak performance achievable in older modifications, lower, but the younger 970 Evo 250 GB lags behind them to a lesser extent. When compared with many competitors, it may turn out to be the fastest.
Curiously, when working with large block sizes, performance is inversely proportional to capacity.
However, its absolute level is not bad, and the drives did not become worse than their predecessor. Even in theory — in practice, mass software, as has been said more than once, is still unable to «digest» such speeds, so for drives of this class this is rather a result «for the future».
Working with large files
The speed of sequential reading in the new family has increased, and this is noticeable not only in low-level utilities. And that’s good 🙂
The situation is a bit more complicated with recording, because there is not always enough capacity of the SLC cache. However, in this position, all devices of this class. And in it, the 970 Evo retains the title of «first among equals.»
Yes, the situation is similar with simultaneous write and read operations. And the most curious thing here is that terabyte 970 Evo began to work much faster than the representative of the previous line, similar in capacity, with pseudo-random access. In general, even in such scenarios, it is obvious that the 970 Evo is really a serious revision of the previous line, and not just new memory.
Ratings
The logical result: in terms of the speed of performing low-level operations, representatives of the 970 Evo line are able not only to overtake their immediate predecessors, but also to do so even with a smaller capacity. Yes, and with competitors (far from the weakest), this also often “rolls”. And given that the main problem of the previous family has been fixed (which was not related to technical issues at all), this makes all models 970 Evo is very attractive.
The same goes for the overall rating, where the 970 Evo 250 GB compares to many half-terabyte models, while the 500 GB model beats them all. The 970 Evo 1 TB is not much faster, but with its capacity it doesn’t matter anymore 🙂
Prices
The table shows the average retail prices of SSDs tested today, relevant at the time you read this article:
Total
In principle, we did not plan to make any discoveries: since 9The 70 Evo replaces the 960 Evo, the new models should be as good as the old ones.
The fact that they are better not only in terms of warranty, but also in terms of speed is just a nice addition. So far, there are few times when it is possible to dispose of such performance, but it definitely will not interfere. Especially if we talk about modifications of the 970 Evo with a capacity of 500 GB or more, which look great not only against the background of their immediate predecessors, but also in comparison with the more expensive drives of the 960 Pro family. However, this will not cause any “skew” in the Samsung assortment, since the series 9The 60 Pro is also being replaced by the 970 Pro, where the controller is the same as in the Evo, but the memory is faster and more enduring.
The 970 Evo 250 GB model, as expected, stands apart in the line — it is noticeably slower than older models. However, it is more correct to compare it not with them, but with other drives of the same capacity, including those with a SATA interface — and in such a comparison, this drive is almost always faster, competing on equal terms only with direct competitors from the NVMe segment (and even they are usually overtaken).
