Today Samsung Electronics introduced the third generation of its consumer SSD line with the release of the 970 Pro and 970 Evo. Both utilize the latest V-NAND technology available and feature new Phoenix controllers.
Following in the footsteps of the previous generation, both NVMe SSDs are built on the M.2 form factor and retain the same PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. Thanks to the new controller, sequential write speeds have improved by up to 30 percent compared to the 960 series.
The 970 Evo is equipped with a buffer of up to 78GB to help increase write speeds.
Similar to last generation, both drives are given high expectations for reliability and write endurance. Each ships with a five-year warranty or up to 1,200TB worth of writes on the largest capacity models (a 50 percent increase in write capacity over last year's models). A nickel-coating on the controller has been added along with a heat spreader to keep temperatures down and performance up.
Samsung rates the 970 Pro at 3,500 MB/s and 2,700 MB/s for sequential read and write speeds, respectively. The 970 Evo keeps the same read speed but drops slightly to 2,500 MB/s for write. A similar trend is followed for random reads and writes with the 970 Pro at 500,000 / 500,000 IOPS and the 970 EVO at 500,000 / 480,000 IOPS.
The following table shows the write endurance and capacities of available drive models. The 970 Pro comes in either 512GB or 1TB while 970 Evo ranges from 250GB up to 2TB. The key differentiating factor between the two models is the higher write endurance on the Pro series. The 970 Pro utilizes 2-bit MLC V-NAND compared to the 3-bit MLC V-NAND found on the EVO series.
| Capacity | 970 Pro | 970 EVO |
| 250GB | - | 150TB |
| 500GB | - | 300TB |
| 512GB | 600TB | - |
| 1TB | 1TB | 600TB |
| 2TB | - | 1,200TB |
Samsung's SSD 960 Evo was recently selected by TechSpot staff as the best enthusiast SSD you can buy - high praise considering it was originally released back in 2016. The competition has narrowed the gap recently but with these new drives, Samsung may have extended its lead once again.
Both models will be available for purchase worldwide beginning on May 7. Evo models will start at $119.99 for the 250GB model with the Pro series starting at $329.99 for the 512GB option.
https://www.techspot.com/news/74297-samsung-introduces-970-pro-evo-series-nvme-ssds.html
