Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB NVMe M.2. SSD review

Memory (DDR4/DDR5) and Storage (SSD/NVMe) 367 Page 2 of 21 Published by

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Specifications & Features

Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus Specs & Features

Samsung is to offer four versions of the new 970 EVO Plus, the 250 GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB models. The 970 series will come with 3D NAND flash memory from Samsung's latest revision V-NAND node (vertically stacked NAND). The EVO Plus series will be fitted with V-NAND written as 3bit per cell and the new NAND is listed at a blistering fast 500µs (microseconds) .

So what is V-NAND? 

V-NAND is a physically vertical NAND cell stacking not to be confused with chip stacking in a multi-chip package. In V-NAND, NAND layers, not chips, are stacked in a single IC. The good news is continued cost reduction, smaller die sizes and more capacity per NAND chip. Also, installed NAND toolsets in the wafer fabs can, for the most part, be reused, thereby extending the useful life of fab equipment. Current V-NAND stacks have 64 and the newest is 96 cell layers vertically over one another, rather than decreasing cell dimensions to fit onto a fixed horizontal space, resulting in higher density and better performance with a smaller footprint. With the M.2 form factor SSDs, more consumers with desktops or ultra-thin PCs can benefit from best-in-class performance and reliability of the technology. We started at 32-layers, the 960 series was 48-layers, last year's 970 series has 64-layers. And now have reached 96-layers. 

TLC or MLC NAND?

Samsung refers to this as MLC VNAND for the EVO line which is confusing and yes a little shady, it really is TLC but .. Triple-level cells (TLC) and future quad-level cells (QLC) are ALL versions of MLC memory, which can store 3 and 4 bits per cell, respectively. Note that due to the convention, the name "multi-level cell" is sometimes used specifically to refer to the "two-level cell", which is confusing. Overall, the NAND memories are named as follows:

  1. SLC (1 bit per cell written) - fastest, highest cost
  2. MLC (2 bits per cell written)
  3. TLC (3 bits per cell written)
  4. QLC (4 bits per cell written) - slowest, least cost

What is NVMe?

NVMe is also known as Non-Volatile Memory Express or the Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification. The idea behind NVMe is to improve the storage stack by optimizing the way an application accesses a Flash device. NVMe cuts corners by removing components within the I/O path like that good old-fashioned RAID controller. To be able to make use of the new NVMe based devices inside your PC you have to have a proper driver installed, this can be downloaded at the Samsung website. This enables NVMe devices to function within the existing operating system I/O stack protocol. On the next page, we'll talk a little more about NVMe. But let's have a quick peek at the key specifications of the new 970 series:


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  970 Pro (1TB)
970 EVO Plus 
(1TB / 2TB)
970 EVO (1TB)
960 Pro (1TB)
960 EVO (1TB)
950 Pro (1TB)
Form Factor M.2 2280 M.2 2280 M.2 2280 M.2 2280 M.2 2280 M.2 2280
Controller Samsung Phoenix Samsung Phoenix Samsung Phoenix Samsung Polaris Samsung Polaris Samsung UBX
Interface PCIe 3.0 x4 PCIe 3.0 x4 PCIe 3.0 x4 PCIe 3.0 x4 PCIe 3.0 x4 PCIe 3.0 x4
Protocol NVMe 1.3 NVMe 1.3 NVMe 1.3 NVMe 1.2 NVMe 1.2 NVMe
DRAM (up-to) 2GB LP DDR3 1GB / 2GB LP DDR4 1GB LP DDR3 1GB LP DDR3 1GB LP DDR3 512MB
NAND Samsung V-NAND 64-layer 2bit MLC Samsung V-NAND 96-layer 3bit MLC Samsung V-NAND 64-layer 3bit MLC Samsung V-NAND 48-layer 128Gbit MLC Samsung V-NAND 3bit MLC  Samsung V-NAND 32-layer 128Gbit MLC
Sequential Read 3,400MB/s 3,500MB/s 3,500MB/s 3,500MB/s 3,200MB/s 2,500MB/s
Sequential Write 2,700MB/s 3,200MB/s 2,500MB/s 2,100MB/s 1,900MB/s 1,500MB/s
4KB Random Read (QD32) 500K IOPS 600K IOPS 500K IOPS 440K IOPS 380K IOPS 300K IOPS
4KB Random Write (QD32) 500K IOPS 550K IOPS 480K IOPS 360K IOPS 360K IOPS 110K IOPS
Power 5.4W (burst)
4.2 W (average)
50mW  (idle)
7.3W (burst)
6W (average)
30mW  (idle)
7.3W (burst)
5.2W (average)
40mW  (idle)
7.3W (burst)
5.2W (average)
40mW  (idle)
7.3W (burst)
5.5W (average)
40mW  (idle)
7.0W (burst)
5.7W (average)
1.7W (idle)
Encryption AES-256, TCG Opal 2.0 AES-256, TCG Opal 2.0 AES-256, TCG Opal 2.0 AES-256, TCG Opal 2.0 AES-256, TCG Opal 2.0 AES-256, TCG Opal 2.0
Endurance 1200 TB 600 TB / 1200 TB 600 TB 600TB 400TB 400TB
Warranty 5 Year 5 Year 5 Year 5 Year 3 Year 5 Year
Launch Date April 2018 January 2019 April 2018 October 2016 November 2016 October 2015
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For the somewhat more affordable EVO series, these remain really impressive numbers. Please keep in kind that the specs listed above are for the 1TB model. Smaller models will have slightly lower reads and writes. Granted reads wise, it's not hugely faster over the 960 series though. Writes wise you'll see a nice improvement alright, especially sustained and 4K IOPS.

Samsung achieves the new write rates thanks to it's large and fast DRAM buffers, the SSD also makes use of an SLC written partition (TurboWrite), used as cache/buffer. Samsungs Intelligent TurboWrite buffer size varies based on the capacity of the SSD: e.g that could be 13GB for 250GB model, 22GB for 500GB model, 42GB for 1TB model and 78GB for 2TB model. You'll notice a new glossy metal shielded controller, that's done to prevent the SSD from throttling, Samsung now applies a Nickel-coated controller. The nickel coating helps reduces overheating and thus throttling. 

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