If you just purchased a 960 EVO or Pro series NVMEs SSD from Samsung, well Samsung is working on a 980 series already. The new Next-Gen PM981 just appeared online.
Like the new 980 models will be an NVME product with a high layered NAND count. The 980 series have been spotted over at Toms who notes that the new NVMe SSDs appeared on the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory NVMe Integrator's list. The retail drives are labeled NVMe 97X and 98X.
Samsung would release the two products around the January time frame, using new 64-layer 3-bit per cell V-NAND memory. NVMe drives carry the label PM981 which would be TLC written and thus might become the EVO series.
The new models would make use of a new Samsung Polaris Gen 2 controller are capable of delivering 3,000 MB/s and 3,200 MB/s sequential read speeds (for the 512 GB and 1 TB versions) and 1,800 MB/s and 2,400 MB/s sequential write, respectively. Random 4KB numbers run up to 380,000 IOPS read and 440,000 IOPS write, which is pretty crazy. The photos show a green PCB, these would be the OEM versions.
| Product | PM981 512GB | PM981 1TB |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing (USD) | $233 | $439 |
| Part Number | MZVLB512HAJQ-0000 | MZVLB1T10HALR-0000 |
| Form Factor | 2280 SS | 2280 SS |
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x4 | PCIe 3.0 x4 |
| Controller | Samsung Polaris V2 | Samsung Polaris V2 |
| Flash | Samsung 64-Layer TLC | Samsung 64-Layer TLC |
| Sequential Read | 3,000 MB/s | 3,200 MB/s |
| Sequential Write | 1,800 MB/s | 2,400 MB/s |
| Random Read | 270,000 IOPS | 380,000 IOPS |
| Random Write | 420,000 IOPS | 440,000 IOPS |
The specs are so specific as these models appeared at a Vietnamese retailer who actually already listed them at $233 and $439 .
Spotted: Samsungs Next-Gen PM981 NVMe SSD
