The Samsung 980 PRO NVMe SSD, first released in September 2020, is the flagship upgrade to the 970 PRO of mid-2018.
What's most significant, the new internal storage device is the electronic giant's first consumer-grade NVMe SSD that supports the latest PCIe 4.0 standard instead of the popular decade-old PCIe 3.0.
And in my testing, the drive worked well with either standard and proved to be the speediest SSD to date when used with the former.
To cut to the chase, if you're looking to give your computer a performance boost, this new Samsung is an excellent buy. The drive is reasonably priced, too, costing $89.99, $149.99, $229.99, and $429.99 for 250 GB, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB respectively. The new 980 PRO has a significantly lower cost per gig ratio than the 970 PRO. I recommend it.
Dong's note: I first published this review on September 22, 2020, and updated it on January 29, 2021, with the release of the 2TB version.
Samsung 980 PRO: The new era of PCIe 4.0 NVMe is here
The Samsung 980 PRO is easily one of the most significant upgrades. It's one of the first on the market that uses the new PCIe 4.0 standard with up to some 7000 megabytes per second bandwidth.
PCIe Gen | Commercially Available | Rate per lane (rounded) | x1 Speed | x2 Speed | x4 Speed | x8 Speed | x16 Speed |
1 | 2003 | 2 Gbps | 250 MB/s | 0.5 GB/s | 1.0 GB/s | 2 GB/s | 4.0 GB/s |
2 | 2007 | 4 Gbps | 500 MB/s | 1 GB/s | 2.0 GB/s | 4 GB/s | 8.0 GB/s |
3 | 2010 | 8 Gbps | 984.6 MB/s | 1.97 GB/s | 3.94 GB/s | 7.88 GB/s | 15.8 GB/s |
4 | 2020 | 16 Gbps | 1969 MB/s | 3.94 GB/s | 7.88 GB/s | 15.75 GB/s | 31.5 GB/s |
5 | 2022 | 32 Gbps | 3938 MB/s | 7.88 GB/s | 15.75 GB/s | 31.51 GB/s | 63 GB/s |
Note: 1 Gigabyte per second (GB/s) = 1000 Megabyte per second (MB/s) | 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) = 125 MB/s
PCIe 4.0 first became available in 2017, but its rate of adoption has been slow. That's self-evident since we need to wait until now to start seeing applications like the 980 PRO. But it's better late than never.
By the way, the new SSD works with PCIe 3.0, too, but at slower performance. In other words, you can use it in any place where any existing NVMe drive fits.
Hardware specifications: Samsung 980 PRO vs. 970 PRO
The 980 PRO looks almost identical to the 970 PRO. The two share the same design and many features and can work interchangeably. What sets them apart is their performance grade.
Samsung SSD 980 PRO | Samsung SSD 970 PRO | |
Capacities | 250GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB | 512GB, 1TB |
Interface | PCIe 4.0 x4, NVMe 1.3c | PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3 |
Design | M.2 (2280) | M.2 (2280) |
Controller | Samsung Elpis Controller | Samsung Phoenix Controller |
NAND Flash Memory | Samsung 1xx-layer V-NAND 3-bit MLC | Samsung 3rd-Gen V-NAND 2-bit MLC |
Cache | DDR4 512MB (500GB, 250GB) 1GB (1TB) 2GB (2TB) | DDR 4 512MB (512GB) 1GB (1TB) |
Security | AES 256-bit Full Disk Encryption, TCG/Opal V2.0, Encrypted Drive (IEEE1667) | AES 256-bit Full Disk Encryption, TCG/Opal V2.0, Encrypted Drive (IEEE1667) |
Sequential Read | Up to 7,000 MB/s | Up to 3,500MB/s |
Sequential Write | Up to 5,000 MB/s | Up to 2,700MB/s |
Random Read (QD32 Thread 4) | Up to 1,000K IOPS | Up to 500K IOPS |
Random Write (QD32 Thread 4) | Up to 1,000K IOPS | Up to 500K IOPS |
Endurance (Terabyte Written) | 1200TBW (2TB) 600TBW (1TB) 300TBW (500GB) 150TBW (250GB) | 1200TBW (1TB) 600TBW (512GB) |
Software | Samsung Magician | Samsung Magician |
Warranty | 5 years | 5 years |
Faster speeds, but half the endurance
Per the hardware specs of PCIe 4.0, the 980 PRO can deliver twice the previous model's performance. In return, though, it has just half the endurance rating. That's because, on the inside, it uses a new and more affordable type of flash memory.
Specifically, you can write up to 600TB to the 1TB version before it becomes unreliable, compared to 1200TB of the 970 PRO.
It's always disappointing to have a lower endurance rating, but it's important to note that the 970 PRO's endurance level is quite extreme. That said, the 980 PRO has plenty of life, and chances are you will need to replace your computer way before you have to worry about its longevity.
Indeed, if you write some 50GB, which is a lot of data, a day and do that every day to the 1TB version, it'll take some 30 years to wear the drive out. If you use the 500GB or 250GB versions, you'll still need 15 years and 7.5 years, respectively.
At the minimum, Samsung gives the drive a generous 5-year warranty.
Samsung 980 PRO’s detail photos
A familiar SSD at heart
Despite supporting the next-gen PCIe, the Samsung 980 PRO is a familiar NVMe SSD. It comes in the standard 2280 designโit's 22 mm wide and 80 mm longโand requires an M.2 slot to work. The drive is single-sidedโincluding the 2TB version. It's skinny and will fit in any NVMe application.
On the inside, the new SSD features the same security features as the 970 PRO and also uses Samsungโs Dynamic Thermal Guard technology to keep its temperature down during heavy operations.
What's more, the new drive also uses the helpful Samsung Magician software, which allows users to manage many aspects of the SSD's performance and status. These include overprovisioning, performance testing, firmware updates, and a lot more.
Samsung 980 PRO: Excellent performance
And the 980 PRO is fast. I tested the 500GB and TB versionsโboth deliver the same performance.
The drive easily topped the charts when used with PCIe 4.0. In tests with PCIe 3.0, it wasn't the fastest consistently but clearly among the best.
Indeed, it's the first SSD I've worked with that has the sustained speed of some 1500 MB/s when doing both writings and reading simultaneously via PCIe 3.0. Add another 150 MB/s when you use it with PCIe 4.0.
In all, the drive got sustained speeds of some 4000 MB/s and 5600 MB/s for writing and reading, respectively, about twice the overage rates of most older NVMe drives.
In the random access test, the 980 PRO was also the fastest I've seen in NVMe with PCIe 4.0. When used with PCIe 3.0, the drive was slightly slower than the SK hynix Gold P31 but was faster than the rest.
The differences between PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 weren't as acute as in the copy tests, but the new drive also had twice the performance of many PCIe 3.0 alternatives.
As in real-world usage, the new SSD was impressive, too. I've been using the 970 PRO as my go-to SSD and didn't expect much of a difference. But the 980 PRO indeed cut the boot time by a few seconds. On top of that, games and heavy software, like Photoshop, took noticeably shorter times to load.
To put it in perspective, after the testing, I moved back to the 970 PRO, and after a couple of hours, I decided to swap it out again for the 980 PRO. It has a kind performance that grows on you quickly.
Samsung 980 PRO's Rating
Pros
PCIe 4.0 support, excellent performance
Reasonably priced
Backward compatible with PCIe Gen 3
Helpful Samsung Magician software with lots of useful settings and features
5-year warranty
Cons
Half the endurance rating of the 970 PRO
No larger capacities than 2TB
Conclusion
Without a doubt, the Samsung 980 PRO NVMe SSD is an excellent upgrade to the already excellent 970 PRO.
While the reduction of endurance sure is disappointing, the gain in performance alone more than makes up for that. And its friendly pricing is a pleasant surprise.
If your computer support PCIe 4.0, this new SSD is a must-have for those with a PCIe 4.0-ready motherboard. Get it!
Do you recommend a heatsink/fan? If so, what brand?
Nope, Mike. Don’t waste money on that kind of accessories.
I bought a cheap generic one on amazon, and definitely reduced the temperature by 4 to 5 Celsius. But I would agree, totally unnecessary.
Thanks!
The mp600 pro and sabrent plus both use the new phison controller and kioxia tlc. The 980pro uses MLC. Apparently the sabrent and mp600 pro suffer degraded performance once saturated sooner. But a proper head to head test will be good. I do not know why the MLC Samsung has half rated endurance than TLC Corsair. The lower end Force drive sacrifices some speed for double endurance.
Interesting! Thanks for the input, Chris.
what m/board with PCIE4.0 were you using for testing?
It’s an Asus Strix Gaming board, Andy.
Thanks for the review. Any insight/comparison against the newly announced MP600 Pro, which has increased TBW and slightly faster write speeds, but less IOPS?
I haven’t tested the MP600 yet, Brandon. Chances are they’re similar.
Then all those durability numbers are a bunch of total bs.
I have my 500gb 970 pro, and I have already written more than 2 times the supposedly 600tb lifespan and it is still working perfectly. Heavy duty torrenting.
They just estimate, Piticli. If you keep the TRIM, and overprovisioning set up correctly, the drive can last much longer. 600TB is ALOT of data by the way. I mean you must have been writing a crazy amount daily.
I pay for the unlimited data, sometimes I saw half terabyte used in one day torrenting lol. Also move lots of stuff around. I got mine since May 2018. So many people scared about longevity. They shouldn’t, especially with tools like Samsung magician.