Samsung SSD 970 PRO NVMe 512GB SSD Review
Final Thoughts & Conclusions
The release of the Samsung Samsung 970 PRO further solidifies Samsung’s position in the high-end consumer Solid State Drive (SSD) market. The Samsung SSD 970 PRO represents the best drive that Samsung can produce and is aimed at enthusiasts, power users and those that are willing to pay for the best whether they need the product or not. The performance difference between Samsung SSD 960 PRO 512GB drive that came out in 2016 and this year’s Samsung SSD 970 PRO 512GB was decent in some areas. Both sequential and random read/write performance was improved by double digits in some areas. The Intel Optane SSD 900P series was competitive in some areas, but the 900P 480GB drive is $564.72 or $235 more than the Samsung SSD 970 PRO 512GB at it’s MSRP of $329.99. Overall, the Samsung SSD 970 PRO appears to be the best performing high-end drive and isn’t priced out of line.
The Samsung SSD 970 PRO is not going to be the drive for everyone and that is because the performance difference between the 970 EVO series and 970 PRO series isn’t going to be large enough to compensate for the up-charge for the 2-bit MLC V-NAND used on the PRO over the 3-bit TLC V-NAND used on the EVO. Samsung didn’t send us the 970 EVO 500GB model though, so we weren’t able to include that model in our review today.
Samsung SSD 970 EVO Pricing
- Samsung SSD 970 EVO 250GB: $119.99
- Samsung SSD 970 EVO 500GB: $229.99
- Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB: $449.99
- Samsung SSD 970 EVO 2TB: $849.99
Samsung SSD 970 PRO Pricing
- Samsung SSD 970 PRO 512GB: $329.99
- Samsung SSD 970 PRO 1TB: $629.99
The Samsung SSD 970 PRO 512GB drive has a $329.99 MSRP and that is $100 more than the Samsung SSD 970 EVO 500GB drives MSRP of $229.99. Are you willing to pay $100 or 43% more to step up from the EVO series to the PRO? The 970 PRO 512GB has sequential read speeds of up to 3,500 MB/s and sequential write speed of up to 2,300 MB/s, while the EVO 500GB features sequential read speed of up to 3,400 MB/s and sequential write speed of up to 2,300 MB/s. Both the 970 PRO 512GB and 970 EVO 500GB have QD1 random reads of up 15,000 IOPS and the EVO tops out at 50,000 IOPS write versus the 55,000 IOPS write on the PRO drive. The sequential and low queue depth 4K random performance are virtually identical and that makes sense as you have the same PCB, controller and amount of DRAM cache memory. The big difference between these series is that the 970 PRO has twice the endurance (600 TBW versus 300 TBW) and can better handle long sustained write operations.
So, at the end of the day the Samsung SSD 970 PRO is designed for those moving massive amount of data. Those people would be the ones with large capacity workflows like editing 4K/8K video content and working with big data analytics. The Samsung SSD 970 PRO is for those that want to make sure they have the best NVMe storage solution right now that will allow them to handle the workflows of today and likely tomorrow.
When the Samsung SSD 970 PRO drive series is available for purchase we know many will be waiting to buy it.
Legit Bottom Line: The Samsung SSD 970 PRO is the best performing M.2 PCIe NVMe drive on the market!