The Samsung 970 EVO and Samsung 970 PRO reprsent the third generation of their consumer solid state drive (SSD) product line. The 970 EVO and PRO are M.2 drives with the latest PCIe Gen 3×4 lane interface. The Samsung 970 series will maximize the NVMe bandwidth that can be utilized in 3D, 4K graphic, high-end games and data analytics applications.
The 970 PRO will allow for sequential read speeds up to 3,500 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 2,700 MB/s, while the Samsung 970 EVO will feature the same sequential read speed of up to 3,500 MB/s, but a sequential write speed of up to 2,500MB/s.
This is approximately a 30% increase over the previous generation with the help of the newly designed Phoenix controller. The 970 EVO will utilize Intelligent TurboWrite technology that makes use of a larger buffer of up to 78GB to enable faster writes.
Another upgrade from the previous generation is increased endurance and reliability of the drive with up to 1,200 terabytes of written data. It goes in hand with the 5-year warranty that Samsung offers on this series. The Samsung 970 series also has Dynamic Thermal Guard technology to reduce overheating by automatically monitoring optimal operating temperatures while a heat spreader and new nickel-coated controller helps reduce overall SSD temperatures.
| 970 PRO | 970 EVO | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 NVMe 1.3 | |
| Form Factor | M.2 (2280) | |
| Storage Memory | Samsung V-NAND 2-bit MLC | |
| Controller | Samsung Phoenix | |
| Cache Memory | 1GB LPDDR4 DRAM (1TB) 512MB LPDDR4 DRAM (512GB) |
2GB LPDDR4 DRAM (2TB) 1GB LPDDR4 DRAM (1TB) 512MB LPDDR4 DRAM (250GB/500GB) |
| Capacity | 512GB and 1TB | 25GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB |
| Seq. Read/Write | Up to 3,500/2,700 MB/s | Up to 2,500/2,500 MB/s |
| Ran. Read/Write | Up to 500k/500k IOPS | Up to 500k/480k IOPS |
| Data Encryption | AES 256-bit Full Disk Encryption, TCG/Opal V2.0, Encrypted Drive (IEEE1667) | |
| Total Bytes Written | 1,2000 TB (1TB) 600TB (512GB) |
1,2000 TB (2TB) 600TB (1TB) 300TB(500GB) 150TB(250GB) |
| Warranty | Five-year Limited Warranty | |
The Samsung 970 EVO will be offered in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities, whereas the 970 PRO will come in a 512GB and 1TB capacity. The 970 PRO will start at $429.99 CDN and the EVO will start at $159.99 CDN.