The Samsung 970 EVO Plus (250GB, 1TB) NVMe SSD Review: 92-Layer 3D NAND
by Billy Tallis on January 22, 2019 10:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Heavy
Our Heavy storage benchmark is proportionally more write-heavy than The Destroyer, but much shorter overall. The total writes in the Heavy test aren't enough to fill the drive, so performance never drops down to steady state. This test is far more representative of a power user's day to day usage, and is heavily influenced by the drive's peak performance. The Heavy workload test details can be found here. This test is run twice, once on a freshly erased drive and once after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The Samsung 970 EVO Plus does not significantly improve on the best data rates we've seen from TLC SSDs on the Heavy test, and the 250GB model in particular is way behind the 240GB ADATA SX8200. However, the 970 EVO Plus does deliver class-leading full drive performance.
(Our 1TB 970 EVO persistently underperforms expectations when the Heavy test is run on an empty drive, with unusually high read latencies. The drive does not report any media or data integrity errors, and the other 970 EVO and 970 EVO Plus drives do not exhibit this behavior.)
The 1TB 970 EVO Plus turns in great average and 99th percentile latency scores, with the averages on par with the Intel Optane 900P and 99th percentile latency that clearly beats the Optane SSD when the test is run on an empty drive. The 250GB 970 EVO Plus compares favorably with most of the other drives in its capacity class, but the ADATA SX8200 comes out well ahead when the test is run on an empty drive, at the cost of much worse full-drive performance.
Both capacities of the 970 EVO Plus turn in great average read latency scores, but the average write latencies show a very clear division between the 1TB and 250GB classes. The 1TB 970 EVO Plus leads its class for average write latency while the 250GB model is overshadowed by the empty-drive performance of the ADATA SX8200.
The 99th percentile read and write latency scores both show relatively clear separation between the 1TB and 250GB NVMe drives. The 1TB 970 EVO Plus has excellent 99th percentile write latency but somewhat worse 99th percentile read latency than most of its competition. The 250GB model again looks much better than most of its competition.
The 970 EVO Plus uses a bit more energy during the Heavy test than its predecessor, keeping it at the bottom of the list while the WD Black SN750 only needs half the energy and several other competitors are well ahead of Samsung.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
35 Comments
View All Comments
kgardas - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Thanks for explanation! Actually makes sense indeed. This would also mean that if your workflow is read dominated and you are sensitive on latency than RAID1 of SATA drives may be faster than NVMe. At least if SATA/SAS chip is not a crap.ikjadoon - Tuesday, January 22, 2019 - link
Even a SATA SSD could pump 4 kB random read numbers up, but it'd require pricey SLC. MLC and TLC both have 2x to 4x slower page reads to register vs SLC.latency source: https://www.anandtech.com/show/6337/samsung-ssd-84...
Still, TLC 4 kB random has improved, but not by "leaps and bounds" like 4K write has. The 970 EVO Plus has 53% faster random 4kB reads (sustained) than the MX 500. And even a 960 PRO has 76% faster 4kB reads (sustained) than the MX500.
FWIW, random 4K read performance (both burst and sustained) doesn't benefit much of anything from parallelization. https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2229?vs=21... The 250 GB and 1 TB 960 EVO have identical 4K read performance, i.e. within 0.75%. Random 4K write and larger page sizes are about 2x faster on the 1 TB model, however.
Can't vouch for accuracy, but this answer sounds right: https://superuser.com/questions/1168014/nvme-ssd-w...
Alistair - Tuesday, January 22, 2019 - link
The performance is amazing, and I've been buying the 1TB SX8200 for $180 USD before tax. Nothing beats that still.Dark_wizzie - Tuesday, January 22, 2019 - link
1tb ex820 for $160 after tax and shipping beats it.palindrome - Tuesday, January 22, 2019 - link
You mean EX920 and it has been as low as $153 recently (before tax).gglaw - Tuesday, January 22, 2019 - link
Not too long ago it was $135 twice with the Ebay and Rakuten 15% coupons. $155 range seems almost every other week now and frequent enough I'd even consider it the typical selling price. (Very few people who follow tech would actually pay $180 for it). Can't beat this for consumer use with the small performance differences with current gen drives. When the EX950 and SX8200 Pro phase it out and drop to the same price points, they'll replace it as best consumer deals so I don't see the new Samsung or WD having a place in my line-up.If for some purpose I can find a use for something more expensive, it'd have to be the next gen 970 Pro (Plus?) if it's a major upgrade.
** A - R ** - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronic...Billy, Specs in the official site mentions MLC, here I see it's TLC ! ?
Could You please verify it.
olafgarten - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
It says 3 bit MLC, meaning TLC.mortenge - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
Why do you bring Optain into the mix and not the 970 PRO, when all we care about is EVO vs PRO?alfatekpt - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
The review should include 970 EVO 250GB numbers for comparison.