The Samsung SSD 980 (500GB & 1TB) Review: Samsung's Entry NVMe

Burst IO Performance

Our burst IO tests operate at queue depth 1 and perform several short data transfers interspersed with idle time. The random read and write tests consist of 32 bursts of up to 64MB each. The sequential read and write tests use eight bursts of up to 128MB each. For more details, please see the overview of our 2021 Consumer SSD Benchmark Suite.

Random Read	Random Write
Sequential Read	Sequential Write

Given that the Samsung SSD 980 is a DRAMless drive with aggressive SLC caching, it's no surprise to see that most of the burst IO scores show a big difference between testing a small slice of a mostly-empty drive and testing across an 80% full drive. The test runs with the NVMe Host Memory Buffer feature disabled also show how important that is to enabling random IO performance. In the best cases, the SSD 980 even manages to deliver better QD1 random read performance than the 980 PRO. However, when testing against a large data set (or with HMB disabled), the SSD 980's performance only remains competitive for sequential reads. For the other IO patterns, its performance drops far more than typical for entry-level drives.

Sustained IO Performance

Our sustained IO tests exercise a range of queue depths and transfer more data than the burst IO tests, but still have limits to keep the duration somewhat realistic. The primary scores we report are focused on the low queue depths that make up the bulk of consumer storage workloads. For more details, please see the overview of our 2021 Consumer SSD Benchmark Suite.

Random Read	Throughput	Power	Efficiency
Random Write	Throughput	Power	Efficiency
Sequential Read	Throughput	Power	Efficiency
Sequential Write	Throughput	Power	Efficiency

When testing under favorable conditions with a small data set, the SSD 980's performance is at the very least competitive with other entry-level NVMe SSDs and sometimes against mainstream drives as well, but it falls apart too easily. Performance on the sustained IO tests shows similar behavior to the burst IO tests with generally quite large performance drops on the SSD 980 when testing is not constrained to a small data set. Bringing in some moderately higher queue depths has helped the sequential write performance catch up somewhat when testing against an 80% full drive.

Random Read	Samsung SSD 980 1TBIntel SSD 670p 2TBSamsung 870 EVO 1TBSamsung 970 EVO Plus 1TBSamsung SSD 980 500GBSamsung SSD 980 500GB (HMB Off)Samsung SSD 980 1TB (HMB Off)Samsung 980 PRO 250GBSamsung 980 PRO 1TBSeagate FireCuda 510 1TB (64L)Mushkin Helix-L 1TBKingston KC2500 1TBCorsair MP400 1TBSK hynix Gold P31 1TBWD Blue SN550 1TBWD Blue SN550 1TB (HMB Off)
Random Write	Samsung SSD 980 1TBIntel SSD 670p 2TBSamsung 870 EVO 1TBSamsung 970 EVO Plus 1TBSamsung SSD 980 500GBSamsung SSD 980 500GB (HMB Off)Samsung SSD 980 1TB (HMB Off)Samsung 980 PRO 250GBSamsung 980 PRO 1TBSeagate FireCuda 510 1TB (64L)Mushkin Helix-L 1TBKingston KC2500 1TBCorsair MP400 1TBSK hynix Gold P31 1TBWD Blue SN550 1TBWD Blue SN550 1TB (HMB Off)
Sequential Read	Samsung SSD 980 1TBIntel SSD 670p 2TBSamsung 870 EVO 1TBSamsung 970 EVO Plus 1TBSamsung SSD 980 500GBSamsung SSD 980 500GB (HMB Off)Samsung SSD 980 1TB (HMB Off)Samsung 980 PRO 250GBSamsung 980 PRO 1TBSeagate FireCuda 510 1TB (64L)Mushkin Helix-L 1TBKingston KC2500 1TBCorsair MP400 1TBSK hynix Gold P31 1TBWD Blue SN550 1TBWD Blue SN550 1TB (HMB Off)
Sequential Write	Samsung SSD 980 1TBIntel SSD 670p 2TBSamsung 870 EVO 1TBSamsung 970 EVO Plus 1TBSamsung SSD 980 500GBSamsung SSD 980 500GB (HMB Off)Samsung SSD 980 1TB (HMB Off)Samsung 980 PRO 250GBSamsung 980 PRO 1TBSeagate FireCuda 510 1TB (64L)Mushkin Helix-L 1TBKingston KC2500 1TBCorsair MP400 1TBSK hynix Gold P31 1TBWD Blue SN550 1TBWD Blue SN550 1TB (HMB Off)

When running the sustained IO tests against a 32GB range of the drives, the Samsung SSD 980 shows good performance scaling with increasing queue depths and can eventually achieve quite high throughput. Random reads take a long time to reach full speed at QD64, while random writes and sequential reads saturate around QD8 and sequential writes saturate at QD2. But testing on a wide range of a mostly-full drive reveals lots of problems: random reads and writes are very slow even at extreme queue depths, and the sequential write test frequently overruns the SLC cache.

Random Read Latency

This test illustrates how drives with higher throughput don't always offer better IO latency and Quality of Service (QoS), and that latency often gets much worse when a drive is pushed to its limits. This test is more intense than real-world consumer workloads and the results can be a bit noisy, but large differences that show up clearly on a log scale plot are meaningful. For more details, please see the overview of our 2021 Consumer SSD Benchmark Suite.

Samsung SSD 980 1TBIntel SSD 670p 2TBSamsung 870 EVO 1TBSamsung 970 EVO Plus 1TBSamsung SSD 980 500GBSamsung SSD 980 500GB (HMB Off)Samsung SSD 980 1TB (HMB Off)Samsung 980 PRO 250GBSamsung 980 PRO 1TBSeagate FireCuda 510 1TB (64L)Mushkin Helix-L 1TBKingston KC2500 1TBCorsair MP400 1TBSK hynix Gold P31 1TBWD Blue SN550 1TBWD Blue SN550 1TB (HMB Off)

This random read latency test paints a pretty bleak picture for the Samsung SSD 980: every other drive in this bunch has lower latency and higher throughput, and the 500GB 980 actually does slightly better than the 1TB. This test is covering 80% of the drive so HMB is no help here, but that applies to the other DRAMless NVMe drives as well.