Samsung's Next-Gen PM981 NVMe SSDs Surface

[Raevenlord]

Samsung is the most well-regarded company when it comes to consumer SSDs. even if their SSD solutions do usually carry a premium versus the competition, that price delta is usually well justified: Samsung's SSDs are frequently the most reliable, fastest option in the market. Samsung's 960 PRO and 960 EVO SSDs have done a good job of clarifying the company's market positioning, and now, the successors for those Samsung SSDs have already surfaced.

The next-gen Samsung NVMe drives carry the PM981 code-name - where "PM" stands for TLC NAND (in this case, based on 64-layer 3-bit per cell V-NAND chips), "9" stands for Samsung's highest performing solutions, and "81" stands for the part number - two tiers ahead of Samsung's 960 series. It's expected that there will be a 970 part, since Samsung seems to be steering away from the "EVO" and "PRO" monikers to differentiate products according to performance - a straight numeral is expected to be the norm going forward. For now, the parts that have surfaced carry 512 GB and 1 TB of memory. These will make use of Samsung's Polaris V2 controller (with a metal heatsink over it to aid in cooling), and deliver 3,000 MB/s and 3,200 MB/s sequential read speeds (for the 512 GB and 1 TB versions respectively) and 1,800 MB/s and 2,400 MB/s sequential write, respectively. The models surfaced from a Vietnamese retailer, which has them going for $233 and $439 - which doesn't mean this will be the final consumer retail price, but seems reasonable for the technology and performance tier of these NVMe SSD solutions.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Tomorrow]

The PM series is the OEM equivalent of the 900 series consumer SSD-s. They are largely the same tho the consumer models use black pcb and are 5-10% faster.

So PM981= 970 (EVO). That is assuming 970 will be the TLC based and 980 (PRO) will the MLC based version.

Since the OEM version comes out a bit sooner i guess we can expect consumer models late this year or early next year. Tho for the last two launches (950 and 960) the reviews were up by the end of october and hardware was in store by the end of november. Maybe the 64-layer NAND is creating some challenges?

 

[bug]

That's nice and everything, but what exactly do these bring to the table?

 

[R0H1T]

That's nice and everything, but what exactly do these bring to the table?

Probably the highest performance numbers for PCIe 3.0 x4(?) TLC drives

3,000 MB/s and 3,200MB/s sequential read speeds and 1,800 MB/s and 2,400 MB/s sequential write

 

[bug]

Probably the highest performance numbers for PCIe 3.0 x4(?) TLC drives

I do hope they have something else up their sleeves, as sequential speeds are about the most useless metric for a consumer SSD.
If they can perform identical to the 960, but at a lower price point, that would be enough for me.

 

[Vlada011]

Now we wait 980 series?
Pro and EVO? I look prices for 960 EVO 1TB to put in combination with 1TB 850 EVO.
If price become little lower maybe is better investment than 960 PRO 512GB.
And speed of 1TB is little higher and than 1TB EVO is closer to 512GB Pro.


Big SSDs SATA III and M.2 are always nice investition.
Maybe is better to miss one generation of processors or GPU and upgrade system and storage drives on something quality and capable to be used in future in smaller computers.

 

[bug]

Now we wait 980 series?
Pro and EVO? I look prices for 960 EVO 1TB to put in combination with 1TB 850 EVO.
If price become little lower maybe is better investment than 960 PRO 512GB.
And speed of 1TB is little higher and than 1TB EVO is closer to 512GB Pro.


Big SSDs SATA III and M.2 are always nice investition.
Maybe is better to miss one generation of processors or GPU and upgrade system and storage drives on something quality and capable to be used in future in smaller computers.

Neah, SSD speeds are irrelevant for drive comparison. Always pick the biggest drive you an fit into your budget, even if (on paper) it's slower.

 

[yotano211]

On my gaming laptop I dont really care about SSD speed, I mostly care about SSD drive space. When are companies going to bring bigger sizes at a lower cost.

 

[bug]

On my gaming laptop I dont really care about SSD speed, I mostly care about SSD drive space. When are companies going to bring bigger sizes at a lower cost.

It's not because of lack of trying.
Do you think it's cheap to retool a fab every few years to accommodate increasingly smaller manufacturing processes and go from planar to 3D NAND? It's going to happen, but later than anyone would like to...

 

[Giovanni Micalizzi]

The PM series is the OEM equivalent of the 900 series consumer SSD-s. They are largely the same tho the consumer models use black pcb and are 5-10% faster.

So PM981= 970 (EVO). That is assuming 970 will be the TLC based and 980 (PRO) will the MLC based version.

from Korean MSIP ID https://goo.gl/iHuZ5f
MZ-VLBXXX0 = PM981 = 970
MZ-VLBXXXA = SM981 = 980
where XXX = 256/512/1T0