Samsung 960 Pro and Evo push PCIe SSD performance forward

Samsung’s latest 960 Pro and 960 Evo SSD families boast capacities up to 2TB, read speeds up to 3.5GB/s, write speeds of up to 2.1GB/s, and an NVMe-compliant M.2 design.

Samsung’s new 2TB 960 Pro SSD is the highest-capacity M.2 drive on the market. Samsung 960 PRO and 960 EVO use the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) Gen.3 x4 lane interface.

“Our V-NAND technology for NVMe-based storage products is our most recent advancement in the NVMe era”, he added. The new drives offer sequential read speeds of at least 3.200Mbps and sequential write speeds of at least 1,900Mbps.

The 960 PRO and 960 EVO SSDs redefine the personal computer performance, in part attributed to new controller which raises the bar of consumer SSD performance.

The 960 Pro is the top-of-the-line consumer model, which uses faster and more reliable – but less memory dense and therefore more expensive – MLC (Multi Level Cell) memory, where each memory cell can contain 2 bits of charge.

Likewise, thanks to its M.2 interface, the 960 series can happily slot into ultra-slim laptops and desktop PCs alike, giving it a lot more flexibility than its more traditional 2.5in SSD rivals.

There is a Dynamic Thermal Guard performance throttling facility on both products to prevent over-heating, and Magician software for drive management by users. Not wanting to rest on its laurels, the company has unveiled its new 960 Series drives, which aim to be even faster and larger.

The Evo has a shorter 3 year warranty, and up to 400 TBW for the 1TB drive, 200 TBW for the 500GB, and 100 TBW for the 250GB. The 960 PRO SSD is also available in 512GB and 1TB capacities along with the 2TB model. Possessing the M.2 form factor, and featuring storage based on the V-NAND technology, higher read and write speeds plus better reliability can be expected from both of these drives.

Legit Reviews is in South Korea for Samsung’s 5th annual SSD Global Summit.

Samsung’s new SSDs will be available globally next month in October, with the 960 PRO starting at $329 and the 960 EVO starting at $129. The Evo’s random I/O performance is also slightly lower, at 380K read IOPS and 360K write IOPS.