Samsung 970 PRO 1TB SSD Review

Ever since Samsung released the 960 PRO it has been king of the hill in the high-end performance NVMe segment of the consumer market, which is pretty remarkable when you consider how long it has been around. But just recently there has been a serious challenge to this position in the shape of WD's Black NVMe drive, which  surprised pretty much everybody with its performance. Samsung has responded emphatically with the mighty 970 PRO.

In a world where every new drive seems to be 3D TLC NAND equipped, the 970 PRO stands out by using high end 3D MLC NAND and to say that it's a fast drive is some understatement.

Samsung's official read/write sequential performance figures for the drive are up to 3,500MB/s and 2,700MB/s respectively. Under testing with the ATTO benchmark, we could confirm the official read figure as the tested drive produced a figure of 3,556MB/s, the fastest we have seen to date for a consumer drive. We also confirmed the write figure, the tested drive giving a 2,710MB/s figure which might have matched the official number but still put the drive behind the 2,857MB/s score of the 1TB WD Black NVMe drive.

The official random read/write numbers for the drive are up to 500,000 IOPS for both, this is for a drive tested at a queue depth of 32 with 4 threads. Once again we could confirm this figure for random reads, but under testing our review drive fell a little short of that write figure, producing 424,239 IOPS. Both these figures are the fastest we've seen to date for a consumer drive. The drive also has the fastest 4K random read/write figures we've seen for this type of drive in queue depths 1-4, which is where the vast majority of desktop usage happens.

Samsung has also improved the endurance of the new drive. The 1TB 960 PRO model had a TBW figure of 800TB, whereas the 1TB 970 PRO is rated at 1,200TB, the same figure as the 2TB 960 PRO. The 970 PRO has the same 5 year warranty as the 960 PRO,

So it's fast – very fast – and has better endurance than the previous 960 PRO, so what's not to like? Well, we have to address the elephant in the room, namely the price. The 1TB 970 PRO sports a price tag of £599.99 which puts it very much in the premium market space, especially compared to the 1TB version of WD's Black NVMe drive at around £380 and even the 970 PRO's predecessor, the 1TB 960 PRO which can still be bought for under £460. So if you want what is currently the fastest consumer drive, you'll need to dig deep.

You can find the 1TB version of Samsung's SSD970 PRO on Overclockers UK for £300 HERE (April 2019 update).

Pros

• Performance.
• Endurance.
• Magician software.

Cons

• No 2TB option as yet.
• Expensive.

KitGuru says: Samsung's 970 PRO puts the company firmly back on top of the high performance consumer market space with some stunning performance figures – but it does come with an equally stunning price tag.

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