Samsung DRAM-less SSD 980 is already available for pre-order

Samsung is adding another SSD to its extensive portfolio of storage solutions. The new SSD 980 is a PCIe 3.0, DRAM-less solid state drive available with up to 1TB of storage for the entry-level market.

Although these SSDs haven't been officially announced yet, they are already available for pre-order at some European retailers, so we've already had a good look at the specs.

Available with 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB storage capacities, the NVMe M.2 SSD 980 will offer slightly less performance than the SSD 970 Evo Plus with reading speeds of up to 3500MB/s and writing speeds of up to 3000MB/s. 4K random read and write speeds are also slightly lower, featuring up to 500K IOPS while reading and 480K IOPS while writing. Given the rated MTBF of 1.5M hours and up to 600TBW of endurance, this drive seems to be TLC-based just like the SSD 980 Pro.

According to ComputerBase, the inferior performance might be due to the lack of a DRAM cache. Instead, the SSD 980 will use the system's memory through NVMe's Host Memory Buffer (HMB) function, reducing the manufacturing cost of these SSDs. These SSDs will use Samsung's Pablo controller, the same one used on the T7 portable SSDs.

As per the listings of the SSD 980 models, these SSDs will be available starting March 30th. The 250GB model is priced at €69.99, the 500GB at €89.99, and the 1TB at €169.99. All models are backed by a 5-year warranty.

KitGuru says: Are you looking to upgrade your system's storage? Will you be considering the Samsung SSD 980 once it releases?

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