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Samsung SSD 970 Evo Plus in the test: V-NAND with 96 layers for a + in performance

Aug 27, 2021

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tl; dr: The Samsung 970 Evo Plus in M.2 format promises significantly more performance thanks to the 5th generation V-NAND and adapted Phoenix controller and the test confirms: In terms of transfer rates and IOPS, the 970 Evo is clearly beaten in some cases. For home users, however, the price remains decisive.

Table of contents

1 Samsung SSD 970 Evo and Evo Plus in comparison
Technology at a glance
1. Phoenix controller with nickel and V-NAND 5.0
2. Samsung SSD 970 Evo with 4 to 22 GB SLC cache
Guarantee, scope of delivery and key data
1. The specifications of the 970 Evo Plus compared to the Evo at a glance
2 benchmarks < ol>
CrystalDiskMark
Copy (write/read)
3 Temperature & amp; Throttling
New condition and drop in performance
Constant performance

4 Conclusion

RRP, market price and availability

Update 08/27/2021 11:05 am

In the meantime, models of the Samsung 970 Evo Plus with other components are in circulation. The findings from this test article only apply to the original variant.

Samsung SSD 970 Evo and Evo Plus in comparison

With the Samsung 970 Evo Plus, Samsung is updating the 970 Evo series (test) after just 10 months. With the change to the fifth generation V-NAND and the improved Phoenix controller, the technical basis is to be laid in order to significantly increase both the sequential data rates and the IOPS for both writing and reading. In a direct comparison of the two generations, ComputerBase clarifies what can be felt from this promise in everyday life.

Technology at a glance

The 970 Evo Plus relies on the single-sided M.2 form factor with a PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 interface, the protocol used is NVMe 1.3. There are no changes in the available capacities compared to the Evo. However, the 2 TB model is not due to appear until May 2019. The smaller capacities are available now.

Phoenix controller with nickel and V-NAND 5.0

The Samsung 970 Evo Plus uses V-NAND of the fifth generation with 96 superimposed cell layers (layers). The 970 Evo Plus is again based on TLC-NAND-Flash with 3 bits per cell. Only the Evo with a capacity of 2,000 GB uses this with 512 Gbit, which still enables one-sided assembly. The other capacities of the Evo, on the other hand, use dies with 256 Gbit.

Up to 16 of the memory chips with up to 512 Gbit capacity are in each chip housing (package ). One package has up to 1,024 GB and two of these packages result in an SSD with up to 2 TB, which corresponds to the largest capacity of the Evo Plus.

Samsung is still closed to the Phoenix controller. It was only communicated that the optimized controller supports the fifth generation V ‑ NAND. This should be equated with the support of Toggle DDR4. In order to optimize the dissipation of the generated heat, the top of the controller was coated with nickel even in the revised version.

Samsung SSD 970 Evo with 4 to 22 GB SLC cache

With the increasing spread of TLC-NAND-Flash, the use of a so-called pseudo-SLC cache goes hand in hand, which the manufacturer has been calling TurboWrite for a long time. Since the storage of data in TLC mode (3 bits) is generally slower than with MLC-NAND (2 bits), the data is buffered in the faster SLC mode with only one bit per cell. A fixed area from the spare area of the SSD is usually reserved for this. From there, the data is then saved in normal 3-bit mode.

With the 970 Evo Plus, Samsung is continuing the well-known scheme of the 970 Evo and, in addition to a static SLC cache, uses a dynamic component, the maximum size of which depends on the capacity of the SSD. If there is enough free storage space on the SSD, the useful memory is also used as a dynamic SLC buffer if required. Thus, depending on the model, 9 to 36 GB of additional SLC cache can be offered if the data transfer requires this. There was no change in the capacity of the SLC cache compared to the 970 Evo. The sequential data rate when writing to the SLC cache and after the SLC cache has increased. The values of the cache for the 2 TB model are not yet known.

Pseudo-SLC cache (TurboWrite) for the Samsung 970 Evo Plus Capacity 250 GB 500 GB 1 TB TurboWrite capacity Default 4 GB 4 GB 6 GB Intelligent expansion 9 GB 18 GB 36 GB total capacity 13 GB 22 GB 42 GB Sequential data transfer rate TurboWrite 2,300 MB/s 3,200 MB/s 3,300 MB/s After TurboWrite 400 MB/s 900 MB/s 1,700 MB/s Samsung 970 Evo Sequential data transfer rate TurboWrite 1,500 MB/s 2,300 MB/s 2,500 MB/s After TurboWrite 300 MB/s 600 MB/s 1,200 MB/s All information Samsung

The 512 GB model tested has a total of 22 GB, which is made up of 4 GB of fixed SLC cache and 18 GB of dynamic cache. In contrast to the 860 Evo for SATA, it is not the interface that limits the write access, but the write rate that the NAND flash can deliver. This means that the size of the SLC cache can be clearly demonstrated in the HD Tach write test. Even if HD Tach is only partially suitable for measuring the write speed of SSDs, the different data rates according to the SLC cache can be clearly seen in this test.

The 22 GB SLC cache can be seen in the first HD Tach run. The second run, however, only shows the 4 GB static SLC cache. This state only occurs when the SSD is so full that there is no longer enough free flash memory available for the dynamic SLC cache, or the SSD is operated without trim and the garbage collection is not able to clean up enough flash .