Samsung 970 PRO Review vs EVO vs 960 vs WD Black

In this Samsung 970 Pro Review, we compare the newly launched 970 EVO and 970 PRO NVMe SSD drives to replace the older 960 Pro & EVO NVMe SSD series, thanks to Western Digital releasing their WD Black range of NVMe SSD drives, to heat up the competition.

Samsung’s EVO series has always been the fastest TLC-based M.2 NVMe SSD since the technology came out.

This was however toppled by the game changing Western Digital Black NVMe release announcement, earlier this month, that deliver similar performance to the now, older 960 EVO NVMe SSD range, but at a much better price point.

As per Samsung’s marketing specs, both the 970 EVO (but the 2TB Only) and 970 PRO are able to reach peak sequential read speeds of 3,500MB/s. This equal to the Samsung 960 PRO series speed of also 3,500MB/s. The Samsung 970 EVO 1TB and its smaller capacity drives, are a little slower at 3,400MB/s

The Samsung 960 EVO is slightly slower, with a sequential read speed of 3,200MB/s,

The new 1TB and 500GB Western Digital Black NVMe SSD Drives have a marketed sequential read speed of 3,400MB/s. The 250GB WD Black NVMe is the slowest, capping out at 3,000MB/s.

Testing the 1TB drives, the Samsung 970 PRO naturally takes first place with its the sustained read speed, clocking in at 3349MB/s, which is very close to their promised 3,500MB/s.

The Samsung 960 PRO netted second position at 3075MB/s, followed by the Samsung 970 EVO coming in at 2,676MB/s. These results are unfortunately much lower than the advertised 3,500MB/s.

The Samsung 960 EVO achieved 2135MB/s, which is again much lower than the advertised 3,200MB/s.

The Western Digital Black NVMe sported a sustained read speed of 2941MB/s, which is short of its marketed 3,400MB/s, and the 3349MB/s output of the Samsung 970 PRO, although it is inline with the Samsung 960 PRO’s 3,075MB/s and ahead of the Samsung 970 EVO’s 2,676MB/s and Samsung 960 EVO’s 2,135MB/s

The real difference between the two generations of Samsung NVMe SSD Drives, is the write speed. As photographers and videographers, sequential write speed is what we look for in SD Cards and SSD Drives when using external monitors or recorders, such as the recently announced, Atomos Ninja V.

Below is a chart comparing all the advertised write speeds. Note that these are the companies best/optimal results, meaning that in the real world tests (below this) will show speeds that are slightly slower. The real world speeds will vary depending on various factors such as the speed of the other components of your computer.

The Samsung 970 EVO has advertised sequential write speed of 2,500MB/s is quite a bit faster than the Samsung 960 PRO’s sequential write speed of 2,100MB/s.

The Samsung 970 PRO is even faster with a sequential write speed of 2,700MB/s.

The Western Digital Black 1TB NVMe has a marketed sequential write speed of 2,800MB/s, putting it ahead of the Samsung 970 PRO, but only if you buy the 1TB version of the WD Black NVMe, as the 500GB WD Black NVMe is slightly slower at 2,500MB/s, while the 250GB WD Black NVMe, caps at a sequential write speed of 1,600MB/s.

The Samsung 960 EVO 1TB NVMe ($199.99), is now trying to play catch-up with its sequential write speeds of 1,900MB/s.

The Samsung 960 EVO 500GB ($112.95), with the Samsung 960 EVO 250GB ($58.51) also following suite at 1,500MB/s.

Before we get into our last sustained write speed test, there is something you should note about the Samsung 970 EVO, before making a purchase.

As we discussed earlier, the Samsung 970 PRO performs at MLC 2bit speeds, while the 970 EVO, performs slower due to its 3bit TLC.

However in, looking at the speed chart, you might have noticed that they have very similar read and write speeds. So what’s the benefit of the much more expensive 970 PRO, if it performs just slightly better?

Well, this is in fact not the 970 EVO’s true constant speed output, as it does reach a limit cap eventually.

Think of it as a sprinter or a cheetah. They can do excessive high speeds, but only for a short amount of time, before they start to eventually slow down. The same happens with the 970 EVO NVMe drives.

Samsung are able to reach very similar speed with the 970 EVO as the 970 PRO, by treating some of the TLC as SLC (Single-Level Cell) which is a 1bit, giving it that burst of speed, which creates a much faster NAND cache speed performance. It cannot however retain that burst forever, and once it reaches the cap, it will slow down to 3bit again. 

Samsung have been very transparent about this bottleneck, which is refreshing to see, that they have released a table to illustrate the limits of the 970 EVO write speeds.

If we take a look at this graph, its basically telling us that that the 970 EVO will perform at very high write speeds (when copying files to the 970 EVO drive), but once the DRAM Cache runs out, it will drop down to its “actual constant” write speeds.

Thanks to good marketing  from Samsung, they have used this limitation and turned it into a “feature”, by giving it the name, TurboWrite.

The TurboWrite speed limitations, will depend on the capacity (size) of the 970 EVO drive you buy, as follows:

• 250GB Samsung 970 EVO ($82.00)
  • Up to 13GB of data (at a time) at full Turbowrite speed of 1,500MB/s
  • Files above 13GB will slow down to the regular 300MB/s write speed
• 500GB Samsung 970 EVO ($67.99)
  • Up to 22GB of data (at a time) at full Turbowrite speed of 2,300MB/s
  • Files above 22GB will slow down to the regular 600MB/s write speed
• 1TB 970 Samsung 970 EVO ($118.00)
  • Up to 42GB of data (at a time) at full Turbowrite speed of 2,500MB/s
  • Files above 42GB will slow down to the regular 1,200MB/s write speed
• 2TB 970 Samsung 970 EVO ($198.00)
  • Up to 78GB of data (at a time) at full Turbowrite speed of 2,500MB/s
  • Files above 78GB will slow down to the regular 1,250MB/s write speed

Looking at the above, you will quickly see that the bigger the capacity of the 970 EVO SSD NVMe drive you have, the better TurboWrite speeds become. This also increases how big the files or folders are that the TurboWrite will support.

In conclusion, what TurboWrite basically does, is auto adjust the NAND cache size, in relation to the amount and type of data being written (as we saw above).

The Samsung 970 EVO also makes use of DRAM cache to accelerate performance further. The cache amounts vary depending the model as follows:

• 512MB Cache – 250GB & 500GB 970 EVO drives
• 1GB Cache – 1TB 970 EVO drive
• 2GB Cache – 2TB 970 EVO drive.

In order to show how the TurboWrite performs and when it stops working, we tested the 970 EVO 500GB NVMe drive.

In order to complete these write speed tests, we used used two types of write scenarios:

1. Copying a large 44GB single file (single zip file) to (WRITE SPEEDS) and from (READ SPEEDS) the NVMe drives.
2. Copying a large 44GB folder (with various files) to (WRITE SPEEDS) and from (READ SPEEDS) the NVMe drives.

Note that a single 44GB file (such as a zip file) will copy faster than various files making up 44GB (such as an unzipped folder).

We used 44GB as a test, because it is double that of the 22GB threshold specified by Samsung, where the TurboWrite feature will stop enhancing the write speed on the 500GB drive.

The results:

The Samsung 970 EVO 500GB ($67.99) sustained write speeds that were on par with the Samsung 970 PRO 500GB ($176.87) and the 500GB Western Digital Black NVMe (Price not available), (actually a little faster on one or two tests), until it was required to write a very large amount of data, being above its 22GB TurboWrite limit.

The sustained write performance halved around the 22GB mark, when the DRAM and NAND caches were exhausted. This caused the the write speed to drop to around the 600MB/s mark, which remained true to the chart indication, provided by Samsung.

Remember that this will only happen when copying such a single large file (anything above 22GB with the 500GB 970 EVO), to the SSD drive.

This will exhaust the 512MB cache, disabling the TurboWrite performance feature.

Copying from the SSD (Read Speeds) were not affected.

It had less of a slowdown effect, when copying the 44GB folder with various smaller files. Although don’t forget, than we can clearly see that copying a folder with various files takes far longer than a single zip file, even when TurboWrite is capped out.

Most users will hardly ever write this amount of data in a single file unless it’s zipped game folder or a RAW video editing project.

Same applies to the 2TB Samsung 970 EVO, except it provides full TurboWrite speeds of 2,500MB/s for files up to 78GB and slowing down to 1,250MB/s should it exceed the 78GB file size.

The TurboWrite limitation only applies to the cheaper 970 EVO range due to it being a TLC (Triple-Level Cell/3bit), instead of the 970 PRO version which uses the MLC (Multi-Level Cell/2bit) technology. Thus if you buy the more expensive 970 PRO version, you will benefit from the full sustained write speed not matter what the size of the file you are copying.

If we take a look at the MB/s write speed charts, you’ll quickly pick up that Samsung’s more expensive 970 Pro is the much fastest M.2 NVMe SSD available to consumers.

The cheaper 970 EVO and the WD Black NVMe, are on par and hold up well, well until the cache filles and the TurboWrite stops after reaching the 22GB capacity that is.

Here the WD Black NVMe clearly pulled ahead, even though it is also a TLC (Triple-Level Cell/3bit).

Again these are rare and extreme situations, depending on what you use the SSD drives for. Video editors shooting in RAW, often need to copy huge files from one drive to another, so in that case you will definitely be best off with the Samsung 970 PRO or even the Samsung 970 EVO 2TB, which only slows down when copying files larger than 78GB, which is massive, even for RAW.

If you just need a M.2 NVMe SSD to speed up your computer and editing then the Samsung 970 EVO is a solid buy, although the Western Digital Black NVMe Drives are similar if not better in some cases. If are looking for the drive with the most storage space for the lowest $ per GB, then you will need to go with the Samsung 970 2TB version, as WD Black only offers, up to a maximum of a 1TB version.

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The lifespan or endurance of an NVMe SSD storage device is measured in TeraBytes Written TBW.

Basically a drive has a warranty of only being able to copy so many TeraBytes before it will stop working.

The TeraBytes Written is different depending on which capacity drive you buy, as well as which version (EVO or PRO).

Let’s review the table below to get an idea of what each NVMe drive gives us for our money.

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Beyond their better speed increases, both the two new Samsung 970 NVMe SSD Drives promise better endurance as well.

The 970 EVO now officially supporting up to 1,200TBW (TeraBytes Written) with its 2TB version, while the 1TB version offers 600TBW, the 500GB offering 300TBW and lastly the 250GB offering 1TB version offers 150TBW.

You will still want to consider the Samsung 970 PRO drive if a long life span matters most to you, with:

• 600TBW for the 512GB 970 PRO ($176.87) on Amazon
• 1,200TBW for the 1TB 970 PRO ($258.95) on Amazon

Note that Samsung’s 2-bit MLC flash memory on the 970 PRO, enables about double the number of bytes written at the same capacity.

Looking at the Western Digital Black NVMe Drives.

• The WD Black 250GB ($59.00 on Amazon) offers 200TBW
• The WD Black 500GB (Price not available on Amazon) offers 300TBW
• The WD Black 1TB version ($150.00 on Amazon) offers 600TBW,

In comparison to the now older Samsung 960 PRO, which offers:

800TBW with is 960 PRO 1TB drive ($199.99 on Amazon), making the newer 970 PRO offer 400TBW more at 1,200TBW.

The same is seen with the 500GB 960 EVO offering 400TBW, which is 200TBW less than the 970 PRO, which offers 600TBW.

The Samsung 960 EVO also trails in comparison to its newer 970 EVO model in all drive capacities being:

• 100TBW for the 960 EVO 250GB ($58.51 on Amazon)
• 200TBW for the 960 EVO 500GB ($112.95 on Amazon)
• 400TBW for the 960 EVO 1TB  ($199.99 on Amazon)

Compared to the newer 970 EVO’s

• 150TBW for the 250GB Samsung 970 EVO ($82.00) on Amazon
• 300TBW for the 500GB Samsung 970 EVO ($67.99) on Amazon
• 600TBW for the 1TB Samsung 970 EVO ($118.00) on Amazon
• 1200TBW for the 2TB Samsung 970 EVO ($198.00) on Amazon

So as you can see, the Samsung 970 NVMe Drives offer a much longer lifespan compared to their older 960 versions.

The new Samsung 970 EVO is almost identical to the lifespan of the WD Black NVMe drives, making both of them half the lifespan of the Samsung 970 PRO

As with all purchasing, the answer to which is going to be the best NVMe drive to buy depends on two factors

Your Needs and your Budget.

If budget isn’t a factor then naturally buy the best NVMe currently on the market, which is the Samsung 970 Pro 1TB.

This will give you the fastest speed and endurance performance.

However;

Unless you haven’t noticed, the 970 EVO 2TB, actually delivers the same 1,200 TBW endurance as the 970 PRO 1TB, as well as comparable speed performances, even with it’s TurboWrite “limitation” of 78GB. Which is so high you will hardly ever be restricted by it.

UPDATED February 2019:

Taking into consideration that the Samsung 970 Pro 1TB retails for $459.99 and the Samsung 970 EVO 2TB retails for $730, (with no real difference in speeds and endurance), you actually gain an extra 1TB of capacity for an extra $355, which is almost the same price per GB as the Samsung 970 Pro 1TB.

So in my opinion, the 970 EVO 2TB is a better buy than the Samsung 970 PRO 1TB ($459.99), if you budget isn’t an issue, giving you the most storage per NVMe drive slot.

If you are looking for a 500GB NVMe, then the WD Black 500GB ($150.00) is the best price per GB at $0.21/GB.

Then shifting up to the 1TB drive, the Samsung 970 EVO 1TB ($118.00) is the best value for money at $0.24/GB

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If budget is an issue, then you have to evaluate your needs, based on your budget.