Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB

The Samsung 970 EVO is an NVMe M.2 SSD that plugs straight into the motherboard’s M.2 slot. There is no data or power cable to route, and the direct connection cuts response time compared with a cabled drive. Samsung offers the EVO line in several capacities — 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB. This review covers the 1TB model.

Form factor and features

The 970 EVO uses the M.2 form factor, so it fits the growing number of M.2 slots on current-generation motherboards. For better thermals, an M.2 slot sitting under a board-mounted heatsink helps keep speeds up under load; boards without one can be paired with an external M.2 heatsink instead. The drive is built on Samsung’s V-NAND flash.

Performance

The 1TB 970 EVO reaches up to 3400 MB/s on reads and up to 2500 MB/s on writes. Against the earlier 960 EVO 1TB, which sits at a similar price, that is a clear step up: the 960 EVO tops out at 3200 MB/s read and 1900 MB/s write.

Samsung rates the 1TB 970 EVO at up to 500,000 IOPS random read and up to 450,000 IOPS random write (QD32).

Price and who it suits

A new 1TB 970 EVO runs around $300. That is expensive for a drive of this size, and the price climbs further with capacity, so it will not fit every budget. As an NVMe M.2 drive it is faster than both a mechanical hard disk and a standard SATA SSD, which is where the cost difference comes from. It makes the most sense for desktop users who need high throughput and large capacity together, and are willing to pay for both.