Samsung SSD 980 1TB NVMe M.2 Review

How Much Does it Cost?

At the time of the review, all we have to go off is the MSRP as we have received these before they officially release. The prices look OK but do leave room for competitors to undercut Samsung. The Prices we have are:

• 250GB: £45.99
• 500GB: £64.99
• 1TB: £119.99

Overview

Having a look at the current market and this drive has some decent competition. The likes of the Sabrent 256GB Rocket NVMe and WD Black SN 750 are similar SPEC’d drives at very similar prices although they are not DRAMless. If these drives were DRAMless, would they be even cheaper? Well, we would like to hope so. Samsung had a perfect opportunity here to really make their prices competitive and stick it to the competition but it looks like they have chosen not to do so. While Samsung is a name you know and trust and you don’t mind paying a bit extra for that peace of mind, it would have been great for Samsung to really shake up the market with their DRAMless SSD 980.

Performance

The Samsung SSD 980 is rated for speeds of 3,500 MB/s Read and 3,000 MB/s Write and while we couldn’t hit the rated write speeds, we weren’t far off with our tests and did see almost 2,800 MB/s. When it came to read speeds, we were able to surpass the speeds stated by Samsung and managed to get 3,562 MB/s. This is quite impressive and it always leaves us with a good feeling being able to surpass what the manufacturers have stated. Even in our fillage testing, while we lost just over 250 MB/s (not a massive loss) we saw our write speeds stay the same, if not just slightly better. This is exactly what we would want to see from any storage drive we use, similar if not the same performance no matter how much data is on it.

Build Quality

Being this drive is from Samsung, we expect the build quality to be on the top of the charts and it is. Don’t believe us? Well, Samsung has backed this drive with a 5-year warranty and a 600TB Write Endurance. Throw in some AES 256-bit encryption and some TCG OPAL 2.0 for good measures and you have yourself a well-built drive.

Should I Buy One?

Given similar performing drives are ever so slightly cheaper, it is hard to recommend this on a price scale. However, being a Samsung drive you do have that added bit of security so if you can find one at a good price, don’t hesitate too much. Don’t forget that 5-year warranty if you need that extra peace of mind when purchasing.