Report: PCIe 4.0-Based Samsung 980 Pro SSD Will Have Max Capacity of 1 TB

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The price you pay for MLC

Samsung 980 PRO
(Image credit: AnandTech)

Samsung first showed off its 980 Pro M.2 SSD back at CES, and this is a drive we're quite looking forward to. It's the first consumer-geared SSD from Samsung to feature the new PCI-Express 4.0 interface, and being a Samsung drive, this sets high expectations.

It can, therefore, be forgiven for Samsung to take a moment longer to bring this product to market, but the latest news is that it has passed through Korean regulators, with the license visible here as spotted by redditor wickedplayer494. This tells us that a launch is imminent, but the certificate also reveals the drive capacities. 

The primary device that passed inspection is the MZ-V8P1T0, with derivative parts MZ-V8P500 and MZ-V8P250. It doesn't take a genius to spot that the capacities here are 1 TB, 500 GB, and 250 GB.

However, these capacities aren't very high. Although many of us are still eyeing 500 GB drives for the most part, 1 TB M.2 drives are quickly gaining popularity due to the increasing size of game installations. But there is no 2 TB drive in sight, so those who want stretch the PCI-Express 4.0 capacities further will have to find alternate methods if they want to use a Samsung drive.

Of course, it's important to note that the product in question here is the 980 Pro. Being the Pro-line, it's expected to come with faster and more durable flash, namely MLC (2 bits per cell), limiting the maximum capacity of the drives. Samsung will undoubtedly also be releasing a 980 Evo product at some point in time, which will in all likeliness come with TLC (3 bits per cell) flash, enabling higher capacities, but with lower performance and durability compared to the Pro products. However, thus far there has not been even as much as a peep about the 980 Evo, so the wait for such a product might be extensive.

Samsung's 980 Pro M.2 SSDs are expected to feature read and write speeds of 6500 MB/s and 5000 MB/s, respectively, which is notably faster than the Phison-based SSDs that are on the market today. These speed gains will be partly due to the use of higher-quality flash, but also thanks to the use of Samsung's own in-house-designed controller.

No exact release date is available for the Samsung 980 Pro yet, but we expect it to land near the end of the summer holidays.

Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

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24 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Makaveli
    The Current PCIe 4 drivers at 1TB capacity are in the $200 USD range.

    So I expect Samsung to price this in the $350-$450 USD range because of the MLC memory.
    Reply
  • I feel it is misleading to continually quote "max theoretical" speeds. Many people believe what they read and I don't think I've ever seen a drive, particularly Samsung, ever get close to those speeds, even for short periods of time. Take the speeds with a grain of salt, or better yet, take 30% - 40% off the speed and work with that.

    The endurance on the Evo might be lower, but the EVO's out perform my pro drives in most, if not all tests.

    Good news on the PCIe4.0 front, but only of use to AMD owners. I guess you can future proof your Intel rig as the drives are backwards compatible. Right now, 1TB Samsung Pro is about A$500. I would not be surprised to see these priced above A$750, which would agree with @Makaveli's feelings as we are now double the US price.
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    You will see those speeds but only on sequential transfers. And all of the companies marketing departments list their drives this way so its an industry issue not specific to one vendor.
    Reply
  • JamesSneed
    IceQueen0607 said:
    I feel it is misleading to continually quote "max theoretical" speeds. Many people believe what they read and I don't think I've ever seen a drive, particularly Samsung, ever get close to those speeds, even for short periods of time. Take the speeds with a grain of salt, or better yet, take 30% - 40% off the speed and work with that.

    The endurance on the Evo might be lower, but the EVO's out perform my pro drives in most, if not all tests.

    Good news on the PCIe4.0 front, but only of use to AMD owners. I guess you can future proof your Intel rig as the drives are backwards compatible. Right now, 1TB Samsung Pro is about A$500. I would not be surprised to see these priced above A$750, which would agree with @Makaveli's feelings as we are now double the US price.

    Its misleading but not for what you said. Many drives will hit close to there max theoretical speeds minus overhead in specific sequential workloads. However what has been very misleading is the random IO which is what mostly impacts the average user and it usually is a factor or two lower. In fact some of the first PCIe 4.0 drives have worse random IO than the Samsung 970 Pros.
    Reply
  • excalibur1814
    Max 1tb to ensure mass adoption. Bang. As soon as everyone owns one, release the larger versions. Max cash $$$$.
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    excalibur1814 said:
    Max 1tb to ensure mass adoption. Bang. As soon as everyone owns one, release the larger versions. Max cash $$$$.

    I think it would be too expensive probably $600+ usd for a 2TB version.
    Reply
  • DZIrl
    Makaveli said:
    The Current PCIe 4 drivers at 1TB capacity are in the $200 USD range.

    So I expect Samsung to price this in the $350-$450 USD range because of the MLC memory.

    970 Pro today is cca 350 Eur and PCI4 is some 50+ Eur more expensive then PCI3. So, yeah, I will say 400+ range.
    I'm very happy with my 970 Pro but others PCI4 1TB drivers are 200 - 250 Eur.
    Reply
  • Deicidium369
    IceQueen0607 said:
    I feel it is misleading to continually quote "max theoretical" speeds. Many people believe what they read and I don't think I've ever seen a drive, particularly Samsung, ever get close to those speeds, even for short periods of time. Take the speeds with a grain of salt, or better yet, take 30% - 40% off the speed and work with that.

    The endurance on the Evo might be lower, but the EVO's out perform my pro drives in most, if not all tests.

    Good news on the PCIe4.0 front, but only of use to AMD owners. I guess you can future proof your Intel rig as the drives are backwards compatible. Right now, 1TB Samsung Pro is about A$500. I would not be surprised to see these priced above A$750, which would agree with @Makaveli's feelings as we are now double the US price.
    By the time this drive gets released, Tiger Lake will be out with support for PCIe4 NVMe SSDs, Rocket Lake will likely be out, also supporting PCIe4. Would expect the drive to be less than that $500 quote you gave for the 970 Pro - or less.

    Samsung 1TB 970 Pro 1TB - $322 at New Egg.
    Samsung 2TB 970 Evo 2TB - $429 at New Egg
    Samsung 1TB 970 Evo 1TB - $180 at New Egg.
    Reply
  • Gurg
    My current motherboard has 2 m.2 3x4 slots each with a 500Gb Samsung 970 Evo. Going forward I would not consider a motherboard with less than 2 slots thus potential 2TB total capacity. Of course if you have an open PCIe slot you can also buy a M.2 adapter to add M.2 capacity.

    I like to keep my W10 , software for PC parts and misc software on the c: M.2 and on the D: have my private data, financial program and data, pictures, personal videos and game programs. That way I can take the D:drive out if I need to take the PC in for service or upgrades.
    Reply
  • Deicidium369
    Gurg said:
    My current motherboard has 2 m.2 3x4 slots each with a 500Gb Samsung 970 Evo. Going forward I would not consider a motherboard with less than 2 slots thus potential 2TB total capacity. Of course if you have an open PCIe slot you can also buy a M.2 adapter to add M.2 capacity.

    I like to keep my W10 , software for PC parts and misc software on the c: M.2 and on the D: have my private data, financial program and data, pictures, personal videos and game programs. That way I can take the D:drive out if I need to take the PC in for service or upgrades.
    I don't take my PC in for service or for upgrades - I build my own, and when the times comes, build a whole new machine, my most important data lives on an on site large SGI array, and is mirrored to a FreeNAS server in our Dallas data center. PC uses 1TB 970 Pro. Makes more sense if you want multiple SSDs at NVMe speeds - then U.2 drives/arrays would be the answer.

    A flash array built with even SATA3 SSDs would outrun anything you have installed in the M.2 slots
    Reply