Samsung's SSDs are the gold standard for performance and reliability and, that's why, for many folks only a Samsung will do. One of the best NVMe SSDs on the market, the Samsung 970 EVO Plus provides excellent performance whether you're copying files, loading game levels or opening your favorite apps. It's significantly faster than budget drives like the Intel 660p or WD Blue SN550 while still being much more affordable than high-end, PCIe 4.0 drives like the Samsung 980 Pro.
Samsung EVO Plus (2TB) NVMe SSD: was $229, now $199 at Amazon
Now at an all-time low price, the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB offers reads and writes of 3,500 and 3,30 MBps with random reads and writes of 620,000 and 560,000 IOPS. It has 2GB of DRAM cache and a rated endurance of 1,200 TBW.
Samsung 970 EVO Plus (1TB): was $139, now $119 at Amazon
This popular, Editor's Choice NVMe SSD is at an all-time low price. The Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB capacity promises 3,500 MBps reads and 3,300 MBps writes, along with 600 TBW of endurance.
Samsung 970 EVO Plus (1TB): was $139, now $109 at Newegg
Newegg has the EVO Plus 1TB for the same $119 you'll find it at elsewhere, but at the time of publishing, there was a limited-time code of BCMAY22452 that took another $10 off, making it $109.
When we published our Samsung 970 EVO Plus review, we were blown away by just how much performance Samsung was able to wring out of its 9x-layer V-NAND TLC. The 2TB capacity returned a higher file copy speed in a 50GB DiskBench test than even Intel's Optane 905P drive. It was also significantly more power-efficient than all of its competitors, providing 217 MBps per watt.
The 1TB capacity of the Samsung EVO 970 Plus was equally impressive on our tests, loading a level of the game Final Fantasy XIV in just 19.9 seconds. That's better than competitors like the WD Black SN970 and Intel 660p.
This is a Samsung drive so it comes with an excellent pedigree of quality and reliability, along with the ability to use Samsung's free utilities. Samsung provides an optional driver that promises improved performance, along with its Magician utility and its Data Migration app.
Samsung 970 EVO Plus Specs
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Product
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB
Capacity (User / Raw)
1000GB / 1024GB
2000GB / 2048GB
Form Factor
M.2 2280 Single-Sided
M.2 2280 Single-Sided
Interface / Protocol
PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3
PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3
Controller
Samsung Phoenix
Samsung Phoenix
DRAM
1GB Samsung LPDDR4
2GB Samsung LPDDR4
Memory
Samsung 9x-layer V-NAND TLC
Samsung 9x-layer V-NAND TLC
Sequential Read
3,500 MB/s
3,500 MB/s
Sequential Write
3,300 MB/s
3,300 MB/s
Random Read
600,000 IOPS
620,000 IOPS
Random Write
550,000 IOPS
560,000 IOPS
Encryption
Class 0 (256-bit FDE), TCG Opal 2.0, Microsoft eDrive
Class 0 (256-bit FDE), TCG Opal 2.0, Microsoft eDrive
Avram Piltch is Managing Editor: Special Projects. When he's not playing with the latest gadgets at work or putting on VR helmets at trade shows, you'll find him rooting his phone, taking apart his PC, or coding plugins. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram developed many real-world benchmarks, including our laptop battery test.
Sadly you have to say that Samsung WAS the gold standard, but numerous reviews over the last couple of years by TomsHardware has shown that the competition has not only caught Samsung in terms of performance and endurance, but they are often priced less expensively.
That being said the 970 Evo Plus 2TB right now at $199.99 is only $15 more than I paid for my Intel 660p 2TB 2 years ago...
What I thought was the killer BF ssd deal was the Samsung 980 Pro 4.0 2tb drive for only $279.
I have never seen this drive at that price point before.
