Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 Data Sheet Rev.1.0 (October 2016)

Summary

- PCIe 3.0 x4 NVM Express SSD for Client PCs

- M.2 (2280) - Samsung V-NAND 3bit MLC

- Samsung Polaris controller

- Intelligent TurboWrite

- Samsung Magician Software for SSD management

Samsung NVMe SSD 960 EVO

The new Samsung NVMe SSD 960 EVO expands Samsung’s Client PC NVMe SSD line-up and brings the technology to the mainstream market. The 960 EVO will particularly appeal to those customers that want to discover next generation PC performance. It offers ultimate performance levels and through its availability in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities in combination with its solid reliability make it the smart customer choice.

Raising performance expectations

Building on the PCIe Gen. 3.0 x 4 lane interface, the 960 EVO, in combination with Samsung’s advanced 3rd generation 3-bit MLC V-NAND Flash, the newly developed Polaris controller and launch of the Intelligent TurboWrite technology, is able to offer sequential read performance of 3,200 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 1,900 MB/s. It achieves random performance of up to 380,000 IOPS and 360,000 IOPS for read and write operations respectively. This means that the 960 EVO’s performance trails only the 960 PRO as the world’s most advanced client PC SSD.

Resting easy with solid reliability

Based on Samsung’s extensive experience with 3-bit MLC Flash NAND, now in the 3rd Generation of its acclaimed V-NAND Flash technology, the 960 EVO promises to deliver extensive endurance at up to 400TB of Total Bytes Written and/or a warranty of 3 years. The 960 EVO also delivers high sustained performance, lower power consumption and an innovative heat dissipating label that prolongs peak data transferability by more than 25% relative to the 2-bit MLC based 950 PRO.

Improved thermal solutions

In most cases of data transfers, heavy workloads induce heat. Once temperatures reach a threshold, memory performance may be adversely affected. As the leader in SSD memory solutions, the 960 EVO adopts a new heat spreader for dissipating heat more efficiently during heavy workload use. It achieves this by integrating a thin copper film and because copper is a great heat conductor it helps to shed heat faster than would be possible without the label.

Advanced data encryption

The 960 EVO provides the same data encryption features as other Samsung SATA SSDs. Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) security technology will help keep data safe at all times. It includes an AES 256-bit hardwarebased encryption engine to ensure that your personal files remain secure. Being hardware-based, the encryption engine secures your data without performance degradation that you may experience with a software-based encryption. Also, the 960EVO is compliant with advanced security management solutions (TCG Opal).

Samsung Magician Software

The 960 EVO comes with the newly upgraded Samsung Magician software — an advanced software solution for users to monitor, manage and maintain the drive. Magician provides personalized firmware checking and additional functions tailored for individual user's drives. It even updates the firmware automatically to make sure that the drive's performance stays up to date.*

* Magician 4.9.7 and older versions do not support Samsung NVMe SSD 960 PRO and 960 EVO.

Technical Specifications

* Sequential performance measurements based on CrystalDiskMark 5.1.2, and Random performance measurements based on IOmeter 1.1.0. Performance may vary based on SSD’s firmware version, system hardware & configuration. Test system configuration: Intel Core i7-6700K @ 4.0GHz, DDR4 1,700MHz 16GB, OS – Windows10 Pro x64, ASROCK Z170 EXTREME 7 Sequential Write performance measurements based on TurboWrite technology, These sequential write performance after TurboWrite region are 300MB/s(250GB), 600MB/s(500GB) and 1,200MB/s(1TB). Random Write performance measurements based on TurboWrite technology, These random write performance after TurboWrite region are 80,000IOPS (250GB), 160,000IOPS (500GB) and 300,000IOPS (1TB) ** Power consumption measured with IOmeter 1.1.0 with Intel i7-5820K @ 3.3GHz, DDR4 8GB, ASUS X99-M WS/SE, OSWindows10 Pro x64 and APST on *** TBW means Terabytes Written † 1GB=1,000,000,000 bytes by IDEMA. A certain portion of capacity may be used for system file and maintenance use, so the actual capacity may differ from what is indicated on the product label ††M.2 is a specification of form factor for ultra-thin PCs, The M.2 standard allows widths 12, 16, 22 and 30mm and lengths of 16, 26,30, 38, 42, 69, 80 and 110 mm, Commercially M.2 is popular with width 22mm and lengths 30, 42, 60 , 80 and 110mm. Samsung provides the most popular form factor with 22mm X 80mm model (i.e., 2280) to consider user convenience.