Samsung 970 EVO Plus breaks all speed records

Samsung 970 EVO Plus

The Samsung 970 EVO Plus PCIe NMVe M.2 SSD has broken its previous speed records with 3500/3300MBps sequential read/write and 620,000/560,000 random read/write IOPS.

The Samsung E970 EVO Plus (website here) is for computing devices that support M.2 (2280) cards and have PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 lanes and NVMe 1.3 (or later). It is available in Australia in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacity.

Speed and capacity come from using its new fifth-generation Samsung 9x-layer V-NAND 3-bit MLC. This enables up to 57% increase in write speed – as well as increased power efficiency – over its predecessor, the 970 EVO.

Dr Mike Mang, vice president of Brand Product Marketing, Memory Business at Samsung Electronics, said,

“Since introducing the first NVMe SSDs to the consumer market in 2015, Samsung has continued to challenge technical barriers in SSD design and performance. The new 970 EVO Plus powered by Samsung’s latest fifth-generation V-NAND technology will now offer unrivalled performance in its class when taking on demanding tasks like 4K content editing, 3D modelling and simulation as well as heavy gaming.”

Samsung 970 EVO Plus

To better manage any heat issues the EVO 970 Plus uses a nickel-coated controller and heat spreader. A Dynamic Thermal Guard automatically monitors and maintains optimal operating temperatures to minimise performance.

Samsung 970 EVO Plus price

Samsung 970 EVO Plus Australian price Price per GB Five-year wty or TBW (TB)
MZ-V7S2T0BW (2TB) $769 38.45 cents 1200
MZ-V7S1T0BW (1TB) $385 38.5 cents 600
MZ-V7S500BW (500GB) $199 39.8 cents 300
MZ-V7S250BW (250GB) $139 55.6 cents 150

As this is a new product, there are no online deals yet. The 970 EVO (not Plus) may be better value and offers 3200/2500MBps sequential read/write and 500,000/480,000 IOPS random read/write.

Management Software

A new version of Samsung Magician 5.3 software (Windows only) has a range of new management features. It is for firmware updates, performance benchmarking, drive health and total bytes written check, secure erase, data security/encryption and can implement a rapid mode.

You can find it and other tools here.  

Samsung 970 EVO Plus

Clean setup – the preferred method

A clean install always gives the best results. The downside is that you must reinstall Windows and all your existing software.

With your existing system intact

Download Magical Jelly Bean Finder (MJBF – there is a Mac version as well) and use it to find the Windows 10 CD Key – it looks like this DA246-4VFG4-RBS8C-YRZYV-YY49C. Write it down and also put a copy in a plain text file.

MJBF may also be able to find other installed software keys like Office, Antivirus etc. Also, copy these down.

Next, go to Windows ISO downloader and download the ISO Tool to make a bootable Windows install USB flash drive.

Power off and remove the existing boot hard disk. The new disk should plug straight into the cables – if not you can’t proceed and will need to take the SSD back to the store

Put the bootable USB drive in the USB-A port and switch on. The computer BIO should recognise it as a bootable device (if not you need to go into the bios and set it accordingly)

Or clone it

To use this, you must have a bootable, trouble-free hard disk or SSD and a spare PCIe NVMe M.2 slot for the Samsung E970 EVO Plus. After cloning you disable your HDD and boot from the Samsung. The old hard disk or SSD can either become a slave drive.

Samsung Data Migration software is free and will clone an existing HDD or SSD to a Samsung EVO 970 Plus. If you don’t have a spare M.2 slot (with M key for PCIe compatibility), you will need an M.2 PCIe with M Key to USB 3.0 adaptor. For reference one of the first available is here. Or if you have a desktop with a spare PCIe slot mwave has a Simplecom EC412 Dual M.2 to PCI-E x4 and SATA Expansion Card.

Samsung 970 EVO Plus