One look at the new Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD, one may think that no way can such a small compact piece of hardware be powerful. It’s hard to imagine that such a small device can hold such immense power.
At just 22mm in height and 80mm in length, the 970 EVO Plus offers up to 2TB of storage, reading speeds reaching up to 3.5gb/sec and writing speeds of up to 3.3gb/sec. This is a major plus for anyone who deals with large workflows and a plus for gamers as well. The specifications released by Samsung showcase just how powerful this SSD is.
Quite often users can experience performance drops during heavy workloads, and this is primarily due to overheating of the hardware. However, with the 970 EVO Plus, Samsung has fine-tuned their Dynamic Thermal Guard, along with the new nickel-coating on the Phoenix controller and thin copper-film layered heat spreader, it makes it easier to dissipate heat, especially during heavy workloads, keeping the core temperature of the device at a neutral level guaranteeing safety and ease, for longer periods of time.
The 970 EVO PLUS also has an amazing lifespan, almost all storage devices out there are measured by how many times they can have data written This is typically known as the Terabytes Written (TBW), the 970 EVO Plus has up to 600 TBW, meaning it can last up to 600 terabytes written, depending on the SSD capacity you get.
Typically, most computers and even laptops have the standard HDD or SATA SSD installed, however, with the Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 all you have to do is simply check if the motherboard on your computer if there is a vacant M.2 slot that supports the PCI Express NVMe interface. Usually, when your motherboards M.2 slot is vacant, that’s an indication that your computer is using the typical SATA SSD or a Standard HDD. By utilizing the slot in your motherboard, and the combination of the NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory express) interface the computer’s reading and writing speeds and capabilities increase immensely, this is done by increasing NAND flash storage transfer speeds, making sequential speeds up to to 6 times faster than your normal SATA SSDs.
The small, but mighty 970 EVO Plus has one of Samsung’s greatest technologies, TurboWrite. Essentially, TurboWrite delivers much faster sequential write speeds, meaning when data is written on to the drive, it’s written in a sequential manner, where large contiguous blocks of data are written next to each other.
The intelligent TurboWrite identifies a users workload intelligently and defines the suitable SLC (single-level cell) buffer. Making it ideal for someone dealing with large file formats like heavy format video files, or bulk data that they are backing up. As an example, take the 1TB model, if the data the user has is smaller than 6GB, then the intelligent TurboWrite will use the default TurboWrite region. However, if the user is writing more than 6GB, the 970 EVO Plus will use an additional 36GB dynamic SLC buffer to make the overall SLC buffer rise to 42GB. Let’s say your SSD does not have more than 126GB of free space left in the 1TB, then the TurboWrite will not fully operate, and this is due to the intelligent TurboWrite region taking advantage of the idle capacity.
So with the TurboWrite technology, users can be assured that lack of speed is not an issue, making this SSD ideal for filmmakers, 3D animators, and even gamers. Users can be assured that this algorithm of the TurboWrite does not affect the SSD endurance, this is primarily due to the fact that the total amount of data users write on the SSD remains unchanged.
Additionally, the 970 EVO Plus is first NVMe SSD with sequential write performance exceeding 3,300MB/s in the current market.
What also makes the 970 EVO Plus great is its ability to perform random writes in a fast and efficient manner. Depending on the user, random operations make up a great portion of usage times than sequential operations. When looking at the performance of an SSD, one needs to see how well it can perform when doing random operations as this can have a massive effect on various activities. For example, how long it takes for your PC to boot, web-pages to load, games to boot and load, and even in cases of visual effects and 3D animation, a high random performance SSD is essential to having your system and workflow run smoothly.
Along with the SSD, users get access to a drive management software by Samsung, Samsung Magician, this software allows the user to keep a close eye on the SSD. if you have multiple Samsung SSDs such as the EVO Pro and EVO Plus installed, you can simply toggle through and check the specs for each SSD. Within the software, you can also check to see how much space you have available on your SSD, see whether there are any firmware updates, what interface your SSD is connected to, and there’s even a system compatibility tab to tell you if there are any compatibility issues with your SSD and your computer. Another great feature in the Samsung Magician is the ‘Performance Benchmark’ tab, allowing you to test the performance of the SSD.
I was lucky enough to test out the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB SSD, and I only have one word: WOW. Testing out the SSD on an HP Z6 workstation, my main priority was to see how well this device could perform under extreme transfers and strenuous workflows. Being a video editor and 3D animator I always look for any device that offers me super high speeds and great connectivity.
The first test I put the SSD through was a simple video project on Adobe Premiere Pro, I wanted to see how well those reading and writing capabilities worked in the real world, and how fast I could import and watch my videos. Now I didn’t want to make the job easy, I chose heavy video formats, and raw footages ranging up to 8K. Usually, such file types on normal HDDs and other SSDs take a few seconds to be ready to read from on Adobe Premiere Pro, but with the 970 EVO Plus, this was a dream. Not only did the videos pop up in my media browser as soon as I opened the folders, but importing them into my project was a smooth effortless process.
All-in-all I would say Samsung has done it again with a flawless SSD that not only boosts your workflow but saves time and is cost effective. Offering a 5-year warranty, this small but powerful SSD packs a punch and ensures users that their money is well spent. Launching the 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB in Jan 2019, the 970 EVO Plus SSD will be released and distributed by Memory Technology Middle East FZCO (MTC) Dubai. Additionally, users can expect the 2TB to be launched somewhere mid-April 2019.
Nina Sargsyan
Editor at DBN Production and a Producer at Fat Brothers Films UAE
Taqato.com 
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