Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe SSD

While most of its rivals are toiling away using 64-layer V-NAND memory technology, Samsung has changed the game by building this SSD using 96-layer V-NAND. Combined with TLC bit storage technology, it offers a huge boost to write speeds, with a staggering performance of 3.2GB/sec in our tests. It's a business drive too, which means great longevity guarantees and a generous warranty.

The conclusion for the 970 EVO Plus model stands, this is a top pick award-winning product, however with one remark; you need that complex writing to justify the Plus version. It simply is that good, but expect something in that 25 to 30 cents per GB in a year where we're going to hit <10 Cents per GB.

The Samsung 970 Evo Plus is faster and cheaper than the 970 Evo Pro, and easily one of the better performers in the low end of the market. The five-year warranty for the Evo Plus is also very nice to have.

All things considered, you should definitely consider this upgrade, both if you have a new comptuer and can take advantage of the best in performance, or if your frustrated by a smaller capacity drive. If you have the budget, the 2TB is delivered in the same form factor and is warrantied for double the TBWs of the 1TB model.

Results in Anvil’s 6K metrics are generally very good, with the QD6 performance for writes of well over 700MB/s looking particularly sharp. In fact, by some measures, this new Evo is quicker than its more expensive 970 Pro sibling, even if platform differences may account for some of the delta. But however you slice it, one of if not the best mainstream M.2 NVMe drive just got a fair bit better.

Samsung’s 970 EVO was a very successful and popular drive and now it has been given a new lease of life with the latest NAND technology in the form of the 970 EVO Plus. It is safe to say the new NAND gives it a healthy performance boost over the previous generation drive.

In the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark, the 970 Evo Plus scored 5,099. This is similar to the 5,100 scored by the 960 Pro, which was Samsung's premium SSD back in 2016. Back then, the 960 Pro costs $459 for a 512GB model. In contrast, the new 970 Evo Plus costs $236 for a 500GB model.

It might not be worth spending a lot of money on a high-end SSD unless you're willing to go all the way to the top and pick up a high-capacity option. Based on launch prices, the 250GB model's value for money doesn't seem all that great, with the 500GB model costing just under 50 percent more for twice the capacity. If you're an enthusiast anyway, you'll be far more satisfied with the faster and roomier models, but that will raise the cost of entry.