Samsung's smartphones may be close copies of the Apple iPhone, but the Korean tech giant has a credible claim to starting the solid-state drive (SSD) revolution.
These speedy storage drives, with no moving parts, are now staples in mainstream laptops and expensive workstations alike, but not all are created equal.
Near the top of the SSD pyramid is Samsung's SSD 970 EVO ($179.99 for 500GB, as tested), a lightning-quick yet reasonably priced PCI Express NVMe drive that takes advantage of Samsung's expertise in designing non-volatile memory to deliver some of the fastest throughput you can buy.
In fact, the only SSD we've tested recently to post better numbers is the SSD 970 EVO's big brother, the Samsung SSD 970 Pro, which is only slightly faster but nontrivially more expensive.
That makes the SSD 970 EVO our new Editors' Choice for the best high-end M.2 SSD you can buy.
Samsung's SSD Lineup Explained
Samsung's flagship internal SSD line splits along two axes: value for performance, and form factor.
The company's Pro models offer the absolute best performance and reliability for the most money.
Meanwhile, the EVO drives' slightly lower prices, reliability, and speeds are attributable mostly to differences that consumers building a PC for use at home shouldn't worry about, for instance, two-bit MLC memory for the SSD 970 Pro versus the three-bit TLC memory in the SSD 970 EVO.
(See our explainer Buying a Solid-State Drive: 20 Terms You Need to Know.)
Then consider the second axis, form factor.
EVO- and Pro-family drives are both available in either the gumstick-shaped M.2 variety (the test sample in this review is M.2) or the larger 2.5-inch Serial ATA (SATA) type.
The flagship SATA drives are called SSD 860 Pro($179.99 at Amazon) and SSD 860 EVO.
The M.2 drives use the cutting-edge PCI Express NVMe interface, which offers roughly six times more potential throughput than does the SATA interface.
If your motherboard has a vacant M.2 slot that supports the PCI Express NVMe interface, filling it is likely to be the single most impactful performance improvement you can make to your PC, since its vacancy is an indicator that the computer is most likely currently using either a SATA SSD (slower) or a SATA hard drive (much, much slower).
A cutting-edge technology like NVMe typically carries higher pricing, of course, but luckily the SSD 970 EVO is comfortably below the 40-cent-per-gigabyte upper limit that we consider to be affordable for high-end internal SSDs.
Both the 500GB version I tested and the 1TB capacity both cost around 35 cents per gigabyte at this writing.
Samsung also offers the SSD 970 EVO in two smaller configurations (128GB or 256GB), as well as a giant 2TB version that costs a whopping $750.
At 37 cents per gigabyte, the 2TB drive is only slightly less cost-effective than its smaller siblings, but it's still overkill for most people.
Unless you need to store raw video footage on as speedy a drive as possible, or your laptop or tiny desktop has no space for a second cheaper hard drive, your wallet will thank you for buying a lower-capacity SSD and a higher-capacity hard drive to use in tandem.
Still not convinced? Check out our SSD versus HDD explainer for more.
If your budget is limitless and you absolutely must have 2TB of screaming-fast storage, the SSD 970 EVO may be a better choice than the SSD 970 Pro($156.31 at Amazon), which doesn't come in a 2TB capacity.
To get to 2TB, you would need to buy two 1TB SSD 970 Pros for a total of $900 at current prices, and that assumes that your motherboard has two M.2 slots (many don't) or you already have a PCI Express NVMe add-in card to put them on.
It also assumes that your workflows would be noticeably quicker with the small performance boost that the SSD 970 Pro offers over the SSD 970 EVO, and as you'll see below, that difference is really, really small in most cases and even negative in others.
A PCI Express Train
Samsung rates the SSD 970 EVO's maximum sequential-read speed at 3,500MBps and its maximum sequential-write speed at 2,500MBps.
The SSD 970 Pro has an identical rated read speed, and its write speed is just 300MBps lower.
Theoretically, then, you should notice little performance difference between the two, at least when you're reading one piece of data at a time.
Indeed, our performance tests largely bear out this hypothesis.
The SSD 970 EVO's score of 3,372MBps on the Crystal DiskMark 6 sequential-read test is the fastest we've tested recently.
In fact, even though it didn't quite reach Samsung's advertised maximum read speed, it's a smidge faster than the SSD 970 Pro, which recorded 3,286MBps on this test.
Sequential-read speeds, on the other hand, are a bit less surprising based on Samsung's claims, with the SSD 970 EVO recording 2,481MBps compared with the 2,738MBps of the SSD 970 Pro.
Measuring an SSD's sequential-read speeds is a good way of verifying a manufacturer's performance advertising, but random (4K) read and write performance is at least as important, since it's one of the best predictors of how the drive will perform on everyday activities like booting up and opening and closing apps.
On the AS-SSD 4K read (50MBps) and write (220MBps) tests, the SSD 970 EVO bested all comers, even the SSD 970 Pro.
On the similar Crystal DiskMark 4K test, the EVO's read score of 44MBps and write score of 252MBps were slightly slower than the Pro, but slightly faster than the WD Black NVMe.
On both tests, the random read and write performance of all three drives is excellent, and the small differences will likely matter little in everyday use cases.
See How We Test SSDs
Our final throughput test involves copying a series of files from one location on the drive to another using the AS-SSD benchmark tool.
The SSD 970 Pro was the fastest here, moving a sample ISO (disk image) file at 1,605MBps, a sample program folder at 423MBps, and a sample game folder at 958Mps.
The SSD 970 EVO was second-fastest on the program (371MBps) and game (916MBps) moves, with the WD Black NVMe very close on its heels (367MBps for the program move and 770MBps for the game move).
The fact that the SSD 970 EVO, SSD 970 Pro, and WD Black NVMe posted throughput numbers so close to one another on all of these tests demonstrates that all of them offer lightning-fast performance and that you must look to ancillary features—warranty length, price, and bundled software—to make your final buying decision.
The best evidence of the drives' performance similarity is on the PCMark 8 Storage subtest, which simulates real-world computer use over the course of an hour or so and combines "traces" that simulate everyday computing tasks (video conferencing, media editing) into a single proprietary score.
The SSD 970 EVO's score of 5,068 on this test was within a whisker of the other drives, whose scores ranged from 5,065 for the WD Black NVMe to 5,100 for the SSD 970 Pro.
How Long Will You Keep It?
One reason why the SSD 970 Pro costs more than the SSD 970 EVO is its greater rated reliability.
Samsung estimates that the 500GB version of the SSD 970 EVO will begin to wear out after you've written 300TB to it.
In theory, that's a significantly shorter lifespan than the SSD 970 Pro, which is rated to last up to 1,200 terabytes written (TBW).
In practice, however, we consider 10TB to be a rough estimate of the amount of data a heavy power user writes to a boot drive in a given year.
So even if you somehow managed to double that, the 500GB SSD 970 EVO should withstand more than a decade of use, which means it will likely outlast the rest of your PC's components (as well as the viability of 500GB of storage as a boot device).
Endurance is determined in part by a linear relationship to the capacity of the drive, so SSDs with lower capacities will wear out faster.
If you are in the tiny subset of users who plan to write many gigabytes of data to your drive every day, you'll want to consider a larger-capacity drive.
The 2TB version of the SSD 970 EVO is rated at 1,200TBW, for instance, matching the rated reliability of the 1TB SSD 970 Pro.
Despite the excellent TBW rating, Samsung doesn't offer a decade-long warranty.
The five-year warranty period you do get on the SSD 970 EVO is still quite generous, and it's the same that the WD Black NVMe and SSD 970 Pro offer, further evidence that reliability of either drive isn't a factor to consider for most buyers.
Samsung's SSDs have a clear advantage over the competition when it comes to software.
The Magician drive-management app, which is compatible with both the SSD 970 EVO and the SSD 970 Pro, is full-featured and easy to use.
It's a one-stop shop for key SSD-management activities and then some: firmware updates, performance tweaks, RAM-disk setup, performing secure erases.
Western Digital's software offers many of these same features, but, in general, I find the Samsung Magician app more user-friendly.
I tested the SSD 970 EVO with the software installed to ensure the latest firmware version was present, but all of the performance settings were left at their defaults.
Look No Further (Unless You're on a Budget)
The Samsung SSD 970 EVO is reasonably priced and offers similar (and in some cases better) performance than its more expensive sibling, the SSD 970 Pro, and it's available in more capacity options.
If you want the most storage bang for your buck, then it's an easy choice.
The few reasons you'd go for the more expensive SSD 970 Pro are if you think you'll run into the endurance limit, or if you need the absolute best performance from a consumer SSD regardless of price.
Meanwhile, if you're on a budget or are just looking to rescue your older PC from a sluggish spinning hard drive, plenty of cheaper SSDs like the Crucial MX500($299.85 at Amazon) will serve you just fine; 3D TLC NAND has helped depress pricing.
But if you want the state of the art in PCI Express SSDs, it's hard to do better than the EVO for the money.
Pros
Lightning-fast random reads and writes.
Reasonable cost per gigabyte.
Multiple capacity options.
Easy-to-use Windows software.
Long warranty.
View More
The Bottom Line
The Samsung SSD 970 EVO offers an excellent blend of throughput and performance, making it the best high-end internal M.2 PCI Express SSD for most users.
Samsung's smartphones may be close copies of the Apple iPhone, but the Korean tech giant has a credible claim to starting the solid-state drive (SSD) revolution.
These speedy storage drives, with no moving parts, are now staples in mainstream laptops and expensive workstations alike, but not all are created equal.
Near the top of the SSD pyramid is Samsung's SSD 970 EVO ($179.99 for 500GB, as tested), a lightning-quick yet reasonably priced PCI Express NVMe drive that takes advantage of Samsung's expertise in designing non-volatile memory to deliver some of the fastest throughput you can buy.
In fact, the only SSD we've tested recently to post better numbers is the SSD 970 EVO's big brother, the Samsung SSD 970 Pro, which is only slightly faster but nontrivially more expensive.
That makes the SSD 970 EVO our new Editors' Choice for the best high-end M.2 SSD you can buy.
Samsung's SSD Lineup Explained
Samsung's flagship internal SSD line splits along two axes: value for performance, and form factor.
The company's Pro models offer the absolute best performance and reliability for the most money.
Meanwhile, the EVO drives' slightly lower prices, reliability, and speeds are attributable mostly to differences that consumers building a PC for use at home shouldn't worry about, for instance, two-bit MLC memory for the SSD 970 Pro versus the three-bit TLC memory in the SSD 970 EVO.
(See our explainer Buying a Solid-State Drive: 20 Terms You Need to Know.)
Then consider the second axis, form factor.
EVO- and Pro-family drives are both available in either the gumstick-shaped M.2 variety (the test sample in this review is M.2) or the larger 2.5-inch Serial ATA (SATA) type.
The flagship SATA drives are called SSD 860 Pro($179.99 at Amazon) and SSD 860 EVO.
The M.2 drives use the cutting-edge PCI Express NVMe interface, which offers roughly six times more potential throughput than does the SATA interface.
If your motherboard has a vacant M.2 slot that supports the PCI Express NVMe interface, filling it is likely to be the single most impactful performance improvement you can make to your PC, since its vacancy is an indicator that the computer is most likely currently using either a SATA SSD (slower) or a SATA hard drive (much, much slower).
A cutting-edge technology like NVMe typically carries higher pricing, of course, but luckily the SSD 970 EVO is comfortably below the 40-cent-per-gigabyte upper limit that we consider to be affordable for high-end internal SSDs.
Both the 500GB version I tested and the 1TB capacity both cost around 35 cents per gigabyte at this writing.
Samsung also offers the SSD 970 EVO in two smaller configurations (128GB or 256GB), as well as a giant 2TB version that costs a whopping $750.
At 37 cents per gigabyte, the 2TB drive is only slightly less cost-effective than its smaller siblings, but it's still overkill for most people.
Unless you need to store raw video footage on as speedy a drive as possible, or your laptop or tiny desktop has no space for a second cheaper hard drive, your wallet will thank you for buying a lower-capacity SSD and a higher-capacity hard drive to use in tandem.
Still not convinced? Check out our SSD versus HDD explainer for more.
If your budget is limitless and you absolutely must have 2TB of screaming-fast storage, the SSD 970 EVO may be a better choice than the SSD 970 Pro($156.31 at Amazon), which doesn't come in a 2TB capacity.
To get to 2TB, you would need to buy two 1TB SSD 970 Pros for a total of $900 at current prices, and that assumes that your motherboard has two M.2 slots (many don't) or you already have a PCI Express NVMe add-in card to put them on.
It also assumes that your workflows would be noticeably quicker with the small performance boost that the SSD 970 Pro offers over the SSD 970 EVO, and as you'll see below, that difference is really, really small in most cases and even negative in others.
A PCI Express Train
Samsung rates the SSD 970 EVO's maximum sequential-read speed at 3,500MBps and its maximum sequential-write speed at 2,500MBps.
The SSD 970 Pro has an identical rated read speed, and its write speed is just 300MBps lower.
Theoretically, then, you should notice little performance difference between the two, at least when you're reading one piece of data at a time.
Indeed, our performance tests largely bear out this hypothesis.
The SSD 970 EVO's score of 3,372MBps on the Crystal DiskMark 6 sequential-read test is the fastest we've tested recently.
In fact, even though it didn't quite reach Samsung's advertised maximum read speed, it's a smidge faster than the SSD 970 Pro, which recorded 3,286MBps on this test.
Sequential-read speeds, on the other hand, are a bit less surprising based on Samsung's claims, with the SSD 970 EVO recording 2,481MBps compared with the 2,738MBps of the SSD 970 Pro.
Measuring an SSD's sequential-read speeds is a good way of verifying a manufacturer's performance advertising, but random (4K) read and write performance is at least as important, since it's one of the best predictors of how the drive will perform on everyday activities like booting up and opening and closing apps.
On the AS-SSD 4K read (50MBps) and write (220MBps) tests, the SSD 970 EVO bested all comers, even the SSD 970 Pro.
On the similar Crystal DiskMark 4K test, the EVO's read score of 44MBps and write score of 252MBps were slightly slower than the Pro, but slightly faster than the WD Black NVMe.
On both tests, the random read and write performance of all three drives is excellent, and the small differences will likely matter little in everyday use cases.
See How We Test SSDs
Our final throughput test involves copying a series of files from one location on the drive to another using the AS-SSD benchmark tool.
The SSD 970 Pro was the fastest here, moving a sample ISO (disk image) file at 1,605MBps, a sample program folder at 423MBps, and a sample game folder at 958Mps.
The SSD 970 EVO was second-fastest on the program (371MBps) and game (916MBps) moves, with the WD Black NVMe very close on its heels (367MBps for the program move and 770MBps for the game move).
The fact that the SSD 970 EVO, SSD 970 Pro, and WD Black NVMe posted throughput numbers so close to one another on all of these tests demonstrates that all of them offer lightning-fast performance and that you must look to ancillary features—warranty length, price, and bundled software—to make your final buying decision.
The best evidence of the drives' performance similarity is on the PCMark 8 Storage subtest, which simulates real-world computer use over the course of an hour or so and combines "traces" that simulate everyday computing tasks (video conferencing, media editing) into a single proprietary score.
The SSD 970 EVO's score of 5,068 on this test was within a whisker of the other drives, whose scores ranged from 5,065 for the WD Black NVMe to 5,100 for the SSD 970 Pro.
How Long Will You Keep It?
One reason why the SSD 970 Pro costs more than the SSD 970 EVO is its greater rated reliability.
Samsung estimates that the 500GB version of the SSD 970 EVO will begin to wear out after you've written 300TB to it.
In theory, that's a significantly shorter lifespan than the SSD 970 Pro, which is rated to last up to 1,200 terabytes written (TBW).
In practice, however, we consider 10TB to be a rough estimate of the amount of data a heavy power user writes to a boot drive in a given year.
So even if you somehow managed to double that, the 500GB SSD 970 EVO should withstand more than a decade of use, which means it will likely outlast the rest of your PC's components (as well as the viability of 500GB of storage as a boot device).
Endurance is determined in part by a linear relationship to the capacity of the drive, so SSDs with lower capacities will wear out faster.
If you are in the tiny subset of users who plan to write many gigabytes of data to your drive every day, you'll want to consider a larger-capacity drive.
The 2TB version of the SSD 970 EVO is rated at 1,200TBW, for instance, matching the rated reliability of the 1TB SSD 970 Pro.
Despite the excellent TBW rating, Samsung doesn't offer a decade-long warranty.
The five-year warranty period you do get on the SSD 970 EVO is still quite generous, and it's the same that the WD Black NVMe and SSD 970 Pro offer, further evidence that reliability of either drive isn't a factor to consider for most buyers.
Samsung's SSDs have a clear advantage over the competition when it comes to software.
The Magician drive-management app, which is compatible with both the SSD 970 EVO and the SSD 970 Pro, is full-featured and easy to use.
It's a one-stop shop for key SSD-management activities and then some: firmware updates, performance tweaks, RAM-disk setup, performing secure erases.
Western Digital's software offers many of these same features, but, in general, I find the Samsung Magician app more user-friendly.
I tested the SSD 970 EVO with the software installed to ensure the latest firmware version was present, but all of the performance settings were left at their defaults.
Look No Further (Unless You're on a Budget)
The Samsung SSD 970 EVO is reasonably priced and offers similar (and in some cases better) performance than its more expensive sibling, the SSD 970 Pro, and it's available in more capacity options.
If you want the most storage bang for your buck, then it's an easy choice.
The few reasons you'd go for the more expensive SSD 970 Pro are if you think you'll run into the endurance limit, or if you need the absolute best performance from a consumer SSD regardless of price.
Meanwhile, if you're on a budget or are just looking to rescue your older PC from a sluggish spinning hard drive, plenty of cheaper SSDs like the Crucial MX500($299.85 at Amazon) will serve you just fine; 3D TLC NAND has helped depress pricing.
But if you want the state of the art in PCI Express SSDs, it's hard to do better than the EVO for the money.
Pros
Lightning-fast random reads and writes.
Reasonable cost per gigabyte.
Multiple capacity options.
Easy-to-use Windows software.
Long warranty.
View More
The Bottom Line
The Samsung SSD 970 EVO offers an excellent blend of throughput and performance, making it the best high-end internal M.2 PCI Express SSD for most users.
