Samsung launches 980 NVMe, its first DRAM-less SSD drive

Samsung has announced the new affordable 980 NVMe SSD. Not to be confused with the 980 Pro, the 980 is the company’s first DRAM less option, which is mainly why it’s available at a starting price of just $ 50 for the 250 GB size variant and up to $ 130 for the top 1 TB variant.

DRAM, or dynamic memory for random access, is an important part that helps to point out the contents of the SSD so that it can access your data quickly and efficiently. By removing the module completely, Samsung has managed to lower the price of the SSD, something that has been tried by many other SSD manufacturers. To compensate for the absence of DRAM, Samsung says the 980 has a Host Memory Buffer feature. This allows the disk to use a small amount of memory (64 MB) from the CPU via PCIe. While it does not make the fastest one on the market, the memory sharing feature can do it better than an SSD that does not have DRAM. The disk also comes with the newly upgraded Intelligent TurboWrite 2.0, which reportedly offers ‘improved sustained performance’ over the older 970 Evo by allocating a much larger buffer storage area within the disk.

Compared to a SATA-based SSD, Samsung claims that the 980 can offer up to six times the speed. Expect the 1TB version to offer 980 to 3,500MB / s consecutive read speeds and 3,000MB / s write speeds, which is roughly equal to the more expensive 970 Evo Plus and better than the 970 Evo’s top consecutive write speeds. However, the lower-end 250 GB storage model is not going to be that fast, as it offers up to 2,900 MB / s consecutive read and 1,300 MB / s consecutive write speeds. In short, the new 980 NVMe can be cut somewhere between the 970 Evo Plus and the 970 Evo, culminating in the fact that the company, despite the absence of DRAM, has managed to offer respectable speeds.