Samsung 970 Evo Plus 250GB M.2 NVMe SSD

If you need the extra speed for bulky I/O like editing large videos, or swapping data that can't fit into memory, the 970 EVO works well. Otherwise I think SATA is sufficiently fast for most things and is in some ways more convenient. However for typical smaller work loads, such as booting, or starting typical applications, you might not notice the difference. For example, my desktop boots about 1 second faster using the 970 EVO MVMe than my SATA Samsung 850 EVO SSD - so it turns out the small reads and writes made during booting are not the principle bottleneck. For normal applications I can't tell the difference when running from the 970 EVO MVMe versus the 850 EVO SSD.I've found MVMe is great for swap because swap may require masses of big writes. if I drive my ... MoreIf you need the extra speed for bulky I/O like editing large videos, or swapping data that can't fit into memory, the 970 EVO works well. Otherwise I think SATA is sufficiently fast for most things and is in some ways more convenient. However for typical smaller work loads, such as booting, or starting typical applications, you might not notice the difference. For example, my desktop boots about 1 second faster using the 970 EVO MVMe than my SATA Samsung 850 EVO SSD - so it turns out the small reads and writes made during booting are not the principle bottleneck. For normal applications I can't tell the difference when running from the 970 EVO MVMe versus the 850 EVO SSD.I've found MVMe is great for swap because swap may require masses of big writes. if I drive my desktop heavily into MVMe swap, it's still responsive enough for me to take action to bring memory use back under control.NVMe also requires dealing with small screws, plus considering heatsinks if the MVMe is badly placed for airflow. As I understand it, adding a heatsink would void Samsung's warranty. Apparently the sticker on the drive is already some kind of heat conductor, plus the NVMe will automatically throttle back on speed if it gets too hot. SATA SSD's are relatively free of cooling issues and pretty easy to install.I was considering using this as compact storage for a raspberry Pi 4, but MVMe requires more power than SATA, so I'd have to add a powered USB-hub. So if you're picky about energy efficiency, SATA SSD may be the way to go.I'll take the win of faster swap, but in many ways I see MVMe as a failed experiment on my part. SATA was already good enough, maybe I should have put the money toward more RAM or a faster CPU.

Best storage decision made this year - 1TB!!!

I recently upgraded my laptop's storage from a 256 GB solid-state drive (SSD) to the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe, and I must say, I am absolutely thrilled with the results! This SSD is an absolute powerhouse and has significantly improved the speed and performance of my computer.First off, the installation process was incredibly smooth, thanks in large part to the Geek Squad support that I received. The Geek Squad agent I spoke with was incredibly knowledgeable and walked me through every step of the process. They even helped me transfer all of my files and data from my old SSD to the new one, which saved me a ton of time and hassle.Once the installation was complete, I was blown away by how fast my computer was running. Everything ... MoreI recently upgraded my laptop's storage from a 256 GB solid-state drive (SSD) to the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe, and I must say, I am absolutely thrilled with the results! This SSD is an absolute powerhouse and has significantly improved the speed and performance of my computer.First off, the installation process was incredibly smooth, thanks in large part to the Geek Squad support that I received. The Geek Squad agent I spoke with was incredibly knowledgeable and walked me through every step of the process. They even helped me transfer all of my files and data from my old SSD to the new one, which saved me a ton of time and hassle.Once the installation was complete, I was blown away by how fast my computer was running. Everything from booting up to opening and closing programs was lightning quick, and I no longer have to deal with the frustrating lag and slow load times that I experienced with my old SSD.In addition to the speed and performance improvements, I also love the fact that this SSD has 1TB of storage space. This means that I can store all of my important files, photos, and videos without having to worry about running out of space. Plus, the NVMe technology means that my data transfer speeds are faster than ever before, which is especially important when working with large files or transferring data to external drives.Overall, I am absolutely thrilled with my upgrade to the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to boost their computer's performance. And if you're considering making the upgrade, I would definitely recommend seeking out Geek Squad support - they made the process incredibly easy and stress-free!

Brand product with great performance

Thanks to Black Friday, I jumped on the opportunity of picking two of these. Design wise, the black PCB has that nice and simple design that is clear for the ones wanting something more "simple" and "professional" looking. While some persons criticize the Elpis revision over the older Phoenix version of this unit, the newer control does have some real-world benefits compared to what Phoenix could do. It's important to note that the cache on the Elpis is much, much higher than what Phoenix could handle, generally x3 the amount. The flaw/drawback is mostly that once that's filled up, the Elpis control operates slower than the Phoenix. This could be an issue for some when it comes to larger files, but for anyone else who's more of a regular user this is fine. The TBW ... MoreThanks to Black Friday, I jumped on the opportunity of picking two of these. Design wise, the black PCB has that nice and simple design that is clear for the ones wanting something more "simple" and "professional" looking. While some persons criticize the Elpis revision over the older Phoenix version of this unit, the newer control does have some real-world benefits compared to what Phoenix could do. It's important to note that the cache on the Elpis is much, much higher than what Phoenix could handle, generally x3 the amount. The flaw/drawback is mostly that once that's filled up, the Elpis control operates slower than the Phoenix. This could be an issue for some when it comes to larger files, but for anyone else who's more of a regular user this is fine. The TBW on these isn't all too special, but it should be fine for the general person picking up a TLC SSD. Of course though, with Black Friday it's hard to not recommend a 2TB NVME for just 189.99$, quite a steal for a good PCIe 3 unit with a decent 1200TBW. The only real problem that may come for some users is related to the higher temperatures that the Elpis causes when it's under load. This generally seems to be an extra 10 degrees Celsius over how Phoenix operated, which could result in issues for some persons who maybe a little restricted or tight when it comes to the open space available for an SSD. I do recommend getting a heatsink (Even if it's just a small copper plate with some thermal pads) to maintain that temperature under some form of control if it gets a little too hot for the drive's safety. On a brighter note, Elpis does allow for what seems to be rather low temperatures while the drive is idling.

Danyal's review of Ssd 980 Pro M.2 2tb Pcie4.0x4 Nvme 1.3 W/heatsink

Pros: The Samsung 980 Pro is simply a crucial asset to any prosumer who transfers large files constantly. The speed is top tier by leveraging PCIE 4.0 (is also backwards compatable with pcie gen 3). For gamers, it can also be an asset if you have a top tier build and want the best performance possible out of every component. Installation is very simple, just refer to your motherboards manual if unsure. Samsung also has their software, Samsung Magician. This allows you to configure multiple aspects of the SSD to tailor to your needs and run benchmarks. Overall, this is a high end m.2 and delivers what you expect for the price. Would recommend for any prosumer who manages large files and values every second of their time, or gamers looking for the best of the ... MorePros: The Samsung 980 Pro is simply a crucial asset to any prosumer who transfers large files constantly. The speed is top tier by leveraging PCIE 4.0 (is also backwards compatable with pcie gen 3). For gamers, it can also be an asset if you have a top tier build and want the best performance possible out of every component. Installation is very simple, just refer to your motherboards manual if unsure. Samsung also has their software, Samsung Magician. This allows you to configure multiple aspects of the SSD to tailor to your needs and run benchmarks. Overall, this is a high end m.2 and delivers what you expect for the price. Would recommend for any prosumer who manages large files and values every second of their time, or gamers looking for the best of the best.Cons: The SSD delivers on what it portrays, so no improvement points. I feel the price is reasonable when compared to other SSDs of the same storage and same speed class.

Decent SSD, decent price. 2tb Samsung EVO 970 M.2

Upgraded from a 1th Samsung EVO 840 2.5" SSD to a 2tb Samsung EVO 970 M.2 SSD for more storage & faster transfers. To be fair, I'm not noticing any difference in terms of speed! Thought I'd see an instant difference between SATA to PCIe v3.0, but any difference is hard to see. A Youtube comparison with PCIe v3.0 and PCIe v4.0 only shows a 0.3 second difference - so wasn't worth paying the higher prices for a PCIe v4.0 drive just yet (not that my laptop has v4.0). I do however have twice the space so no more having to uninstall a game to simply make room for a new game! Cloning was easy - I used the free edition of Macrium Reflect software. Only thing I have noticed is that booting from cold, is as normal - however - rebooting Windows, it seems to get stick on the ... MoreUpgraded from a 1th Samsung EVO 840 2.5" SSD to a 2tb Samsung EVO 970 M.2 SSD for more storage & faster transfers. To be fair, I'm not noticing any difference in terms of speed! Thought I'd see an instant difference between SATA to PCIe v3.0, but any difference is hard to see. A Youtube comparison with PCIe v3.0 and PCIe v4.0 only shows a 0.3 second difference - so wasn't worth paying the higher prices for a PCIe v4.0 drive just yet (not that my laptop has v4.0). I do however have twice the space so no more having to uninstall a game to simply make room for a new game! Cloning was easy - I used the free edition of Macrium Reflect software. Only thing I have noticed is that booting from cold, is as normal - however - rebooting Windows, it seems to get stick on the BIOS screen now? I have to power off, then on again to get into Windows again. Might be a small issue with cloning which will be sorted if/when I can be bothered to do a fresh install, or possibly a bug with my BIOS as laptop is 5 years old - but is a minor issue which I can live with. Either way, I'm confident it's not the M.2 SSD at fault.I was close to getting the 2tb Corsair MP600 PCIe v4.0, but it had the crappy QLC NAND which doesn't last as long, or as durable, or as efficient or as fast as the TLC NAND's. QLC's rarely perform at "optimum" read/write speeds.https://venturebeat.com/2019/12/06/tlc-vs-qlc-nand-pick-the-best-memory-technology-for-your-applicationA couple of decent Youtube links which shows loading times are:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edHSUX_h3A4&ab_channel=DannitechBenchmarkshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YoRKQy-UO4&ab_channel=TestingGames

Really good performance for its price

For $199 plus tax, I would say the 2TB Samsung 970 evo plus is really good for it's price. It's a better value than sata ssd's of the same value and price. It's a couple less cables to deal with which is nice.Arrived pretty quickly and box was in good condition, barely any scratches or scuffs. Unboxing it, you get the drive itself; I was very surprised to see how small NVME really is compared to SATA.Installation was relatively painless; make sure your MB has an m.2 slot that supports pcie 3.0 x4. I used windows disk management to format the drive and used samsung migration to move OS and all my data onto this new drive, then downloaded samsung magician for further utility. I recommend downloading the NVME driver from samsung's website as when you install the ... MoreFor $199 plus tax, I would say the 2TB Samsung 970 evo plus is really good for it's price. It's a better value than sata ssd's of the same value and price. It's a couple less cables to deal with which is nice.Arrived pretty quickly and box was in good condition, barely any scratches or scuffs. Unboxing it, you get the drive itself; I was very surprised to see how small NVME really is compared to SATA.Installation was relatively painless; make sure your MB has an m.2 slot that supports pcie 3.0 x4. I used windows disk management to format the drive and used samsung migration to move OS and all my data onto this new drive, then downloaded samsung magician for further utility. I recommend downloading the NVME driver from samsung's website as when you install the drive for the first time, it uses microsoft's nvme drivers. Downloading the samsung drivers provided a small boost to all stats as seen above.Drive runs relatively warm but not hot with my use. It idles around 45-52c and when gaming, it's between 55-65c without a heatsink on it.Gaming on it is a beast, load times are very fast and very little stuttering in games, especially compared to HDD's and Dramless ssd's. Downloads are very fast as well.One thing to note, it's been know samsung has made revisions of their 970 evo plus drives to have the elpis controller which is found on the 980 pro; that has slightly worse sustained writes when doing heavy workloads. My 2TB which has P/N MZVLB2T0HALB, has the old phoenix controller which is slightly better all round, drive was made in 2021 11 03 in Thailand.

Refurbished SSDs sound like a terrible idea right?

If you know anything about how NAND flash works, you’d understandably be hesitant to purchase a Refurbished (let’s be honest here) USED SSD because they wear out after being written/read enough times. In this case the warranty is done after 300 terabytes have been written to the 500GB disk. I decided to take a gamble on these because I planned on using a pair in my Synology NAS for cached data acceleration (even if the SSD failed, data wouldn’t be lost). I was pleasantly surprised when i encountered a drive that was written to very little, never overheated, and restarted less than a dozen times. (Using SMART to check the drive stats) By my math, the SSD has at least 99.7% of its life left. The cherry on top was my ability to register Samsung’s 5 year warranty to ... MoreIf you know anything about how NAND flash works, you’d understandably be hesitant to purchase a Refurbished (let’s be honest here) USED SSD because they wear out after being written/read enough times. In this case the warranty is done after 300 terabytes have been written to the 500GB disk. I decided to take a gamble on these because I planned on using a pair in my Synology NAS for cached data acceleration (even if the SSD failed, data wouldn’t be lost). I was pleasantly surprised when i encountered a drive that was written to very little, never overheated, and restarted less than a dozen times. (Using SMART to check the drive stats) By my math, the SSD has at least 99.7% of its life left. The cherry on top was my ability to register Samsung’s 5 year warranty to July 2027 (drive was purchased in January 2023). No clue where Best Buy is getting these from, but I’d buy these again. (For Best Buy, you’d probably move more of these units if you could guarantee that the drives have had less than a terabyte written in the description)

Unbeatable price to performance ratio

I had always stayed away from refurbished storage components since I value my data but since this had non-moving parts, took a chance. And I am glad I did. On a B550 motherboard (supports PCI 4.0) this PCI 3.0 SSD doesn't stand out in terms of raw speed but for a $45 drive this kind of speed was unthinkable even before the chip shortage started. I am getting close to the rated read/write speed so no complaints there.The reason I docked a star (and possibly the reason why it might have been returned), is high temperature during general usage. Idle temperature around 60℃ and while writing a large file the temperature reached 75℃ (could still live with it) - during HeavyLoad benchmarking it reached 82℃, which was in the scary zone.The fix was easy - got an Icepc ... MoreI had always stayed away from refurbished storage components since I value my data but since this had non-moving parts, took a chance. And I am glad I did. On a B550 motherboard (supports PCI 4.0) this PCI 3.0 SSD doesn't stand out in terms of raw speed but for a $45 drive this kind of speed was unthinkable even before the chip shortage started. I am getting close to the rated read/write speed so no complaints there.The reason I docked a star (and possibly the reason why it might have been returned), is high temperature during general usage. Idle temperature around 60℃ and while writing a large file the temperature reached 75℃ (could still live with it) - during HeavyLoad benchmarking it reached 82℃, which was in the scary zone.The fix was easy - got an Icepc Copper Heatsink for $11 and now it stays around 60℃ during benchmarking. It did increase the cost to $56 though but I'd still recommend it to those who wouldn't push this drive too hard and the heatsink is not needed. Cost-wise it's pretty close to my Sabrent PCI 3.0 SSD after the heatsink purchase but it writes faster (Sabrent peaks at 2.4GB/s whereas this exceeds 3GB/s) so I'd recommend it to value conscious people looking for performance as well but if your NVME slot is behind the motherboard like mine and/or doesn't have much airflow, consider a heatsink.

Upgrade for laptop, faster than Optane

An upgrade for a HP Spectre X360. 1TB wasn't enough now I've more video editing to do and this model seemed the sweet spot for me for potential speed + my confidence in it's reliability + priceThe original PCIe was an Intel Optane. I'd disabled the Optane boosting as the optimisations for it to work made the fan run frequently and I didn't like the noise. Reverting the optane to two visible disks and I realised I didn't really notice that the Optane was speeding things up (It's normal near 1TB regular speed SSD, and the smaller 30GB 'fast for very small files SSD')CrystalMark Peak (SEQ1M Q8T1) on Optane = Read 1566MB/s Write 1363MB/sCrystalMark Peak (SEQ1M Q8T1) on 970 Evo = Read 3510MB/s Write 3292MB/sThe optane only outperformed the Evo on one metric, ... MoreAn upgrade for a HP Spectre X360. 1TB wasn't enough now I've more video editing to do and this model seemed the sweet spot for me for potential speed + my confidence in it's reliability + priceThe original PCIe was an Intel Optane. I'd disabled the Optane boosting as the optimisations for it to work made the fan run frequently and I didn't like the noise. Reverting the optane to two visible disks and I realised I didn't really notice that the Optane was speeding things up (It's normal near 1TB regular speed SSD, and the smaller 30GB 'fast for very small files SSD')CrystalMark Peak (SEQ1M Q8T1) on Optane = Read 1566MB/s Write 1363MB/sCrystalMark Peak (SEQ1M Q8T1) on 970 Evo = Read 3510MB/s Write 3292MB/sThe optane only outperformed the Evo on one metric, RND4KQ1T1 (131MB/s vs Evo 40MB/s) but the frequent fan noise didn't warrant that for my use.In every day use, I have noticed it's feels faster when working on files but that might be wishful thinking, I did reinstall windows from scratch so perhaps solved problems/bloatware/driver issues I didn't know I had, leading to the feel of improved performance (and real noticeable improvements in network speeds, so maybe not related to the SSD at all.)

Upgrade for those who enjoy SLR Photography

I needed a new laptop and unfortunately all the standard models only have about 500Meg of storage (Which is unconscionably TINY for anyone that uses not just spreadsheets/word processing and design software, but also who is someone who has Digital SLRs and shoots in the raw (and processes their own prints).With that said, I chose this 2TB upgrade to put into my new laptop, and it has worked like a charm. There's not the noise of the older hard drives, it hasn't failed me (yet), and backs up to external drives easily enough. I've been able to enjoy my SLR Photography (and my legacy licensed Adobe Creative Suite) on this new device with the new hard drive(and all my software loaded cleanly, 1st time, no problems at all).I now have the Drive space to be able to ... MoreI needed a new laptop and unfortunately all the standard models only have about 500Meg of storage (Which is unconscionably TINY for anyone that uses not just spreadsheets/word processing and design software, but also who is someone who has Digital SLRs and shoots in the raw (and processes their own prints).With that said, I chose this 2TB upgrade to put into my new laptop, and it has worked like a charm. There's not the noise of the older hard drives, it hasn't failed me (yet), and backs up to external drives easily enough. I've been able to enjoy my SLR Photography (and my legacy licensed Adobe Creative Suite) on this new device with the new hard drive(and all my software loaded cleanly, 1st time, no problems at all).I now have the Drive space to be able to relax and enjoy my travels, my (rural) hometown and the space around me like I should with a SSD Drive that is matched to my own needs.One final note -- Best Buy's Tech Service did add this drive to the new computer for me and it eased my mind to have it done so fast after purchasing the new laptop. ALL I had to concentrate on was backing up the old device and making sure I migrated my existing software (and licenses) to the new one. That also was a time saver for me.