970 PRO vs EVO Plus

WIGs · March 17, 2019

I am in the market for a new Samsung SSD at his point (I am considering Samsung primarily due to my very good experience with their SSD products so far). I have been almost determined to grab 970 Pro 512GB version for ~190USD but then I saw the new 970 EVO Plus 500GB which is ~150USD in my region. Based on the benchmarks I saw, the new EVO Plus seems like a pretty decent performer (comparable to the 970 Pro). Is there a catch? (i.e., should I consider the 970 Pro despite its higher price point?) I know that 970 Pro is much better in sustained writes, but this is not a scenario I weigh that much.

Thanks!

Electronics Wizardy · March 17, 2019

The Pro is mlc, you probably don't need the extra long durataion write speed and endurance., so get the evo plus.

WIGs · March 17, 2019

Yeah, I am not going to write massive amounts of data to the drive. I am going to use the device as a boot drive in my workstation, but I do not use applications that would stress the drive too much. I guess that even those 300TBW of the EVO Plus should be more than enough for my use case. I am primarily looking at the snappiness of the drive (access times, 4K read speed etc).

I think I will go with the EVO Plus then. I have just one more concern - I have read a review that reported temperatures of 80C/176F to 90C/194F on the EVO Plus under heavy load. I guess that this should not be a concern if I do not stress the drive all the time. (My workstation is running 24/7, but the drive is most of the time idle.)

Thanks!

Swiip · March 17, 2019

Should be no concern, a minimal airflow will keep it cool under normal usage conditions.

HNKenshiro · March 17, 2019

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Samsung/970_Pro_SSD_512_GB/7.html

According to this, for the 970 pro, you need constant sequential write for maybe 2 minutes in order to get the temperature up to 80C. And with a fan, it doesn't even get that high.

If it ever becomes a problem somehow, you can get a heatsink for your drive too. I got one for my 970 pro. After testing it just now, with a fan blowing through it, it didn't even go above 37C/47C (SMART has 2 readings for this drive. I've been told one is for the NAND and one is for the controller) after sequential read for 3 minutes. I haven't tried sequential writes though, because I didn't want to do unnecessary writes to it.

In other situations tho, it could be slightly different. My 970 pro used to sit in the slot right beside my top GPU. The drive would get warm even when the drive is idle but while I'm gaming. So I just got a m.2 to pcie adapter card with heatsink combo and moved it away from the GPU.