SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 500GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe Gen 4 Gaming M.2 Internal Solid State Drive Memory Card, Maximum Speed, Thermal Control, MZ-V8P500B/AM

Samsung probably makes the best SSDs out there. Its quite fast and worked well with the gaming PC I built. Make sure to check which type of m.2 your device takes, because I originally purchased this for a laptop but it took a Sata based m.2 and not an NVME m.2 connector. Also, the actual storage is more like 430 gb not 500.

For anyone on the fence about this drive. Don't be. It's extremely fast in the areas that count. It has very high IOPS and incredibly low latency which overall gives a very responsive OS feel.I haven't had a chance to compare the Western Digital SN850 but I hear it also is a very strong option too.There are other things that the 970 Pro performs better at. Especially at the higher queue Depth/4KiB (on my system) at least. YMMV. Storage performance is highly dependant on the CPU and Motherboard configuration.The following drives in the picture were compared:C: Samsung SSD 980 PRO 500GBZ: Samsung SSD 970 PRO 512GBY: SAMSUNG MZQLB3T8HALS-000AZ (U.2)For my own work, I prefer using Samsung's Enterprise Class Stuff as my workstation primary non OS drive for the extremely high endurance and very good performance. I find it to be a better value over time and not to mention incredibly cheap per TB vs the M.2 stuff.This is by no means a conclusive benchmark. Merely illustrating that the new Samsung SSD 980 PRO 500GB is very fast and more than enough for most people's needs/requirements!Obviously, 5 seconds isn't enough on the CrystalDiskMark to see a real exhaustive conclusion, but I didn't want to write too much to drives.I ran the benchmark in the above picture with the following system:CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970XMB: ROG ZENITH II EXTREME ALPHARAM: F4-3200C16-32GTZN XMP 2.0 3200MHz CAS 16Drive Models:C: Samsung SSD 980 PRO 500GBZ: Samsung SSD 970 PRO 512GBY: SAMSUNG MZQLB3T8HALS-000AZ (U.2)This is by no means a conclusive benchmark. Merely illustrating that the new Samsung SSD 980 PRO 500GB is very fast for most people's needs/requirements! But for gamers, stick to EVO unless you have a Ryzen rig.Obviously, 5 seconds isn't enough on the CrystalDiskMark to see a real exhaustive conclusion and to bypass the cache, but I didn't want to write too much to drives.All in all, I'd say it's a buy. Unless you're really tight on money and don't need the PCIE 4.0, then the EVO is a great budget option. In fact, I'd go as far to say gamers should stick to the EVO class for the best value.

This Samsung 980 Pro PCI-E 4.0 Gen4 M.2 Nvme Drive is so far the fastest Drive I have used so far... I have the 500GB Version installed in my M.2 Slot #1 (out of 3 total) that is dedicated to store my Windows 10 Pro x64 Operating System plus basic Programs... My startup time is mere seconds and everything is super fast... Highly Recommend this drive... was able to get around 6,900MB/s Read & 5,000MB/s Write Speeds using some benchmark software tho I didn't get screenshots... I could in the future I suppose but anyway this Drive is extremely fast... I am very big with Sabrent Brand Storage media personally due to their high speeds, new technology, & cheaper pricing vs Samsung however this 980 Pro was on sale at the time so I grabbed it and it performs exceptionally well...The only issue I have is that it doesn't tell you really that your Windows Operating System shall successfully load the M.2 SSD driver only when Samsung NVMe SSD drive is connected to an M.2 slot that is connected to PCH (Chipset) not CPU...My motherboard has x3 M.2 slots all Nvme Gen4 however Slot #1 is connected to the CPU while Slot #2 & Slot #3 are connected to the PCH Chipset... I didn't know it needed to be on a specific Slot prior to installation where I put the 980 Pro in #1 as my OS Drive & I installed x2 other Sabrent M.2 Nvme Drives in Slots 2 & 3 as my Main Storage / Backup... So it won't let me install the actual Samsung Nvme Driver v3.3 Driver on my PC... I'm not quite sure if that blocks the ability to do something else or not with the Samsung software and such... Just I guess if your installing a Samsung Nvme M.2 Drive I would install it on your PCH M.2 Slot I suppose vs. Your CPU M.2 Slot in order to be able to install the Samsung Nvme Driver v3.3 (Version 3.3 As-Of January 2020)Other than that its been an awesome OS Drive!

This M.2 PCI-e NVME drive is one of the fastest drives on the market. If your motherboard supports PCI-e 4.0 standards then you should be very happy with the speed exhibited by this drive. It is super fast. Unfortunately, I am not seeing anything close to the published speeds of 7000 MB/sec read speed or the sequential write speed of 5000 MB/sec that is being claimed. Using the Samsung magician tool I am seeing actual read speeds of 6505 MB/sec and write speeds of 4774 MB/sec. Now if your system only supports PCI-e 3.0 standards then this drive isn't the drive for you. It will work as it is backwards compatible, but why pay twice the price when a PCI-e 3.0 drive will deliver similar speeds?The M.2 drive does tend to generate a lot of heat when the device is under load so 60c is not all that uncommon. The labels on the drive are actually heat spreaders which was surprising to see. I when ahead and installed a 3rd party heatsink in the drive simply because I am uncomfortable running a M.2 drive at that temperature. With the Icy Dock heatsink the temps I am seeing are in the 40c range which pleases me.The drive comes with a utility to migrate or clone the original drive which is a nice touch. I used a 3rd party cloning tool to copy the drive to the Samsung 980 Pro so I did not use the tool supplied by Samsung. Samsung also supplies a tool to test the speed of drive and display the SMART information in addition to check and/or update the firmware of the drive. Unfortunately, you have to go to their website and download the tools.So if you are in the market for a new PCI-e 4.0 M.2 NVMe drive and want the fastest on the market then this is the drive for you.