SAMSUNG PM981a NVMe SSD, PCIe M.2 type 2280, bulk - 1 TB

The Samsung PM981a M.2-NVMe-PCIe-SSD at a glance:

– Modern M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD with 1 TB capacity
– Extremely fast 3,500 / 3,000 MB / s when reading / writing
– A total of 580,000 / 500,000 IOPS 4KB random read / write
– Samsung Phoenix Controller & Samsung 3D-NAND TLC
– Lifespan (MTBF): 1.5 million hours
– M.2 format with rapid PCIe 3.0 x4 connection

The Samsung PM981a in M.2 format, and is connected via PCI-Express 3.0 with 4 data lines. The classic 2.5-inch format is now a thing of the past, because its comparatively slow SATA-6G interface can no longer keep up with the explosive increase in performance of modern SSDs due to a severe bandwidth limitation (maximum net data rate of around 550 MB / s).

Highly efficient 3D NAND TLC
With the 3D-NAND TLC (or just V-NAND v5) of the Samsung PM981a, the memory cells are stacked in several layers. On the one hand, this enables larger amounts of memory with higher read and write speeds with a smaller area of the memory blocks, and on the other hand increases the lifespan of the memory and improves energy efficiency.

M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD with brute read and write speeds
The new Samsung Phoenix S4LR020 controller supports four PCI Express lanes of standard 3.0, which make a theoretical maximum of around 3,900 MB / s possible! In conjunction with the built-in Samsung V-NAND, the 1 TB version of the Samsung PM981a achieves 3,500 MB / s when reading and 3,000 MB / s when writing, as well as IOPS values of 220,000 in 4KB read and 500,000 in 4KB write. The modern controller chip also ensures less waste heat and thus prevents the power from being throttled due to excessive temperatures.

NVM Express protocol
In addition, the Samsung SSD PM981a also supports the NVM Express protocol (NVMe for short), which was specially developed for modern PCI Express SSDs. This replaces the old AHCI protocol, which dates from before the general spread of SSDs and is not optimized for highly parallelized data carrier access. NVMe provides significantly lower latencies, as well as multiple and deeper command queues, which translate into significantly more performance for nonlinear transfers such as 4K read / write.

Technical details:
– Dimensions: 22 x 2.38 x 80 mm (W x H x D)
– Format & interface: M.2 / M-Key 2280 (PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3)
– Capacity: 1 TB
– Controller: Samsung Phoenix (S4LR020)
– NAND: 3D-NAND TLC, Samsung, 96 Layer (V-NAND v5)
– Performance (PCIe 3.0):
– Reading: max. 3,500 MB / s
– Write: max. 3,000 MB / s
– IOPS (4KB Random Read): 580,000
– IOPS (4KB Random Write): 500,000
– Power consumption (idle / operation): 0.03 / 5.6 W
– Average life expectancy: 1.5 million hours (MTBF)
– Special features: L1.2 low-power standby, 512bit AES, TCG Opal 2.0, NVMe 1.3, 3D-NAND TLC, Samsung, 96 layer (V-NAND v5)
– Manufacturer guarantee: 3 years