Samsung SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2 Review: Ultra Fast, Affordable Storage

Name: Samsung SSD 960 EVO
Brand: Samsung

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, November 15, 2016, 10:00 AM EDT

Performance Summary: The Samsung SSD 960 EVO 500GB drive we tested performed very well throughout our entire battery of tests. Although there were a few instances where the Intel SSD 750 and OCZ RD400 notched some victories. Overall, the SSD 960 EVO consistently trailed only the higher-end, more expensive Samsung SSD 960 PRO. The Samsung SSD 960 EVO 500GB drive is strongest with sequential reads, where it surpassed the 3GB/s mark. Writes, however, are best when the maximum 22GB Intelligent TurboWrite buffer isn’t exceeded.

Find The Samsung SSD 960 EVO @ Amazon.com

Although the drives share many similarities, the Samsung SSD 960 EVO isn’t quite the same beast as its big-brother, the 960 PRO. With that said, the 960 EVO is still an exceptionally fast family of Solid State Drives, especially considering their affordable price points. The latest pricing information we have from Samsung is as follows...

960 EVO 1TB: $479
960 EVO 500GB: $249
960 EVO 250GB: $129

At $.46 - $.51 per gigabyte, that puts these drives squarely in affordable territory in our book. And after witnessing their performance, we think consumers are going to gobble these drives up as fast as they can hit store shelves. They may not be the fastest solid state drives available, but for the money you can’t do much better currently.


Great Read Performance Very Competitive Pricing Dynamic TurboWrite Cache	Writes Drop Off When TurboWrite Cache Is Exceeded Trailed In Trace-Based Tests

Tags: Samsung, SSD, Storage, nvme, m.2, 960 evo

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com