[News] Samsung PM971 NVMe SSD Surfaces

[StyM]

https://www.techpowerup.com/238125/s...e-ssd-surfaces

Last week, we were introduced to Samsung's upcoming PM981 SSDs, which should give way to higher-performance parts such as the 980 series. Today, however, it's the slightly lower-tier PM971 platform that has surfaced, which should give way to Samsung 970 series of NVMe SSDs. Remember that the company seems to be moving away from their "EVO" and "PRO" monikers as performance differentiators, and this new nomenclature series should replace it come launch time.

The PM971-based SSDs will feature a 22mm x 16mm x 1.5mm multi-chip package that includes Samsung's Proton controller, LPDDR4 DRAM cache, and V-NAND flash into a single chip. As was to be expected from a more mainstream solution, performance will be noticeably lower (at least in pure numbers) when compared to the higher-tier 980 series.

[alfaunits]

Who gives a f*** already? No consumer needs these speeds, and barely any server needs faster SSDs.
Give us 100$ cheap 4TB SATA SSDs already!

[Warboy]

PM has always been low-end, SM is high end when it comes to white label branding.

SM is typically 3-6x faster. So I'm curious on what SM971 or SM981 will do.

[Buckeye]

Who gives a f*** already? No consumer needs these speeds, and barely any server needs faster SSDs.
Give us 100$ cheap 4TB SATA SSDs already!

Actually depending on the server you are building there is plenty of need for NVMe drives in servers, even faster. New Skylake-SP processors have really opened up NVMe systems big time.

[alfaunits]

Enough need to justify the cost difference or truely make a difference?

E.g. you have a Skylake server with 20TB of SATA SSDs, serving.... DBs? Will it be better to make one server with 5TB of NVMe storage? Or two with 10TB NVMe storage?
Yes, it may run faster - will it be noticable is another question. And whether it makes any sense to use more expensive NVMe is THE QUESTION for most servers.

I'd be interested if you have a specific case where NVMe is a total advantage, and how much of the market it really covers.

[Buckeye]

In fact there is a big push for NVMe drives for servers, many new systems are able to put loads of them inside.
They offer better speed and lower latency which is the thing they really like.

Of course not all servers need NVMe drives, but higher end systems can really use them. Picture machines all connected with Infiniband networks that can take the speed NVMe drives can push.
I have 4 new Dual Skylake-SP boards here now, each is fully capable of taking on NVMe loads.

[alfaunits]

A push for something is not even remotely identical or similar to the need for that.

If the seq. throughput is in question, putting several SATA SSDs in RAID is MUCH cheaper.
When latency is in question, you must have a network with a lower latency than SATA. What will that machine do exactly?

What is a "Picture machine"? I am not seeing any specific load mentioned.