Samsung 980 NVMe SSD launched; brand's first consumer drive without DRAM

Samsung has launched the new 980 NVMe SSD, which the company says is its first consumer drive that comes without DRAM or dynamic random access memory. DRAM-less designs can face issues with speed as the short-term memory is no longer at hand. But Samsung strives to solve the problem by employing the Host Memory Buffer (HMB) technology. The HMB tech helps link the SSD directly to the host processor’s DRAM in order to manage any speed-related drawbacks. The 980 also sports sixth-generation V-NAND along with an optimised controller and firmware, which provides NVMe performance at a speed which is 6x higher than the speed of SATA SSDs. It offers storage capacity in different variants. While there is one of 1 TB, other options are 500 GB, and 250 GB. [caption id=“attachment_9401331” align=“alignright” width=“1280”]  Samsung SSD 980[/caption] Sequential read and write speeds have come in at up to 3,500 and 3,000 MB per second. It also provides random read performances as high as 500K IOPS and write performances up to 480K IOPS. The new SSD features Intelligent TurboWrite 2.0 that offers a large buffer storage area. Marketed for heavy multitasking, the drive has a Full Power Mode added to the company’s Magician 6.3 software so that users can achieve peak performance for longer durations of time. Samsung promises that users can forget worrying about the device overheating as the new 980 SSD comes with Dynamic Thermal Guard technology, a common feature of the 980 series. As per the firm, the latest drive offers a power efficiency of up to 56 per cent in comparison to the previous 970 EVO SSD, thus laptop users will be able to manage power usage with greater ease. The Samsung 980 SSD can be bought now in India. The prices vary for the different storage variants. While the basic 250 GB variant has been priced at Rs 6,499, the 500 GB option is being sold at Rs 8,999 and the 1 TB variant can be purchased for Rs 16,999.