Samsung launches its first consumer SSD without DRAM

Seoul: Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest memory chip producer, on Wednesday released its first consumer solid-state drive (SSD) without DRAM.

The new 980 NVMe SSD delivers the top performance among DRAM-less SSDs, according to Samsung.

The latest consumer SSD will be available in three models — 250GB, 500GB and 1TB — and will be launched in about 40 countries, including the US, Germany and China.

The 250GB version will be sold at US$49.99, while the prices for the 500GB model and the 1TB variant have been set at $69.99 and $129.99, respectively.

“The 980 offers an excellent blend of speed, power efficiency and reliability, making it suitable for everyday PC users and gamers as well as content creators,” said Lee Kyu-young, vice president of the memory brand product business at Samsung.

Generally, DRAM-less designs have slower speeds for fast access to data. However, Samsung said it leveraged host memory buffer technology, which links the drive directly to the host computer’s DRAM, to overcome a disadvantage in speed while reducing cost.

Also utilising its latest sixth-generation V-NAND, as well as optimised controller and firmware, the South Korean tech giant said the 980 SSD offers sequential read and write speeds up to 3,500 and 3,000 megabytes per second, respectively.

Samsung added its upgraded Intelligent TurboWrite 2.0 solution also provides improved performance by allocating a much larger buffer storage area inside the drive, reports Yonhap news agency.

To enhance stability, Samsung said it applied the Dynamic Thermal Guard technology, which utilises nickel-coated controller and heat spreader label solutions.

The latest SSD features improved power efficiency of up to 56 percent when compared with the previous 970 EVO, it added.