Samsung has changed the 970 Evo controller to the one used on the 980.
They have updated the packaging, SKU and advertised performance to reflect this.
The new revision isn't slower or faster either. It's a bit faster in some tests, a bit slower in others, and the exact same in real world tests.
This is how you do hardware revisions if you don't have the components.
To claim they're cheating customers and put them in the same boat as WD and other vendors which do not change SKU's and use inferior components is incredibly dis-ingenious.
here's some more reputable links https://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-is-swapping-ssd-pa... https://hexus.net/tech/news/storage/148295-samsung-latest-ss...
Gonna add extremetech to my black list now.
Toms article explains it but for those who want details, the SSD controllers reserves some amount of NAND cells for fast writes, what they call SLC cache. What that means is, instead of writing 3 bits per cell (in TLC), they only write one bit per cell on those NAND cells. They do that because writing one bit is much faster than writing 3.
So the controller maintains some "free" cells for fast write. In the BLU version, the 980 Pro controller that's used here has a different strategy which keeps more cells around (110ish GB vs 40 GB) for fast writes. As you fill up your disk, the controller will try to maintain this. You will see a drop when you go above that because the controller will start consolidating the data (the controller will also move data in it's idle time, consolidating the SLC writes to TLC writes).
This is why you do those specific tests as a reviewer, to analyse how the controller works, but it's not a real life scenario. A much more interesting test which we used to do back in the day was measuring performance when your disk is filled up (say 80, 90%). This is usually where you see those SLC cache strategy no longer working (depending on how good the controller is, some just don't consolidate data and you end up having poor performances).
Anyway, it's a pretty irrelevant change for 99% of users and the SSD will be faster on all other scenarios.
Considering they did a hardware revision, updated spec sheets and new packaging, and changed to a better controller (from the 980 Pro), this is nothing like what WD did.
If my experience with other QLC drives is instructive — and I hope it's not — I suspect the "runway" you referenced is minimal if you start writing with the disk at, say, 25% capacity.
And people fall for it. Even people in this thread are calling for a class action lawsuit because they accidentally bought an upgraded 970 EVO - even though all advertised specs are correct. Its ridiculous.
This is an implementation detail. For 99% of consumers, they look at the advertised performance numbers and make decisions from that. For those people, this change makes no difference.
The SKU is meant for the 1% who like to dig into what kind of flash is being used, what firmware the controller is running, etc. Renaming a product every time the internal implementation is touched would result in a super confusing user experience.
I've always bought Samsung drives without even comparing.
Edit: OP article says BLU is the new "inferior one", while Tom's hardware says BLU is the old one. According to above comment with The Facts™ it's fine either way.
Jebaited again.
