Samsung is working on a new generation of consumer SSDs. According to the UNH InterOperability Laboratory list, Samsung is developing two new SSDs called "NVMe 97x and 98x" series. Furthermore, Samsung will change their EVO/Pro naming scheme due to a new design of the SSDs.



So far it looks like Samsung is going to use 64-layer 3-bit per cell V-NAND for their next-generation consumer products. Although Samsung is already working on QLC NAND flash (4 bits per cell), it's unlikely that they’re going to sell drives based on these chips by the end of this year already. However since we're talking about Samsung here, anything is possible. In the case of the 970 as well as 980 drives it’s rumored that they’re going surface somewhen during the upcoming weeks.

Both SSDs will use a pure number scheme instead of the EVO/Pro naming. According to an Asian reseller, the OEM version of the 980 SSD should be a very quick drive. Before speaking about performance numbers, a quick talk about the name "PM981" can help. "PM" stands for products that use TLC NAND flash, the "9" refers to Samsung's highest performance tier with the most features. While "81" is the model number.

According to Saiback.com, the PM981 with 1TB of capacity should achieve sequential read performance of up to 3'000MB/s and writes are supposed to top out around 1'800MB/s. The drives are equipped with Samsung’s Polaris V2 controller which should be an upgrade compared to the one that’s being used in the 960 PRO. The Samsung PM981 series will come with an M.2 2280 form factor with a PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 interface. According to the Asian shop, the PM981 NVMe SSDs are going to sell for about $233 USD (512GB) and $439 USD (1TB).




Source: Tomshardware