As time goes by, Samsung slowly begins to use the technology it introduced on its storage solutions for the enterprise in consumer products. Now, the time has come for them to begin mass production of the first 512 GB NVMe SSD that comes in a single BGA package. Dubbed PM971-NVMe, this new SSD "features an extremely compact package that contains all essential SSD components including NAND flash memory, DRAM, and controller while delivering outstanding performance."
According to Samsung's Jung-bae Lee, this new SSD "triples the performance of a typical SATA SSD, in the smallest form factor available, with storage capacity reaching up to 512GB." The drive combines 48-layer V-NAND flash chips, a Samsung controller, and a 20 nm LPDDR4 mobile memory chip. The result is an extremely compact package with a surface area about a fifth of an M.2 SSD.
The performance of the PM971-NVMe SSD easily exceeds the limit of the 6 Gb/s SATA interface. Thanks to the TurboWrite technology, it can read and write data sequentially at up to 1,500 MB/s and 900 MB/s, also reaching 190K and 150K random read and write IOPS.
The size options available for the new PM971-NVMe SSD are 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB. The SSDs should reach Samsung partners across the globe soon, but pricing and availability depend on the market, and detailed information should be available locally.