Samsung seemingly caught swapping components in its 970 Evo Plus SSDs

Not too long ago, main SSD distributors Essential and Western Digital have each been caught swapping out TLC NAND of their shopper SSDs for cheaper however a lot lower-performance, lower-endurance QLC NAND. Samsung seems to be becoming a member of them within the part-swapping nook of disgrace at this time, because of Chinese language Youtuber 潮玩客, who documented a brand new model of the Samsung 970 Evo Plus utilizing an inferior drive controller.

Though the consumer-facing mannequin variety of the drives didn’t change—it was a 970 Evo Plus final 12 months, and it is nonetheless a 970 Evo Plus now—the producer half quantity did. Sadly, the producer half quantity is not seen on the field the SSD is available in—so far as we have been capable of decide, it is solely proven on a small label on the drive itself.

Falling off the write cliff

We examined the 970 Evo Plus (alongside the 980, and the older 970 Professional) in March, clocking it at write speeds of 1,600+ MiB/sec on 1MiB workloads. Our benchmarking was completed with he previous model, half quantity MZVLB1T0HBLR. The newer model—half quantity MZVL21T0HBLU—is significantly slower. In accordance with 潮玩客’s check outcomes, the newer model solely manages 830MiB/sec—half the efficiency of the unique.

It appears seemingly that Samsung, like Western Digital, hoped the half swap would go unnoticed as a result of the top outcome was “ok.” Below most gentle utilization workloads, a person may by no means discover the brand new half quantity’s decrease efficiency—as a result of like almost all fashionable SSDs, the 970 Evo Plus contains a SLC write cache that is a lot quicker than its essential storage NAND, and the brand new half’s efficiency drop does not grow to be obvious till after the cache is exhausted.

潮玩客 first examined the previous and new 970 Evo Plus drives utilizing CrystalDiskMark, and the drives appeared near-identical. However that is as a result of CrystalDiskMark by default makes use of a really small 1GiB check measurement, which clearly is just not sufficient to exhaust both drive’s write cache. (We at Ars steadily use CrystalDiskMark—however we choose bigger check sizes, for exactly this cause.)

In longer checks, each drives lower sharply in efficiency as cache fills, which is anticipated. However whereas the older drive retains almost two-thirds of its unique efficiency, the newer model craters to lower than a 3rd. We will see this impact not solely in synthetic benchmarks, but additionally in massive file copies, as seen in 潮玩客’s later checks.

The controller is the offender

One of the best information for impacted 970 Evo Plus homeowners is that they need to “solely” be taking an enormous efficiency hit, with out a corresponding lower in write endurance. That is as a result of not like Essential and Western Digital’s part-swaps, Samsung did not drop from TLC flash to QLC—it simply swapped out the controller.

The older, higher-performing drives have a Phoenix controller and the newer, lower-performing drives use one made by Elpis. Tom’s {Hardware} factors out that Samsung is already identified to be dealing with controller shortages, with its personal Texa controller factories having been idle since February.

Though Samsung’s half swap will seemingly have a decrease direct buyer impression than Western Digital’s or Essential’s, it is nonetheless disappointing that the corporate is pulling this with out informing the general public. In the end, we’re speaking about two variations of the identical mannequin with considerably totally different parts and a drastic discount in efficiency, with little or no approach for a buyer to identify the distinction—and pandemic or no pandemic, that is simply not okay.

Itemizing picture by Samsung