At least two retailers have begun listing a 2 TB version of Samsung’s 970 Pro SSD. One of the highest performing drives on the market – and one of the only remaining MLC drives – a larger 970 Pro will give high-performance users another option for high-capacity SSDs, eliminating the need to sacrifice performance for capacity – at least at the 2 TB tier.

When Samsung introduced its 970 Pro and 970 Evo SSDs last year, it got itself into a paradox situation. On the one hand, its flagship 970 Pro drives offered superior performance and better endurance because they were based on 3D MLC memory, but the only went to 1 TB. On the other hand, its slightly slower 3D TLC-powered 970 Evo SSDs was available in capacities up to 2 TB. As a result, while performance-wise the 970 Pro was the king, you had to sacrifice some capacity at the high-end to get it.

As it appears, Samsung is finally preparing a 2 TB version of the 970 Pro that will wed capacity and performance. The Samsung 970 Pro 2 TB (MZ-V7P2T0BW) drive will presumably be based on Samsung’s Phoenix controller and, as the current 1TB model is already fully populated with NAND chips, we're not expecting that performance will be much different (for reference, the 1TB model is up to 3500/2700 MB/s for sequential reads/writes without SLC caching). Otherwise, while the 970 Pro is a given to be a 3D MLC-based SSD, it remains to be seen whether Samsung is using the same-generation 64L NAND as on the original models, or if they're going to use this occasion to switch over to 96L NAND.

At present, Compuram, a retailer from Germany, and Nixiang, a retailer from China, both list the new drive. The latter even shows its ‘official’ picture. Meanwhile, a sales person from Compuram confirmed that the company has part numbers and a datasheet listing specifications of the Samsung 970 Pro 2 TB drive. However, he could not say when the device is set to become available and how much it is expected to cost. Nixiang lists the SSD for ¥8888 ($1,320), which means that the price of the drive in the US would be around $1,200.

Like other companies, Samsung does not comment on unreleased products, so we could not verify the information with the manufacturer.

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Sources: Compuram, Nixiang, (via Tweakers.net)

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  • vFunct - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

    Is there a server version of this?
  • Billy Tallis - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link

    No, there's very little demand for MLC NAND in the enterprise/datacenter market. The endurance and performance of TLC SSDs is usually adequate when used in large quantities. For the rare cases where there's a need for significantly higher performance or endurance on a per-TB basis, Optane and Z-NAND drives usually make more sense than MLC.
  • craz8 - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

    I *literally* bought the 1TB version yesterday. You can thank me later for triggering this release!
  • abufrejoval - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

    Bought mine some months ago, then saw it fill up in days...

    Put a couple of older SATA SSDs into a RAID0 just next to it to create the 2nd tier and would really like the control and flexibility back, I had with 4-8x hot-swap SATA...

    I guess I'd want M.2 to U.2 trays for pennies and a switch/retimer for Dollars, but I fear they'll cost an SLC premium.
  • Supercell99 - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link

    If you were one of my customers you would demand a refund and shlt on the counter
  • Notmyusualid - Monday, April 29, 2019 - link

    I was about to pull the trigger this evening!

    My new machine arrived today, and thought dam, only 1TB, but no other option.

    Well, this is right on time (sung in the tone of Black Box) for me.
  • abufrejoval - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

    What annoys me, is that none of the flexibility they have as a manufacturer to create SLC/MLC/TLC/QLC out of the same controller and flash is passed on to the customer...

    At these sizes, fixed functional allocation really is no longer cutting it, specially when most PCs don't have a whole array of M.2 slots nor the switch to manage them (things were so easy with SATA!).

    I *know* which files/directories/partitions will be read-mostly and where there are hot-spots best kept in SLC or stuff that fits into MLC or TLC. Actually there is a lot of stuff or blocks that naturally migrate from SLC to QLC or even beyond, like transactional data in a RDBMs, but I want to decide when to do that.

    So why not pass the control to the OS and thus ultimately the user? It *really* is just a setting on the controller most likely already managed at the erase block level...
  • abufrejoval - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

    Just discovered that I want is (cheap) NF1 trays and enclosures for my NVMe M.2 modules...

    Problem is, that there seems to be nothing intermediate, like an 8x-12x chassis with 2-3x PCIe switch and retimers integrated that fits into the good old 5 1/4" HH slot where the CD-ROM used to be... (that currently has the 4/6/8x SATA hot-swap bays).

    Current offerings from SuperMicro talk to high-end enterprise or HPC, but between NUCs and that stuff there is plenty of space for something intermediate, I think.
  • abufrejoval - Friday, April 26, 2019 - link

    It's all here, Marvel 88NR2241 Intelligent NVMe Switch, found on this site (https://www.anandtech.com/show/12577/marvell-launc...

    so where can I buy it affordable...
  • tokyojerry - Saturday, April 27, 2019 - link

    "Nixiang lists the SSD for ¥8888 ($1,320), which means that the price of the drive in the US would be around $1,200."

    Need to get your numbers straight. ¥ 8888 (JPY) is approximately $80 USD at current exchange rates.

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