Samsung mentions 860 QVO and 980 QVO SSDs with qlc-nand

By admin On Oct 18, 2018

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Samsung will release the 860 QVO and the 980 QVO, respectively a sata and a nvme ssd with qlc-nand. There are also new variants of the current 970 Evo and the PM981 with 96-layer tlc-nand memory.

Samsung called the arrival of the ssd’s with qlc-nand memory at its Tech Day event, where AnandTech was present. Samsung has not disclosed details about the QVO SSDs, but the 860 QVO is probably the sata-ssd that Samsung talked about in August. Then the manufacturer started producing sata-ssds with qlc-nand for consumers, with capacities of 1TB, 2TB and 4TB. Those SSDs should come out this year.

Samsung uses its fourth generation V-nand memory consisting of 64 layers for the sata SSDs. These are qlc nandchips with a capacity of 1Tb each. 32 of these chips are required to achieve the capacity of 4 TB. The Samsung 980 QVO becomes a nvme ssd with qlc-nand memory. Whether it also uses the 1Tb-dies is not clear yet.

Samsung says in the second half of 2019 to release a new qlc nandchip with a capacity of 512Gb. It therefore has a lower capacity than the current 1Tb- which but the performance would be much higher. Such qlc memory is probably intended for nvme ssds in the higher segment, possibly also for the 980 QVO.

It is not yet clear when the Samsung 860 QVO and the 980 QVO come true. Samsung has not yet released consumer ssd’s with qlc-nand. Other manufacturers have done that. Intel was the first with its 660p series and Micron announced this Crucial P1-SSDs this week. In both cases, these are nvme models in the budget segment. There are no sata ssds with qlc memory, presumably, they are cheaper than the current sata ssds with tlc nand

Samsung also announced on its Tech Day that new variants of the 970 Evo and the PM981 with 96-layer tlc nand. The current models use tlc-nand memory consisting of 64 layers. The new versions are given the names 970 Evo Plus and PM981a. The PM ssd is an OEM variant of the 970 Evo for consumers. For example, the PM ssds can be found in many laptops.

The upgrade to tlc nand with more layers will increase the sequential writing speed. The random read and write speeds of the PM981a variant would also improve considerably, bringing them close to 970 Evo and 970 Evo Plus. The capacities remain the same as the current SSDs from 250GB to 2TB. When the renewed ssds with tlc-nand come out, is not yet known.