Samsung rolls out its first DRAM-less SSD
The new 980 NVMe SSD delivers the top performance among DRAM-less SSDs, according to Samsung
Wednesday March 10, 2021 11:04 AM, ummid.com News Network
Seoul: Samsung Electronics, the world s largest memory chip producer, on Wednesday released its first consumer solid-state drive (SSD) without DRAM.
The new 980 NVMe SSD delivers the top performance among DRAM-less SSDs, according to Samsung.
The latest consumer SSD will be available in three models 250GB, 500GB and 1TB and will be launched in about 40 countries, including the US, Germany and China.
Price
The 250GB version will be sold at US$49.99, while the prices for the 500GB model and the 1TB variant have been set at $69.99 and $129.99, respectively.
Mar 9, 2021 11:00 EST with 18 comments
Samsung has introduced its first-ever consumer SSD without a DRAM cache, which it s simply called the 980. Naturally, this is a step down from the 980 Pro, and in addition to ditching DRAM, it only supports PCIe 3.0 instead of PCIe 4.0.
Sacrificing the DRAM cache on the drive is likely a bit controversial since DRAM typically helps data on the drive be located by the host PC much quicker, and some DRAM-less drives can be as slow as a traditional hard drive. That s also part of the reason DRAM-less drives tend to be much cheaper. However, Samsung says it overcame the hurdles imposed by removing the DRAM by using Host Memory Buffer (HMB) technology, which links the drive to the DRAM on the host processor instead.