Samsung 980 250GB

The Samsung 980 250GB marks a distinct architectural shift for the manufacturer, serving as their first consumer NVMe drive to utilize a DRAM-less design to maximize efficiency within the PCIe 3.0 bandwidth. The drive is anchored by the proprietary 4-channel Samsung Pablo controller (S4LR033), which leverages Host Memory Buffer (HMB) technology to store the logical-to-physical mapping table in system RAM rather than on a dedicated on-drive DRAM chip. This controller is paired with Samsung’s 6th Generation 128-layer V-NAND 3-bit MLC (TLC). At the 250GB capacity, the drive relies heavily on its Intelligent TurboWrite 2.0 pseudo-SLC cache to mask the native write speeds of the NAND; however, due to the limited number of NAND dies in this specific capacity, sequential write performance saturates significantly earlier than in the 500GB or 1TB variants. Community testing indicates that the Pablo controller is exceptionally power-efficient, leading to lower thermal output compared to the preceding 970 EVO series; thermal throttling is rarely observed in standard airflow environments. Users should note that the 250GB model has a proportionally smaller dynamic SLC cache buffer; once this buffer is exhausted during large file transfers, write speeds drop directly to the native TLC speed, which is significantly lower than the advertised burst spec. The drive supports Full Power Mode via the Magician software, which forces the drive to bypass low-power idle states to reduce latency.

Key Specifications

• Interface: PCIe 3.0 x4 (NVMe 1.4)
• Max Sequential Speeds: 2900 MB/s Read, 1300 MB/s Write
• Controller: Samsung Pablo (S4LR033) — 4-channel, DRAM-less
• NAND Type: Samsung 128-Layer V-NAND TLC
• Endurance: 150 TBW
• PCB Layout: Single-sided M.2 2280
• Encryption Support: AES 256-bit Full Disk Encryption, TCG/Opal V2.0

Hardware Alternatives

• WD Blue SN570: The primary direct competitor in the DRAM-less PCIe 3.0 tier; like the Samsung 980, it utilizes a proprietary in-house controller and HMB, though it pairs it with SanDisk BiCS TLC NAND.
• Samsung 970 EVO Plus: While an older drive, this remains the 980's high-performance relative. The 970 EVO Plus utilizes the Phoenix controller with dedicated DRAM, offering higher sustained write consistency than the 980, albeit with higher power consumption.
• Kioxia Exceria G2: A competing design that sits in a similar performance bracket but differentiates itself by retaining dedicated DRAM, whereas the Samsung 980 relies strictly on HMB.