Samsung 980 1TB MLC NVMe for $39.99

[trs96]

SAMSUNG 980 M.2 2280 1TB PCI-Express 3.0 x4, Internal SSD - Newegg.com

Buy SAMSUNG 980 M.2 2280 1TB PCI-Express 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.4 V-NAND MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V8V1T0B/AM with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

SAMSUNG 980 M.2 1TB PCI-Express 3.0 ​

The important point to remember: Do not buy this for use as your macOS boot drive ! See post #2.

This is a Newegg Shell shocker. Use it as your Windows or Linux drive. Keeping those on their own separate SSD is a good idea. It can also simply be used as an external storage drive. With NVMe SSD enclosures, the read write speeds are limited by the USB A / C or Thunderbolt port you connect to. Maximum read/writes are 2800 MB/s for TH4/USB4.

Therefore it makes no sense to pay more for a Gen 4 NVMe SSD for use as an external drive. MLC means it will hold up the best under heavy loads, mainly writes.

If you prefer Amazon.com over Newegg, the price there is close at $45.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08V83JZH4/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

 

[trs96]

1. Avoid using Samsung NVMe drives with macOS

Prior to macOS Monterey, Samsung drives worked seemingly without issue. We don't know what changed in macOS 12 but we do know that Samsung's proprietary NVMe SSD controllers do not work well with macOS Monterey or Ventura. It doesn't look like a firmware fix from Samsung is ever going to be released. Here's a few examples of their drives that will potentially lead to ultra long macOS boot times. Some have reported six to seven minutes. The Samsung 990 Pro can be added to this list.

 

[trs96]

The advantage of MLC is that it stores only 2 bits per cell. MLC provides the best performance and the highest endurance with 10,000 P/E cycles so it will last longer than the other types of NAND. TLC or QLC. There are no SLC based SSDs that consumers can buy today.

Endurance is determined by the number of Program-Erase (P/E) cycles that a flash cell can undergo before it starts to wear out. A P/E cycle is the process of erasing and writing a cell and the more P/E cycles that the NAND technology can sustain the better the endurance of the device.

 

[Middleman]

I have a few systems that use these Samsung 970 Evo SSDs. So I did some digging, and read online that the issue is to do with a few things. The first is that Samsung (during the global pandemic lockdown) had changed the controller chip for the 970 Evo & Evo Plus from Phoenix to Elpis. This meant some drives did not do so well (performance-wise at first, barring some changes with macOS Monterey). The Elpis 970 Evo Plus suffered write performance issues. Samsung did release a new firmware to correct this. Newer drives with Elpis firmware (denoted by a newer vertical retail box) have a firmware download available that improves performance (but only available under Windows via Samsung Magician). However older 970 Evo Phoenix drives have yet to receive an update (which is why some firmware updates are refused by the app).

However despite the issue of slow booting, there have been successes for folks using Ventura on the Samsung drives (apparently). What they did was they upgraded from Monterey to Ventura like normal, then duplicated their drive to another SSD (T7), wiped and formatted the Samsung and then cloned the data back. That helped to bring read speeds back to normal (20 secs).

There have also been some successes with users setting SetAPFSTrimTimeout to 0 (resulting in faster boot speeds) but it will reduce the lifespan of the NAND I’m told.

 

[trs96]

The main point for new NVMe buyers to remember: It makes no sense today to purchase any Samsung NVMe for use as a macOS boot drive. There are much better options. Anyone that already owns them can keep using them. Personally, I would repurpose it for use with Windows or Linux.

That helped to bring read speeds back to normal (20 secs).

From what I've read doing this is only a temporary fix for the slow boot times. The 970 EVO problems were occuring long before the more recent TRIM problems started showing up with Monterey. The Phoenix controllers worked OK with Catalina once the firmware was updated in 2019 a year before the pandemic hit. All the reports of slow boot times related to TRIM, didn't start until the Monterey betas.

The first post on 970 Evo Plus problems was in Early 2019, before even Big Sur was announced in 2020.

<< Solved >> - Do the Samsung 970 EVO Plus drives work ? New Firmware Available 2B2QEXM7

Hi all, Some weeks ago Samsung introduced some new M2 NVM SSDs. I wanted to purchase the older 970 Evo model to create a dual boot system for my Intel Skull Canyon . The new drive is only slightly more expensive and I don't mind the additional 1000 MB/s write speeds. Are there any users that...

www.tonymacx86.com

 

[Middleman]

Yup, I agree. This is why two of my systems now use WD drives instead (Asus 12th gen & B550 Vision D). As for the others knowing about the firmware issue I've already repurposed some of them for my Windows setups. But as you probably know I do like to tinker sometimes and do feel a little curious about testing the 970 Evos with Ventura to see how it fairs.

 

[trs96]

But as you probably know I do like to tinker sometimes and do feel a little curious about testing the 970 Evos with Ventura to see how it fairs.

I'm trying to make the whole topic less confusing for newbies and hackintosh beginners making new hardware choices.

Statements like this:

"there have been successes for folks using Ventura on the Samsung drives." only cloud the picture more.

 

[trs96]

I've had much success with MLC NAND based SSDs. Some I still use are over 12 years old and work well today. Samsung drives are good, especially the MLC versions. They're just not macOS friendly. It's like saying "peanut butter is good.... with jelly." Still it's "Not so good.... with Mustard." The Samsung NVMe is the peanut butter and macOS is the mustard. You generally want to avoid using both in combination in your sandwich.