INTRODUCTION

   Although the SATA III (6Gb/s) interface is not going away anytime soon (replaced perhaps although we've been listening to that for many years now) with its maximum throughput reached long ago it no longer represents a valid choice for professionals and enthusiasts. To that end manufacturers have now turned almost exclusively to the design and manufacture of M.2 (and as extension to PCIe) models which surpass their SATA III cousins in most if not all areas (high temperatures have been an issue easily resolved however with the addition of a heat-sink) including performance, low latency, size (tiny form factor) and of course power consumption. 11 months ago Samsung announced their latest additions to their growing M.2 NVMe lines the 960 PRO (which is aimed towards professionals and enthusiasts) and the 960 EVO (which is aimed towards gamers and "regular" consumers) models and yes after a long wait period the 960 EVO 1TB model is finally with us.

   Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in technology, opening new possibilities for people everywhere. Through relentless innovation and discovery, we are transforming the worlds of televisions, smartphones, personal computers, printers, cameras, home appliances, LTE systems, medical devices, semiconductors and LED solutions. We employ 236,000 people across 79 countries with annual sales of US$187.8 billion. Samsung's Memory Business offers the industry's most advanced and extensive range of memory semiconductor products. As a leader in both the design and manufacture of memory semiconductor since 1993, the business provides key memory products including dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), NAND flash memory, Solid State Drives (SSD) and a range of green memory solutions for use in PC, server and mobile applications. Samsung is also leading the industry in advancements of next generation DRAM and NAND flash technologies while nurturing future memory technologies.

   The 960 EVO M.2 (NGFF-2280 form factor) NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) drive by Samsung is currently available in 250/500/1000GB capacities (MZ-V6E250/MZ-V6E500/MZ-V6E1T0) and fully supports the previous nvm express 1.2 protocol (naturally since 1.3 was introduced just a few months ago). The 960 EVO 1TB is a PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD based on the latest Polaris NAND flash controller (5 cores with 8 channels) by Samsung which they have paired with their 48-layer V-NAND 3-bit MLC flash along with a 1GB Low Power (LP) DDR3 cache module. It also fully supports technologies like TRIM, SMART, Garbage Collection, AES 256-bit, TCG/Opal and also features Samsung's latest intelligent TurboWrite (accelerates sequential read and write speeds by treating an dynamic amount of MLC NAND as SLC / pseudo-SLC) and Dynamic Thermal Guard (prevents overheating / enables throttle-down at high temperatures) technologies. For the 960 EVO 1TB model which we have here Samsung advertises performance numbers of up to 3200MB/s read and 1900MB/s write with a throughput of up to over 380/360K IOPS for read/write, gives it an endurance/durability number of 400TBW (Total Bytes Written), MTBF of 1.5 million hours and covers it with a 3 year limited warranty.