Samsung Opens Pre-orders For Its 960 EVO And 960 PRO M.2 SSDs

We wrote about Samsung’s newest high-end M.2 solid-state drives last month, and fortunately, unlike a certain smartphone, these SSDs are keeping Samsung in the headlines for good reasons. In fact, this post is being made for a good reason: if you want one of these new top-end SSDs, you’re able to place a pre-order right now.

Pricing keeps in line with what we learned at launch, which means that the 960 EVO 500GB costs $250, and the 512GB 960 PRO costs $329. What’s the difference between EVO and PRO? PRO is the highest-end series Samsung offers; it includes 48-layer MLC NAND, versus 48-layer TLC in the EVO. Beyond that, it’s a mere difference of performance. Roughly, expect PRO to be about 10% faster in both throughput and IOPS over the EVO.

The drives can now be pre-ordered through Samsung’s official storefront. The least-expensive model is the 250GB 960 EVO, priced at $130, but the sweet-spot is still likely to be the 500GB EVO, at $250. If your NAND storage needs are much greater, the 1TB 960 EVO will set you back $480.

Let’s say you want to go all out. Your option would be the 2TB 960 PRO for $1,300. That might sound stupid expensive, but let’s not forget that just a couple of years ago, PCIe storage of this capability could have cost five-times more. Few are going to be able to justify $1,300 for 2TB, but the fact that progress is clearly being made is a great thing. How much would this drive cost next year? A lot less, it seems certain.