Customer Ratings & Reviews

One of the best ssd for the ps5. Is really fast. Better to get the 2tb capacity, because in my case 1tb is not enough.

Barely meets ps5 minimum requirements at 5570mbps. Wondering if Samsung saved their low performing 980 pros for this heat sink Ps5-compatible release. Considering the price and the low performance, it may be worth a return for another brand. Seems like all of the other brands are ranging from 6200-6600mbps on ps5 and some of those options are cheaper than this.

works great for PS5, have Call of duty on it and no issues what so ever.

The 980 PRO Heatsink 1TB is a huge step-up in speed and it stays as cool as my 970 EVO Plus under sustained load. This Gen 4, x4 NVMe SSD installed easily into my system which I will detail out below: Gigabyte X570 Xtreme AMD 5800X Team Group 32 GB of 3600 LL RAM Windows 11 I was pleasantly surprised to see how quickly the Samsung Magician software identified the presence of the 980 Pro and prompted me to update the firmware after a Win 11 boot up. Following the firmware flash, the system needed a reboot and without any intervention - Windows 11 had already allocated the drive for me. Truly plug-and-play! I've been running a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB drives for several years now and was eager to step up to a true, Gen 4 x4 solid state drive. Without invoking any of the enhanced performance modes (via Samsung Magician), Standard mode produced the following, excellent results: Over 6500 MB/sec - sequential read speeds Over 5000 MB/sec - sequential write speeds That is pretty amazing considering this is only Standard Mode and more than double the speeds of my 970 EVO Plus. My desktop case moves a lot of air so YMMV, but what struck me immediately is how cool the 980 Pro with Heatsink operated under normal loads. My 970 EVO Plus relies on the chip-set/storage heat sink complex that came with my motherboard and typically operates at around 43 C. I had to remove part of that complex to accommodate the 980 Pro's included heat sink but was amazed to find that this new SSD kept pace in terms of thermal performance... with normal operating temperatures around the same 43 C level. I've heard and read a lot of complaints about Gen 4 SSDs running too hot but haven't experienced one myself - until now. And I can say with confidence that this device stays cool under pressure - only hitting the high 50's with sustained, large file transfers. Perhaps my case airflow compliments the heat sink mounted on the 980 Pro. This is an excellent upgrade if your mother board supports it. I trust Samsung SSDs and their warranties are a testament to their reliability. I've used Samsung solid state drives for many years and haven't had a single one fail on me. Just kind in mind that any Gen 4 x4 setup is going to require proper airflow. Pros: Solidly constructed Easily installed, plug-and-play with Windows 11 Fantastic speeds for both reads & writes The included heat sink keeps this baby cool Samsung Magician software is comprehensive and helps to keep the SSD up to date & performing well Cons: None

INTRO The Samsung 980 Pro with heatsink is Samsung’s latest entry into the world of PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drives. Until now, all their previous drives have been PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe or SATA drives. PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe promises throughputs over 2x the prior 3.0 x4 protocols. The Samsung 980 Pro can reach read speeds up to 7000MB/s and write speeds up to 5100 MB/s. Blazingly fast to say the least. With this being a true PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe drive, it is compatible not only with PC’s, but also the new PS5. The PS5 requires a drive capable of supporting speeds up to 5000 MB/s to be used a primary game storage drive and still achieve next gen graphics. This 980 easily fulfills those requirements. The addition of an integrated heatsink ensures the drive remains cool, thereby providing consistent read/write speeds throughout its workload or gaming sessions. For those concerned, the 980 Pro is also fully backwards compatible with the older PCIe 3.0 x4 interface too. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION My test rig is an HP Omen. It has an Intel Core i7-9700 8 Core Processor (Liquid Cooled), 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and an nVidia GTX 1660Ti graphics card. The HP has 1 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe controller which will prove to be the limiting factor in the benchmarks. After installing the drive, I proceeded to install a fresh copy of Windows 11, all the latest updates from Microsoft, including drivers, and the Samsung Magician software. After a full installation, the Magician software informed me of a necessary firmware update for the 980. Fingers crossed, I updated the drive and the computer shut off. Hoping for the best, I powered the computer back on and received a disk error and windows had to complete a disk check to boot. Fortunately, everything seemed to check out fine and I have experienced no further errors yet. The 980 is extremely fast! The limiting factor in the drive’s performance is the PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe interface of my HP. Even with the prior generation’s specs, the HP managed impressive results. Using the Samsung Magician benchmarking software, I recorded speeds as follows: Sequential Read: 3559 MB/s Sequential Write: 3410 MB/s Random Read: 735351 IOPS Random Write: 349365 IOPS Excellent performance is an understatement. This drive is speedy and responsive. SOFTWARE The Samsung Magician software is the gold standard for drive monitoring software. I have NVMe drives from numerous other vendors including: SK Hynix, ADATA, SanDisk and Western Digital and no software is more polished and comprehensive than Samsung’s. The Magician software is intuitive and allows for one-stop SSD management from temperature information to hardware-based encryption. Excellent work Samsung. I commend you on an excellent piece of free software. NEGATIVES After doing some reading up on the 980 on the Samsung website, I noticed there were several items that are bragged about on their other drives (older Pros and lesser model Evo’s) that seem hard to find on the Samsung site. After doing some digging, I can see why. Samsung Pros have always represented the pinnacle of Samsung’s hard drive business. They were special drives that used uncommon 2-bit MLC memory and had endurance ratings far greater than any other models Samsung or their competitors offered. 2-bit memory was the memory that all other SSD’s looked up to. Very few drives offered it as an option, especially at the price point Samsung did. Not only that, 2-bit MLC memory is rated up to twice the endurance of TLC NAND memory. In a decision I can only guess is to save costs, Samsung has bestowed the same memory on their new pro models that I have in my inferior EVO and EVO Plus drives. Because of this, the endurance rating of the 980 PRO is now ½ of what it was with the 970 PRO. The new 980 offers and endurance rating of 600TBW, the same as my EVO 970’s. This seems like a huge step back for the consumer. FINAL THOUGHTS Should this have used the old Pro’s 2-bit NAND memory, it would be an absolute no-brainer, must have drive. Using 3-bit TLC NAND memory lowers the endurance rating and tarnishes the Pro’s halo. Samsung has long been considered the premier tier in SSD manufacturers. Read any publication or webpage and there is a never ending supply of Samsung kudos and accolades for their drives. While this Pro is awesome, it is not what the original Pros were.

I returned. Did they limit this ssd or something? I got a WD and it it at least 1k more read speed closer to 7.

If you’re looking for an SSD that’s ready to be installed into your PlayStation 5 without hassle or concern—then let me cut to the chase, the Samsung 980 Pro 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD is a great option that will perform well on the PS5, but it is not inherently the best value option. UNBOXING: Inside the box, you’ll find minimal packaging with the SSD and Heatsink preinstalled for your convenience. Additionally, you’ll find an installation guide and warranty booklet included. FIRMWARE UPDATE: Prior to me setting up with the PS5, I was made aware that the Samsung 980 Pro had a firmware update that I should install because previous firmware versions yielded suboptimal performance. In order to accomplish this, I had to install it into a m.2 slot on my computer motherboard and run the Samsung Magician application which found a firmware update for the drive. I ran the firmware update, restarted the computer, and verified the new version number (4B2QGXA7) and that no other updates were available. It should be noted that this is only possible on a Windows operating system. If for some reason you do not have an additional slot to perform this firmware update on the SSD, you CANNOT use an external USB m.2 enclosure because it will not be recognized within Samsung Magician as the 980 Pro. So you may want to consider other avenues. I just don’t think this will be a good experience if you don’t have any experience doing this kind of thing. SET UP WITH PS5: To set up the 980 Pro with your PlayStation 5, you need a smaller precision screwdriver kit. I advise you to look at the instructions provided by Sony, but it was very easy to fully turn off the PS5, remove from power, remove the bottom white panel of the PS5, unscrew the SSD access bay, re-locate the mounting screw, install & screw in the SSD, then re-secure the access bay and reattach the panel. Once that was done, I booted up the PS5 and it prompted me to format the SSD before I could continue. Once I formatted it, it automatically ran a speed test and achieved a read speed of 6,477 MB/s. Which certainly meets Sony’s minimum requirements. HEATSINK: In terms of the build, you have a compact heatsink that encases the SSD. Sandwiched between the heatsink and the SSD is thermal interface padding to help reduce any air gaps that would and to optimize for best thermal transfer from the actual flash memory chips and memory controller to the heatsink. From what I can tell, the heatsink design should transfer heat well. I unfortunately don’t have any sort of thermal probe to verify the differences with the heatsink on and off, but there are a number of videos online demonstrating that the heatsink is recommended because these SSDs tend to produce a lot of heat especially if they’re under load. So different games will have different read & write demands from the SSD—with the more graphically intense games more often requiring much more data transfer to and from the SSD. Without this heatsink, the SSD may overheat and thus cause longer loading times, potential performance issues, and reduce overall lifespan of the SSD. PERFORMANCE: Sony recommends upgrading your PS5 with a PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD with a read speed of 5,500MB/s or faster. Since Sony doesn’t specify anything about write speed since it’s less of an issue during gameplay. It seems as though drives with slower write speeds would still work as long as its read speed is near Sony’s recommended target. Samsung rates the 980 Pro 1TB at 7,000 MB/s read and 5,000 MB/s write on a computer—which is enough for the PS5. In my testing, the PS5 yielded 6,477 MB/s read speed. With all that being said, with my time playing games like Ratchet & Clank, Ghost of Tsushima, Final Fantasy VII Remake & Sackboy Adventure, I did not experience any noteworthy difference between the onboard SSD of the PS5 compared to the Samsung 980 Pro, which is a good thing. Once installed, it’s a seamless experience. For the price that you’re paying, however, I do think many other great alternatives have released that will achieve the same functional results for less money—namely the XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 1TB (the Blade variant uses a slim heatsink that fits in the SSD bay of the PS5) and the lesser PNY CS3040 1TB (you’ll want to purchase a different PS5-compatible heatsink because the one that is included on some variants is too tall). So just be sure to check your sale pricing and see what best fits your needs. That being said, there is always the possibility that firmware updates may still be required for any of these drives. CONCLUSION: Overall, I do think the Samsung 980 Pro 1TB is a good SSD expansion solution for the PlayStation 5. It exceeds the recommended specifications, and also makes installation easy with a compatible heatsink that will fit in the SSD bay, whereas some other SSDs have heatsinks that are too large to fit in the bay. The one real kicker is that Samsung launched the 980 Pro with some major performance bugs that were ironed out via a firmware update. At this time, there is no guarantee that you will purchase a unit that is fully up-to-date, and the update process isn’t trivial if you aren’t relatively tech savvy, or don’t have the proper computer hardware running Windows.

The 980 Pro /w Heatsink is everything I wanted for my storage upgrade needs and also meets the requirements for my PS5. Speeds up to 6500 meets and beats Sony's requirement and the extra 1TB of space is much needed for my growing library. In the box is the drive itself (no screws) and an installation guide. Prep Work! Before Installing in your PS5 ======================================= Note you MUST update the firmware FIRST before installing in your console. If you do not, then odds are your speeds will be slower than advertised. As long as you are a little PC savvy, it should be no problem with modern PCs. I used an M.2 to PCIE adapter and I already had the Samsung Magician software downloaded as most all my drives in all my PCs are Samsungs. As Windows booted up, there is no need to format the drive as the software automatically detected the 980 Pro and gave the option to update the firmware. 1 minute later it was done. Installation in the PS5 was quick and easy as well. If you are unfamiliar with taking off the side panel, I suggest searching the web or watching a youtube video tutorial. Move the spacer from 100 to 80 and it is a simple plug and play install from there (the PS5 has a screw already to install M.2 drives). As soon as I turned on the PS5, it immediately found the drive and formatted it in less than 20 seconds. Ran a self speed test and I average around ~6500 which is perfect for the console. Once done, go to settings and storage and you can set where new games and apps will install to. Samsung's 980 Pro /w Heatsink works perfectly for my needs and would highly recommend it if you're in the market for a PS5 drive.

So I got this to expand the storage of my PS5. Installation was a breeze and took all of a minute or two. After installing it I fired the PS5 up and it immediately prompted to format the drive. The speed came back around 5550Mbp/s which is just at the recommended speed. Games don't appear to be any faster or slower to load and seem to be identical to the internal drive. I like the clean look of the drive's heatsink as it's very sleek and more aesthetically pleasing than a lot of other NVME drives with them. Heat wise it's hard to measure as I don't have anything like FLIR camera to test with. I'm sure the drive will last a long time. It's backed by a generous 5 year warranty though the Pro's used to carry a 10 year so this is interesting change. The endurance is a bit middling though, especially for the price. That's always been a drawback I've seen on the Pro series drives with a few exceptions. I've got a 960GB NVME in my PC that I bought 2 or 3 year ago and it's endurance is rated at 1600 TBW, which is just under 3x's this drives endurance. That said though, you're unlikely to hit this in normal every day usage scenarios, even with a PC, most especially with the PS5.

Great drive for PS5 use, but only after you update to the newest firmware. Unfortunately for those looking to expand their PS5 internal storage, for current gen PS5 games, you will not get full speed out of this drive unless you update the drives firmware to the one released late November 2021. At current time, this can only be done if a user has a Windows computer with a m.2 nvme slot. For those that are not PC savvy users, there are better options right of out of the box that do not need firmware updates, and also that have heatsinks built in, though a quick google search will also show you that you can buy SSD heatsinks that fit the PS5 for very little money. Putting your own heatsink on an SSD for use in a PS5 is very easy to do and takes just a couple of minutes. Without updating this SSDs firmware, I was getting around 5,500MB/s per the PS5 speed test after formatting. Updating the firmware back on my desktop PC, via Samsung Drive Magician (make sure you install and update via the latest version, I had issues getting it to work from a previous earlier version), I was getting about 6,500MB/s, and in line with other Gen4 SSD drives that do not require a firmware update via a Windows PC. This is inline with other top performing Gen 4 SSDs from other manufacturers. PS5 games load up great on the drive, even before updating the firmware, and just as fast as off the built in storage on the PS5.

Samsung 980 Pro with Heatsink I love gaming across all genres. Fighting, shooters, RPGs, Pixel Art platformers, etc. This means that I have a varied collection of games. However, the default SSD in my PS5 doesn’t allow me to store all those games (both digital and physical) in my system. This means that I have to pick and choose what stays and what needs to be deleted all because I haven’t played it in the last two weeks. And I think that we’ve all been in that situation where we delete a game because Call of Duty Warzone has an update that takes up room. We delete said game but then a week or so later, we have a craving to play the game we deleted which leads us to delete another game just so we can re-install the previous game. It goes on and on. Sure, there’s the option to use an external hard drive for the PS5 but that merely stores the games but doesn’t allow them to be utilized by the fast speeds of the PS5. I looked into SSDs but most required me to purchase a heatsink separately and from there, I would have to cut and apply Thermo pads to the Heatsink unit. When I learned that Samsung released their 980 Pro with Heatsink, I got excited to install it into my PlayStation 5. It’s Ready to Go: The 980 Pro with Heatsink is ready to be installed into your PS5 immediately. There’s nothing to snap or stick together. Just push it out of its casing and be ready to insert it into your PS5. Installation: Opening your PS5 isn’t difficult. I HIGHLY suggest that you look up YouTube videos on how to install an SSD with Heatsink into your PS5. I watched the official PlayStation video on how to install and it’s easy. Setup: Once the 980 Pro is installed, the PS5 system will detect the new SSD and ask you if you want to format it. Formatting doesn’t take long at all. Once that is done, you can choose how you want to use the new 980 Pro. For example, you can choose to only have PS4 games to be installed on the 980 Pro. It’s up to you. No matter what your decision is, you can still manually select a game and move it to either your original SSD or the 980 Pro. It’s simple. If you do decide to transfer a game to the 980 Pro, it only takes seconds. Games like Demon’s Souls and Guardians of the Galaxy only took about 30 seconds to transfer 30GB to the 980 Pro. Performance: One of the awesome features of the PS5 is how quickly it can load games like Demon’s Souls, Ratchet and Clank, Spider-Man Remastered, Final Fantasy VII Remake, etc. The load times for the aforementioned games are nearly non-existent as they had been using the initial PS5 SSD! Space to Game: It’s a relief knowing that I won’t have to make the weighed decision as to what game needs to go on a whim for the foreseeable future. If I want to update a game that requires several GB of memory then I can easily allow it without the dreaded pop-up message ‘that there isn’t enough space required’. I am very pleased with the Samsung 980 Pro with Heatsink and I believe that you or the gamer in your life will be as well.

What an incredible drive! If you have a motherboard with PCIe 4.0 this is the drive to get. It’s about as fast as you can get – clocking in the mid to high 6GB/s range for reads and about 5GB/s for writes. I’m running it with a Ryzen9 3900XT and 32GBs of G.Skill Trident Z memory. Installation was easy but it should be noted that the although the heatsink is removable, a sticker across the seam says, “warranty void if removed”. This may be a problem for some motherboards that use an integrated heatshield. Both of mine are removable and removing them doesn’t ruin the esthetic. However, I could totally see a scenario where you’d want to remove the shield and use the one included with your board. Not a deal breaker for me, but something to be weary of if using on a PC. From what I’ve seen this seems to be a non-issue with the PS5.

So far the Samsung 980 Pro SSD has been working perfectly on my PS5. Most people with a PS5 can agree that the included storage is just not enough room to handle more than a handful of installed games. While this might be fine for people that only play 1 or 2 games at any given time, the rest of us have a plethora of games we like to play with different groups or friends. Originally Sony had blocked the use of third party SSDs, because they wanted to make sure that all additional storage devices met their stringent performance requirements. As more viable 3rd party options became available, Sony released an update to the PS5s allowing them to use these additional drives as long as they met these minimum requirements : *PCI-Express Gen4x4 supported M.2 NVMe SSD (Key M) *250 GB - 4 TB *Supported sizes 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280, 22110 *Size including heat-dissipation mechanism- Width: up to 25 mm Length: 30/40/60/80/110 mm , Thickness: up to 11.25 mm (up to 8.0 mm from above the board, up to 2.45 mm from below the board) *Sequential read speed 5,500MB/s or faster *Socket 3 (Key M) It is very important to pay attention to the required speeds, and the physical dimensions. A heatsink is required, as the use of another SSD will create too much added heat. The internal fan system is pretty good, but without a heatsink the performance of the SSD will suffer.  The Samsung 980 PRO's specifications make it an excellent choice for an additional PS5 SSD. The 980 PRO boasts read speeds up to 7000MB/s and write speeds of 5100MB/s, with random read and writes both up to 1000K IOPS. With the heat sink the physical dimensions are 3.15" X 0.94 " X 0.87". Before you install the SSD make sure it has the latest firmware. You can not update this from the PS5, so you will have to install it into a PC or Laptop initially. I have been told by Samsung's tech support that pc's with a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) system might have issues recognizing the drive at first. I encountered this problem with my laptops. I was able to install the drive and download Samsung's Magician Software. However, the drive did not show up in explorer, it did show up in the Magician Software. I was not able to use any of the functionality of the software, except to see the current drive's firmware, so I had to update the firmware manually. You can manually download the latest firmware and installation instructions from the same Samsung support page you download the Magician Software from. I followed all the instructions in the download, and updated the firmware through a bootable flash drive. The process was pretty easy and worked the first time, even if you have no prior experience doing anything like this the instructions are easy enough to follow for anyone. The next step to installing this in the PS5 is to unplug everything from your console, and remove the cover. Sony has a nice instructional video online to show the whole process. It's important to ground yourself before opening the system to avoid damage from static shock. With the PS5 logo facing down the white plastic cover pops off pretty easily. With a slight upward tug on the lower corner, you should be able to push the cover off to the left (providing the lowest corner of the PS5 is on your right).The SSD cover can be opened with a Philips screwdriver, then remove the SSD placement screw. After sliding the SSD into place, insert the placement screw back into its sleeve and screw down the SSD into place. It literally takes less than a minute to complete the install. When you restart the PS5 you will be prompted to format the drive. After the drive is formatted the system will run a quick read speed test and provide the results onscreen for you. After this you can change the install location through the system settings to use the new SSD for future downloads, or transfer game installs from the default storage device to the new SSD. I installed several different games including the latest third person shooters and battle royal games. All the games worked just as well as any game I had installed directly to the console's default storage. I experienced no in game lag or performance issues after playing for extended lengths of time. Aside from the initial system read test there wasn't much I could do to test the performance of the drive except time downloads. I compared three different games I had downloaded and installed to both the console default storage and the new SSD. All three games downloaded and installed at virtually the same rates. So far the Samsung 980 PRO has proven to be very comparable to the default drive, with no noticeable differences in any areas of use. It's a perfect match for the PS5.

I’ve been wanting to upgrade my PS5 with some extra storage capacity since I purchased it a year ago, but just really never go around to it. When the chance to review this Samsung 980 Pro with Heatsink came around I just had to jump on it. I will be reviewing this drive for upgrading a PS5’s storage capacity only and not as a NVMe drive one would install in a PC. Let’s get the elephant in the room addressed. Yes, this drive will fit in the PS5. The heatsink is specifically designed to fit into the NVMe slot of the PS5 so you’ll have no issues with getting it in there. The actual physical install of the drive into the PS5 was pretty simple with the hardest part being the removal of the side plates on the PS5 itself. Once installed the PS5 will ask to format the drive and then run a speed test to verify that it’s compatible, you should have no issue with this either, however here’s the catch with the way this drive is being shipped currently. Currently the drive is being shipped with an older firmware, which is apparently pretty buggy and has caused some PC users some issues with slower than advertised read/write speeds. This doesn’t seem to affect the PS5 in any significant way based on information I obtained from Samsung as the speeds still exceed the 5500mb/sec requirement for the PS5. If that’s all you need to hear, then just skip to the end of this review. Let’s assume though, for the sake of thoroughness you wanted to upgrade the firmware without being able to insert the drive into a second NVMe drive in a Windows PC. Well, this is where it gets tricky. If you have a Linux PC or just want to use this NVMe on something other than a Windows PC and need to upgrade the firmware, it’s not a straightforward process at all. The bootable ISO image that Samsung provides you on their website does not have USB support, this means that your USB keyboard won’t work at all and you won’t be able to press the keys required to flash the firmware. To circumvent this issue I had to load Linux (in this case Ubuntu) onto the drive and follow an online process to extract the firmware upgrade program from the Samsung provided ISO in order to flash the drive to the latest firmware. Call it OCD or call it being thorough, but I like to have the latest, bug free code on my electronic devices, especially ones that I’ll be installing in a high end console or PC used to play games. You won’t have this issue if you run Windows and are installing this drive as the Samsung Magician program will upgrade the firmware right in Windows without this ever being an issue. Overall the build quality of the drive, the packaging and the ease of install for people that are going to be using this on a Windows PC or just placing it directly into a PS5 is all well and good. If I weren’t so paranoid I wouldn’t have gone through what I did to flash the drive to the latest firmware and just stuck it into my PS5. This is what I’d assume most people would do, but the fact that the firmware seems to increase the reported read speed on the PS5 from 5500MB/s to about 6500MB/s based on some posts I’ve seen on Reddit and on other forums, I went ahead and updated the firmware. I just can’t give this drive a full 5 star review for the simple reason that other comparable NVMe drives report the correct speed on the PS5 and seem to outpace the drive in both Windows and in the PS5 with the firmware currently shipping on the 980 Pro. If the drive shipped with a firmware that didn’t hinder its performance then I would have no qualms giving it that additional star. Call me crazy, but when a firmware isn’t easily upgradable, even by the methods provided by the manufacturer, it makes for a less than smooth experience.

This is the perfect addition to the PS5 console to provide much needed storage space as these games are getting sick huge IMO. After you install it, the system will provide a speed of memory transfer so just note that the reported value will not necessarily match exactly to the spec. It's completely normal. The games install quickly with this one. It has the must-have heatsink. It only took me about a half an hour to an hour to install this SSD in my PS5 and I did follow a tutorial taking my time! I would say go for it if you are running out of disk space and you are sick of uninstalling a game to install a new one.

With its speed, design and backed by a great warranty the Samsung 980 PRO Heatsink delivers in spades. Opening up and setting up the 980 was a breeze although it does not include a screw to hold the drive down, I used the one from my old NVME drive that this was replacing. Once I cloned over my old drive I was surprised to notice how much faster the data transfers were. There is a red light on the drive that fades in and out while the drive is being used and the heatsink on it did not interfere with my motherboard or graphics card. If you're using this drive on a PlayStation 5 (PS5) it is recommended that you first connect it to a computer and upgrade the firmware via the Samsung Magician drive software. On the PC side of things, I did not notice any speed changes after doing the firmware upgrade but your milage may vary. The speeds are about as fast as they advertise. The gaming load times seemed faster as well as the large file transfers that I did (200-300GB) compared to my old gen 3 drive. This drive comes with a 5-year warranty so I'm not worried about it. Overall, I'm very satisfied and I'm sure you will be too if you get this drive.

So I’ve had a few days adding this nvme drive to my PC and running tests. I currently have another nvme drive running windows on my rig, looking to replace or supplement my current drive. Starting off the heatsink was too big for my motherboard as I have a cooling system on top of the nvme slots. Doesn’t appear like the heatsink can be removed easily, at least not without voiding warranty. I ended up buying a separate add-in-card for the drive and plugged it into my PCIe 4.0 slot to use. After that, Windows didn’t recognize it, but my BIOS did. From my research this is a fault of Windows and not Samsung, apparently they had a Windows update released awhile back that affects x570 AMD boards with some nvme drives, however, I was able to install Windows on it, just not add it to an existing one. I could see it in my BIOS but not in Windows Disk Management which is the first time I’ve ever ran into an issue like this. This should only affect a small group of people and for people who are looking to just upgrade their HD with this type of CPU/Chipset. Once I got a copy of Windows installed on it, it worked great. I ran read/write tests on it using Crystal Disk Mark and got some impressive speeds on it (see attached). One big feature about the Samsung Pro is it offers hardware encryption which my current drive does not. Hardware encryption is much better and secure than software encryption, a big selling point for me. There was one let down which appears to be a Best Buy typo, the SSD Endurance (TBW) listed on Best Buy’s site is 6000 TB whereas Samsung’s website says 600 TB. Someone must have accidentally hit an extra 0 and I got really excited about it. It’s basically the life of the hard drive, but 600 TB is pretty standard and actually a good amount. I’m still running an older Samsung 950 Pro on my other computer that I used as my daily driver for nearly 7 years and it still ran great, just thought they were somehow able to improve it greatly. Overall it’s been a great drive to use so far, Windows copied and installed very fast on it, bootup and programs fired right up. You can see my speed results in the attached image. Make sure you have the space for the heatsink in your PC/Laptop or be prepared to get an add-in card to support it. If security and performance is a priority for you and your rig, can’t go wrong with this drive especially while its on sale.

I used this in a PC. Easy to install. But due to the larger size of the heat sink it limits it installation. Some laptops and onboard motherboard M.2 slots are too small. M.2 slot under heat sinks on my laptop or PC motherboard cannot fit this. I only found a motherboard with a vertical M.2 drive that could accept it with no issues. It looks nice and helps cool. As easy to install as any other M.2. I put it on a PCI ex M.2 card. Performance, see attached results from the Samsung Magician software. Compares M.2 Evo 960, 970, and the 980 Pro, all 1TB. As soon as it connected there was a firmware update from Samsung Magician. After a reboot it was ready to go. The 980 Pro is faster than other drives I have. I used this on a PCI Ex gen 3 slot. The card got full 4x lanes. However, it needs a gen 4 connection to experience it's full potential. So, it's ready for PCI Ex gen 4 boards. Even on Gen 3 it's faster, but can do more. The attached picture are the results of 960, 970, and 980 Pro M.2s. All on the same Motherboard with full 4x lanes to each. Great drive, the heat sink limits installation is the only drawback. Make sure you have room for it. On board M.2 slots they have heatsinks already built in may not fit it. Having a PCI Ex 4 connection will get you better results, but even on PCI Ex 3 it's faster.

I was super excited to receive this Samsung 980 PRO with Heatsink NVMe M.2 SSD to expand the storage space in my gaming laptop. However, I was not able to use this since my laptop is thin and this SSD with Heatsink is larger than what will fit in my laptop. I had to use it in my desktop PC instead, so all was not lost. I am happy to report that this SSD preforms great for my gaming needs. Temperature of the SSD at its peak got up to around 50 degrees C and normal temp was around 30 C. Read / write speed according to CrystalDiskMark has this running at just under the advertised speed of 7,000 MB/s, I clocked it at 6,701 MB/s in the 1 GiB test for read and 4903 MB/s in the write speed. Not the end of the world, and I consider it close enough for my likes. This was straight out of the box, and I did not check my computer manufacturer for any updates that may have improved the speed. I may do that later on down the road though. The heatsink itself seems very well built and appears to dissipate the heat as intended. I highly recommend this SSD for all of your needs and if you have a thin laptop that you want to install this in, there is a version w/o the heatsink that would be ideal for that situation.

This is the seventh Samsung SSD m.2 NVME drive installed in our systems at home/office dating back years. Besides industry leading performance technology, we have had total reliability in all the drives. Not one Samsung SSD has skipped a beat in our demanding network. That I like. Performance of the 980 PRO with Heatsink is identical to my boot 980 PRO drive reaching Maximum Data Transfer Rate performance rates of up to 7000 megabytes per second. It rips through Reads and Writes. The Heatsink is brilliantly designed and machined, in a word it is stunning. Looks great through the glass panel with the RGB lighting flickering the machined edges along the top of the heatsink case. Never thought I would comment on the aesthetics of a drive! Samsung Data Migration Software; have utilized many times over the years installing new Samsung drives. Samsung Data Migration is rock solid, never any issues, always successful. When transferring data from one Samsung NVMe drive to another transfer rate was at 260MB/s. Makes for a short wait to get your system back on-line. The other important tool in the Samsung box of goodies is Samsung Magician, the best SSD management system on the market. Magician is the complete SSD Toolbox: - Optimization Tools - Diagnostics - Drive Encryption - Health Monitoring - Benchmarking - Over Provisioning (one of my favorites) - Complete Drive Information and Details - Secure Erase - Firmware Updates The Samsung Migration and Magician are The Benchmark for SSD software. Combined with a solid 5-year warranty the 980 PRO’s speed and reliability makes it an easy selection for our home, office, and gaming needs.