Samsung MZ-QLB3T80 3.84 TB PM983 PCIe Gen3 x4 U.2 Read Intensive Solid State Drive

General

Brand	Samsung
Model	PM983
Capacity	3.84 TB
Usage Class	Read Intensive

Interface

Host Interface	PCIe Gen3 x4
Total Interface Bandwidth	8 Gb/s

Physical Dimension

Form Factor	U.2

Flash & Endurance

NAND Flash	Samsung V-NAND 64-layer 3D TLC
Drive Writes Per Day	1.3
Total Bytes Written	5466 TBW

Performance

Sequential Read	3200 MB/s
Sequential Write	2000 MB/s
Random Read IOPS	540000
Random Write IOPS	50000
Average Latency	85 μs

Reliability

Mean Time Between Failures	2 Million Hours
Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate	1.0×10⁻¹⁷
Power Loss Protection	Yes

Part Number

MPN	MZQLB3T8HALS-00007

Engineer's Note

Compared with the previous-generation MZQLB3T8HALS-00007, the Samsung PM983 MZ-QLB3T80 advances to 64-layer V-NAND and delivers a stronger performance envelope at 3,200/2,000 MB/s and up to 540,000/50,000 IOPS, giving infrastructure teams a clear generational uplift in bandwidth and read responsiveness. Its 3.84 TB capacity, 1.3 DWPD endurance, and 5,466 TBW make it a particularly solid choice for mixed read-heavy virtualization, scale-out storage, and cloud application tiers that need enterprise durability with a better performance-per-watt and density profile than earlier PM983-era deployments.

Endurance & Reliability

With an endurance rating of 5466 TBW, the MZ-QLB3T80 can absorb about 5.5 petabytes of total writes, which is far beyond the write volume of typical OS, application, and general business workloads. In practical terms, for common system-disk or read-centric server use, this level of endurance supports many years of stable operation with ample write headroom. Its enterprise-grade power loss protection (PLP) helps preserve in-flight data and metadata during unexpected power interruptions, reducing the risk of corruption and improving recovery confidence. An UBER of 1.0E-17, together with a 2 million hour MTBF, indicates a very low likelihood of uncorrectable read errors and supports dependable long-term operation in business-critical environments.

Technical Specs & Insights

1. The PCIe Gen3 x4 interface gives this drive enough host bandwidth to remove storage as a bottleneck in mainstream enterprise servers, helping databases, virtualization clusters, and scale-out nodes stay consistently fed with data.
2. With 3200 MB/s sequential read performance, it accelerates large-block workloads such as analytics scans, backup recovery, media streaming, and fast VM or container image loading.
3. Its 540,000 K IOPS random read capability is built for highly concurrent transactional environments, enabling faster response across OLTP databases, VDI boot storms, and metadata-heavy cloud workloads.
4. Backed by Samsung V-NAND 64-layer 3D TLC and rated for 1.3 DWPD, it offers a practical balance of flash density and write endurance for always-on enterprise applications with steady daily write activity.
5. A typical latency of 85 µs helps shorten storage response time at the microsecond level, improving tail-latency behavior for latency-sensitive services such as real-time analytics and high-frequency transaction processing.

Capacity Sweet

Lower capacity reference: 1.92 TB Higher capacity reference: 7.68 TB At 3.84 TB, this model sits at the sweet spot of the series. Compared with the 1.92 TB version, it provides much better headroom for data growth, overprovisioning, and mixed workload consolidation without forcing an early capacity refresh. Compared with the 7.68 TB option, it typically delivers a more efficient cost profile while retaining essentially the same enterprise-class sequential and random performance behavior. This makes 3.84 TB especially well suited for mid-scale virtualization clusters, database nodes, or roughly 40 to 60 general-purpose virtual desktop images.

FAQ