Just been looking at buying a M.2 PCI-e ( Samsung SM951 256GB ). Not had any experience with this type of storage before and not sure whether to go for the older type and save £30 to £40 or just buy the new NVMe version. Any advice appreciated.
M.2 PCI-e NVMe
- Thread starter shamus21
- Start date
i wouldn't bother unless you have a skylake setup or x99 setup otherwise its not worth it. I uses up PCI-E lanes for your GFX and if its not got the full fat x4 lanes it will be bottlenecked so only marginly faster than a SSD.
Depends why you want to invest in one and if you have the setup. Id be more tempted to get 2 128GB SSD and raid them for better speed. Or 256GB if your money can stretch tht far.
2 of these are not that bad
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-051-CR&groupid=701&catid=2104&subcat=2394
and should be just as fast as the M.2 SSD with more capacity.
Depends why you want to invest in one and if you have the setup. Id be more tempted to get 2 128GB SSD and raid them for better speed. Or 256GB if your money can stretch tht far.
2 of these are not that bad
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-051-CR&groupid=701&catid=2104&subcat=2394
and should be just as fast as the M.2 SSD with more capacity.
Pretty much agree with the above post. Plus there's the availability (or lack) of the NVMe versions of the Samsung drive.
Having said the above. I am looking to pick one up myself. But hopefully no compatibility issues for me, as I'm running Z170A.
Having said the above. I am looking to pick one up myself. But hopefully no compatibility issues for me, as I'm running Z170A.
Picked one up from ocUK the other day and boy does it fly. You need to do a SEARCH in the ocUK shop to find them, as if you go to the correct component/category in the shop, they don't appear. They all say "pre order" but if you go into the detail listing for the 256GB version, they do in fact have stock.
I'll post up some benchmarks when I've got a moment. So far pretty impressed. No problems fitting or being recognized in the MSI Z170A mobo. Even Acronis True Image can see (and back it up) just fine.
PS. They definitely are OEM, as they come in no packaging what so ever, other than a little bubble wrap pouch.
I'll post up some benchmarks when I've got a moment. So far pretty impressed. No problems fitting or being recognized in the MSI Z170A mobo. Even Acronis True Image can see (and back it up) just fine.
PS. They definitely are OEM, as they come in no packaging what so ever, other than a little bubble wrap pouch.
Check out how warm the chips get apparently it is affecting performance on the NVMe version.
None issue really, except under sustained heavy work loads. Average user very unlikely so see any thermal throttling issues in normal day to day use. The ol article by anand addresses this issue at some length and also comes to this conclusion. Also effects both nvme and ahci versions. tbth even a standard ssd will throttle if it gets to hot. Just not as likely to happen, unless you live in an extreme climate and have terrible case ventilation.
If worried by this, then set up something like a spot fan pointing at the drive. Totally mitigates the issue then.
Personally I think this drive a good first attempt by Samsung
PS. If anyone is interested. The anandtech article goes into this issue at some length and comes to the same conclusion as me ... None issue.
Hi... Have you tried to bench with the AS SSD utility? I can't seem to get it to work on the sm951 drive. CDM and ATTO are OK. Think AS SSD uses .net framework to run, maybe I've got an old version installed.
No, only used the Samsung benchmark.
All sorted now. For some reason it did not like where I had installed AS SSD. Once installed on the C: drive it ran OK. Must have been lacking some sort of write permission trying to run it from other than C:
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Cant say I care that much about the boot time myself.
If its what you want and can afford it, then buy it. Frequently an upgrade can be hard to justify cost wise.
And its not really just about the impressive sequential processing ability of these drive. They shine in a whole number of ways. But as I said in the other thread, not every metric is going to be x2 and above.
Great little drive in my opinion.
If its what you want and can afford it, then buy it. Frequently an upgrade can be hard to justify cost wise.
And its not really just about the impressive sequential processing ability of these drive. They shine in a whole number of ways. But as I said in the other thread, not every metric is going to be x2 and above.
Great little drive in my opinion.