Samsung SM951 NVMe

mikeo

mikeo

mikeo

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Just picked one of these up from ocUk the other day. They still have some stock if you SEARCH SM951 nvme (only the 256GB version).

Definitely OEM system builder parts, as they just come loose in a small bubble wrap pouch (not even an anti-static one!).

I've installed Windows 10 retail (could not be bothered installing Windows 7 and upgrading etc.) onto it and it certainly flies. Still can't quite understand why Windows 10 USB retail is only £6 more than OEM DVD! Who in their right mind would buy the OEM DVD???

Some scare mongering going around about thermal throttling issues (I do wish some folks would take the time to read articles fully / properly). But from what I can see, it's only under seriously extreme testing loads. You know, the sort the average user (or probably any user come to that) would ever experience. Even then, just point a spot fan at it and this appears to totally mitigate this none issue. Probably start to appear with a heat sink at some point. Anandtech seems to agree at least. Can't say I'm worried one jot.

See how tiny they are:



A couple of bench marks:





Can't seem to get AS SSD to work on the new drive yet. Reads look OK but it the app hangs when trying to do the writes. Think it uses .net framework in some way, maybe I'm running the wrong version. TBC

Pretty happy with my purchase at the moment :):):)
 
TheMorningStar said:
What's your boot time and game loads like?
Click to expand...

Boot times good. Not tried actually timing it yet. Might try BOOT Racer ... assuming this works in windows 10.

I'm not putting games on this drive. I've got three other decent SSD's in my system and they reside on these.
 
I'm wondering if the NVMe version is worth the extra £50 over the AHCI version (512GB)? May wait a couple of weeks for stock to even out, hopefully it drops down a bit in price.

I'm assuming you had a SATA III SSD beforehand? Can you notice the difference in day to day use?
 
Joe! said:
I'm wondering if the NVMe version is worth the extra £50 over the AHCI version (512GB)? May wait a couple of weeks for stock to even out, hopefully it drops down a bit in price.

I'm assuming you had a SATA III SSD beforehand? Can you notice the difference in day to day use?
Click to expand...

As to whether the nvme version is worth the extra money is really only something you can decide. In day to day use, I doubt if you would notice the difference. In my case, it was a new build and I still had money in the kitty so decided I might as well get the best I could afford.

I doubt if waiting a few weeks will make much difference price wise. Think we are probably talking of waiting a few months for prices to ease. These parts at the moment are really only aimed at OEM system builders (hence the packaging, or rather lack of it). So ol sellers are just hoovering up a few of these to sell on to the consumer market (ie. The likes of us). So its the usual case of supply out stripping demand.

Yes I had my OS on a Samsung Evo 840 previously. I've several other ssd's in my system\s as well. Pretty much a very early adopter of ssd's. Current drive feels a bit nippier but that is more likely a case of emperors new cloths. So no, not a great deal of difference in day to day use. Depends on what you would use the drive for though. As I say, just wanted the best I could get. That's part of the fun as far as I'm concerned. Plus I like fiddling with new tech :)

TBTH ... The main thing slowing things up in your PC. Is windows itself and the NTFS file system (has its roots in windows 3.1 for gods sake) especially. Both are really based on what is to all intent and purpose, pretty ancient tech.
 
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Same here, I've been trying to decide between the Samsung 512GB Evo, Pro and the SM951 and eventually reached the conclusion that I would not notice any difference day-to-day. So I've ordered the SM951 NVME anyway :)
 
D3lirious said:
Same here, I've been trying to decide between the Samsung 512GB Evo, Pro and the SM951 and eventually reached the conclusion that I would not notice any difference day-to-day. So I've ordered the SM951 NVME anyway :)
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:):):)

No pockets in a shroud. That's my moto.

:):):)
 
mikeo said:
[...]
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Thanks for your insight - In the process of doing a new build myself but I can't afford the SM951 I wanted for a couple of weeks, definitely something I want though.

I'm tempted to go with NVMe because apparently the AHCI is a pain in the arse to install Windows on... I'm guessing such problems don't exist on the NVMe version.

Thanks again :)
 
Joe! said:
Thanks for your insight - In the process of doing a new build myself but I can't afford the SM951 I wanted for a couple of weeks, definitely something I want though.

I'm tempted to go with NVMe because apparently the AHCI is a pain in the arse to install Windows on... I'm guessing such problems don't exist on the NVMe version.

Thanks again :)
Click to expand...

As long as your motherboard supports booting from m2 then it should not be a problem. I can only personally speak for Z170A and that was pretty straight forward. Not sure if there would be any more, or less problems (or any in fact), choosing either ahci or nvme versions of these drives. From why I've seen, a lot of the problems folks have had on earlier motherboards, has been becuase of poor support in the BIOS for these drives.

Good luck whatever you decide on :)
 
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Yeah, the only issue I had was that I tried to boot from USB by just turning the PC on with the USB in, when I found out I just needed to go in to the bios and choose uefi USB boot instead, then it all went fine
 
Got AS SSD to work finally.
It didn't seem to like being installed anywhere but on C:

Here we go:



Just need Samsung to upgrade Magician to read the SMART info off these drives.
Though as they are not really classed as "consumer" drives, maybe they wont bother!?

And while they are at it, sort Magician so that it can secure erase their drives in Windows 8/10. As their bootable DVD/USB utility does not appear to work in a UEFI environment (like mine is).

No sweat for me, as I have the latest version of Parted Magic and the Secure Erase in there works just fine. Though it doesn't unluckily see the SM951 (sees my other 3 SSD,s OK though).
 
Question... Anyone found a utility that can read the smart data on these drives.

One review I read said that HD Sentinel can. But I've tried a couple of different versions and no go. Starting to think they were mistaken and looking at the data for a different drive on their test system. Good God, BS being talked in a review :rolleyes:
 
I was considering getting one of those. But ended up getting an 850 evo m.2 instead.

The reason I didn't was primarily because the boot times and app load times. Which aren't twice as fast. Since the drive cost twice as much (for same capacity) - I just could not justify the cost as the extra performance is mostly sequential which matters not to me.

This drive is good for 4k video editing however bear in mind that as a boot drive it requires UEFI / GPT partition scheme only.

Overall I'm happy with my slower evo. It is already performant enough despit the limitations of the SATA & AHCI spec. And as a bonus it can later on be thrown into any old laptop with a cheap (£4) m.2 --> 2.5" converter.

My z170 mobo has 2x m.2 slots so I can always upgrade to one later on (when the prices come down). However I'll probably just jump straight over these things on to Intel Xpoint / equivalent. Since they have 7x the random IOPS which aught to be more noticeable.
 
Dreamcat4

Fair comments. From price point of view you are right, you can't really justify it over a decent sata ssd. But for some of us, the price isn't the issue (not being cheeky when I sy that). I had the money in the kitty and just wanted the best I could get and tbth I think this drive fills that requirement.

I'm running windows 10 new install in an EFI environment. With the BIOS running UEFI only. So no issues there for me. Windows 10 install now does this as standard if it detects your boards is UEFI complient.

Though I think that I might disagree slightly with your comment about the faster sequential read/writes being the main improvement. They are better across the board than a Standard ssd. Not as you say x2 improvement everywhere, but still damn impressive.

Still a decent buy if you currently want the best / fastest drive out there. But as you say, not easy to justify the cost. But as I'm always want to say, no pockets in a shroud.

Like most things in life, its up to an individual to decide whether it's right for them.
 
Yeah it's just a matter of time and they'll become more affordable for everybody. It may take only 1-2 years from now. By that time there will be XPoint which will apply pressure from above.
 
Well, it seems this SM951 is performing no faster than a normal HD on my machine. I'm probably being dense but do I need a special driver? I'm assuming Win 10 should have detected it OK.

I see icons loading across the bottom of the screen on boot too, so don't think it's just benchmarks that are wrong...
 
D3lirious said:
Well, it seems this SM951 is performing no faster than a normal HD on my machine. I'm probably being dense but do I need a special driver? I'm assuming Win 10 should have detected it OK.

I see icons loading across the bottom of the screen on boot too, so don't think it's just benchmarks that are wrong...
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Is it your boot drive? and if so, was it a clean install (rather than an upgrade or cloned from another drive)? and did you install it as EFI (rather than mbr)?

No special driver should be required. They are native in Windows 10.

All I did with mine. Was install it physically in the mobo. Then install Windows 10 to it (was a retail copy though on a USB3 stick). The Windows 10 installer seemed to recognise that the BIOS was UEFI compliant and did everything automatically to install in EFI mode.
 
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uscool said:
Hi, how fast it booting into windows, i watched a few youtube , with this booting up within 8 -10secs,
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Yep... that should be achievable I would think.

But the boot time depends on a number of things. Depends on if your into optimizing it as far as possible. For example:

- Don't forget that on Windows 10, when you shutdown... it's not really a full shutdown. It's a form of hybrid shutdown (IE. Windows writes stuff to the hibernate file to speed your next boot up). So this has an effect as well.
Got this disabled myself.
- Most BIOS's have an option to prevent it looking for other boot devices. It's called MSI Fast Boot on my board.

Never quite sure myself (no disrespect intended) why people get so hung up on boot times. Can't say myself I care much if it's 8 seconds, or 12 seconds.

But basically... yes it's fast.
But then again, so would any half decent SATA SSD be.
 
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