NEW Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe (think SM951 with VNAND & Black PCB) yum!

TheMorningStar said:
Just noticed these on the store today the 950pro is £90 more than the sm951. Is that really worth it? the 5 year is nice but if the drive doesn't fail in the first few months they are usually good for a good stint aren't they? Much like mechanical drives I believe. Maybe a bit of initial fleecing and the price will come down?

Just noticed the sm951 comes in AHCI and NVMe. I didn't realise it came in AHCI, other than some IOPS gaines are there any other differences?
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The biggest difference between the NVMe and AHCI, is the much lower latency on the NVMe drive (some 20% I believe). Now whether you would notice that in day-to-day use... is another matter ;)

BUT ... The BIG difference between the SM951 and the soon to be available 950. Is that the SM951 is OEM and aimed at system builders, while the 950 with be a retail / consumer product. So little or no support for the SM951 available.
IE. nothing to read the SMART data off them, Secure Erase them or update the firmware... and the warranty is with the re-seller (IE. ocUK), rather than Samsung. While the new 950 should be much more user friendly and hopefully be fully supported at some point by Samsung Magician software (which I suspect the SM951 never will be). So for most people, I suspect waiting for the 950 is the best choice. Unless you must have one now, then it's the SM951. Quite happy with the one I bought.

PS. No doubt the prices on the new 950 will soften over time, as they always do.
 
mikeo said:
The biggest difference between the NVMe and AHCI, is the much lower latency on the NVMe drive (some 20% I believe). Now whether you would notice that in day-to-day use... is another matter ;)

BUT ... The BIG difference between the SM951 and the soon to be available 950. Is that the SM951 is OEM and aimed at system builders, while the 950 with be a retail / consumer product. So little or no support for the SM951 available.
IE. nothing to read the SMART data off them, Secure Erase them or update the firmware... and the warranty is with the re-seller (IE. ocUK), rather than Samsung. While the new 950 should be much more user friendly and hopefully be fully supported at some point by Samsung Magician software (which I suspect the SM951 never will be). So for most people, I suspect waiting for the 950 is the best choice. Unless you must have one now, then it's the SM951. Quite happy with the one I bought.

PS. No doubt the prices on the new 950 will soften over time, as they always do.
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PPS. And the 950 is really no more expensive than when the SM951's were originally listed, now look at the price/s.
 
Any update on availability dates? A number of UK retailers are displaying various dates ranging from "Overdue" (i.e should have arrived already) through to the middle of November.
 
Omar said:
Any update on availability dates? A number of UK retailers are displaying various dates ranging from "Overdue" (i.e should have arrived already) through to the middle of November.
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OcUK product pages state ETA 30/10/2015. Could be a holding date though.

Maybe drop them a note in the customer services area? Point them here maybe. :)
 
I read the 30th when this announced, OC always said the 30th, and a few other places have flip flopped and now also say the 30th. Seems like it's more certain to be then than ever.
 
In day to day use, you are highly unlikely to hit any thermal throttling issues with these sorts of drives. With, or without heatsinks. Read the conclusion in the anandtech article.

"To sum things up, there is no need to worry about thermal throttling under typical client workloads. There won't be any notable performance loss unless you subject the drive under an intensive sustained workload, which may be relevant to some professional users (e.g. high-end video editing), but not for the typical enthusiast and power user. If you want to ensure that your SM951 operates at full performance at all times, it's not a bad idea to get an adapter with a heatsink, but there is no loss in running the drive without one"

And as I've tried to point out before, heat issues are not just limited to nvme drives. Any ssd drive if it got warm enough would throttle the transfer rate to prevent damage.
 
ubersonic said:
It's cool that they have managed to get the performance closer to the Intel 750, but I really wouldn't want a NVMe drive without heatsinks.
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I agree with above op's comments on heat I have two sm951 256gb nvme drives in my system and the heat is nothing to worry about at all :)
 
Talking about throttling, Looking at gigabyte and refusal to do NVMe on Z87. :(

Seriously new mobo and all just for NVMe? How sadist is that.
 
I can't even get the Window 7 64-bit installation to see the stupid Samsung SM951 256GB NVMe M.2 SSD:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18698077

Looking around it seem to be due of Windows 7 not having the NVMe driver natively, and with no Samsung NVMe driver available due to the SSD being an OEM (which I didn't think would be an issue at the point of purchasing).

I'm seriously considering sending it back for a refund...but 14 days have passed already, would I still get refund considering it's not fit for purpose? (If only Samsung have warned that it would be a nightmare for these SSD to be use as fresh install for Windows 7...)
 
Marine-RX179 said:
I can't even get the Window 7 64-bit installation to see the stupid Samsung SM951 256GB NVMe M.2 SSD:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18698077

Looking around it seem to be due of Windows 7 not having the NVMe driver natively, and with no Samsung NVMe driver available due to the SSD being an OEM (which I didn't think would be an issue at the point of purchasing).

I'm seriously considering sending it back for a refund...but 14 days have passed already, would I still get refund considering it's not fit for purpose? (If only Samsung have warned that it would be a nightmare for these SSD to be use as fresh install for Windows 7...)
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You could certainly give them a phone and explain your problem. If bought from ocUK, they are usually (in my experience anyway) pretty helpful.

As to it not being "fit for purpose" ... not quite sure about that to be honest.
Trying not to be dis-respectful ... but ... With new tech like this, you really need to do your home work. A simple GOOGLE would have shown that Nvme is only supported natively in Windows 8.1 and 10. And only the latest motherboards (or those with a BIOS patch) will allow them to be bootable.

If you can't get it to work. Then your best bet is to ask nicely and see if they will take it back.

Good luck.

PS. The real problem (if you can call it that) with these drives, is they are not a "consumer" product and are in fact OEM drives aimed at professional system builders. And I suspect most machines being built now, will have Windows 10 as their OS (and obviously no issues there). Maybe the relevant re-sellers should really have highlighted this (which as far as I'm aware, none have).
 
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I'd install 7 on another disk then upgrade to 10 for the free upgrade.

Then proceed to install 10 directly on the nvme drive.
 
kayomani said:
I'd install 7 on another disk then upgrade to 10 for the free upgrade.

Then proceed to install 10 directly on the nvme drive.
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Or shell out £86 and purchase a retail copy of windows 10 on usb. Nice bit of plastic with a full retail key comes with this. Then zero issues if you want to re-build at some point.

Up to you ;)
 
mikeo said:
You could certainly give them a phone and explain your problem. If bought from ocUK, they are usually (in my experience anyway) pretty helpful.

As to it not being "fit for purpose" ... not quite sure about that to be honest.
Trying not to be dis-respectful ... but ... With new tech like this, you really need to do your home work. A simple GOOGLE would have shown that Nvme is only supported natively in Windows 8.1 and 10. And only the latest motherboards (or those with a BIOS patch) will allow them to be bootable.

If you can't get it to work. Then your best bet is to ask nicely and see if they will take it back.

Good luck.

PS. The real problem (if you can call it that) with these drives, is they are not a "consumer" product and are in fact OEM drives aimed at professional system builders. And I suspect most machines being built now, will have Windows 10 as their OS (and obviously no issues there). Maybe the relevant re-sellers should really have highlighted this (which as far as I'm aware, none have).
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The funny thing was I wasn't even awared that they are oem (product page didn't say it is OEM) until I received the SSD not in a retail package. Thought they would be simply plug and play like standard storage drive but they ain't, and Samsung doesn't seem to have driver for these. I guess that's problem with oem stuffs being sold at retail...though other OEMs like HDD or Optical drive back in the days never had such problem, as they don't require driver and are just plug and play.

I will probably keep trying to find a way to get the drive to work. If any of you guy's can give suggestion that might help, would really appreciate it if you can hop over to my thread.

Also the new build is for a friend, and he doesn't want Windows 10...so I am a bit stucked. I am using his existing Windows 7 that he already own.
 
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Rofflay said:
Talking about throttling, Looking at gigabyte and refusal to do NVMe on Z87. :(

Seriously new mobo and all just for NVMe? How sadist is that.
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What is the model and revision of your Z87 motherboard? If you let us know we can create a BIOS for you with NVMe boot options. We don't plan on producing BIOS for all the older boards but are more than happy to support you
 
Good review, someone should be telling oc to update their product page as they have incorrect read and write speeds again :)
 
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