My Samsung SM961 benchmarks (1TB version)

Got one of these several hours ago and being as there's no reviews/benches out yet, i thought i'd post my own results!

I also have the older SM951 so i've compared that too.

All benchmarks have been run atleast 3 times to insure consistency.

NOTE: AS-SSD don't seem to benchmark properly with the SM961 so i've excluded it. The write speeds are WAY too low. Considering everything else is working fine i'm assuming it's a bug with AS-SSD (it's had a similar issue with some M.2 drives in the past).


SM961 1TB results:


















SM951 512GB results:















And for fun, a comparison to "normal" SSD...
Samsung 850 Evo 1TB:

wow, dang that's fast!

Very nice, big improvements right there.

Great news Off to buy the 256gb version

Wow its fast allright - but would we notice the difference in day to day computing - probably not, but nice though all the same.

My 512GB version.

I just got the 512GB version. However, I'm getting low random read and random write scores compared to you, Trifid. I have an Asus Sabertooth X99 board with an I7 [email protected], what are your specs?

Here are my magician scores:
Seq. Read: 3507MB/s
Seq. Write: 1652MB/s
Ran.Read: 108727 IOPS
Ran. Write:84529 IOPS

Magician says my PCie bandwidth and link rate are at the maximum values so that's OK.
Also, I noticed that when I ran the "Winsat disk -ran -read" command when the disk was empty I got 2200MB/s random read, whereas after installing a game I get 1300-1400MB/s, is this normal (I have used 37GB of space)?

ltron said:

I'm getting low random read and random write scores

Click to expand...

Try this: Start > type "power options" > select High Performance.

With Samsung Magician i was also getting slightly low random read/write scores until i did this. It had no affect for me on any other benchmarks though.

Also try running Crystal Disk Mark and ATTO. Run each a few times because results can vary quite a bit on each run.

This is what I get in Crystal Disk mark:
Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 3559.011 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1691.950 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 501.180 MB/s [122358.4 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 437.212 MB/s [106741.2 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 2743.772 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 1694.516 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 49.244 MB/s [ 12022.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 171.341 MB/s [ 41831.3 IOPS]

High performance didn't seem to make much difference. However, when I changed the settings to use 6 threads I get:
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 6) : 1368MB/s [334000 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 6) : 1294MB/s [316000 IOPS]

This is pretty much bang on what Samsung quote in the specs (330,000 IOPS random read, 300,000 IOPS random write).

I need to use a minimum of 8 threads to achieve 450,000 IOPS random read and 339,000 IOPS random write. Can't hit the 400,000 IOPS random write spec for my 1TB drive though, even if i use all 16 threads on my i7 5960X it makes no difference.

It's interesting that just 1 thread is enough for any SATA SSD... Whether i use 4, 8 or 16 threads it makes no difference at all to either of my 850 Evo's or 840 Pro's.

Seems software needs to be multi-threaded to make full use of anything that does over 100,000 IOPS random read/write.

Just getting an OS on mine now, incredible performance for a consumer drive.

Silent_Scone said:

Just getting an OS on mine now, incredible performance for a consumer drive.

Click to expand...

Thing is, the SM961 (same as the SM951 which I have) is not a consumer based drive... it's an OEM drive.

mikeo said:

Thing is, the SM961 (same as the SM951 which I have) is not a consumer based drive... it's an OEM drive.

Click to expand...

Don't see the point of an OEM designation nowadays, quite a lot of the parts from OCUK are OEM and perform perfectly well and they deal with any warranty issues.

ToTheMax said:

Don't see the point of an OEM designation nowadays, quite a lot of the parts from OCUK are OEM and perform perfectly well and they deal with any warranty issues.

Click to expand...

Fair comment I suppose.

Was just trying to point out, that rather like the SM951 (great little drive like the SM961), these are quite genuinely aimed at OEM system builders and as such:

- Warranty will be shorter than for say a genuine retail consumer orientated drive (EG. the Samsung 950).
- No support from Samsung should there be an issue, it would have to be (as you say), up to the supplier to settle any issues.
- No way to Secure Erase it, read / interpret the SMART data, or update the firmware. Samsung's own Magician software for example, does not fully support these drives (or the SM951), or probably ever will.

If happy with the above (like me) then my comment is a non issue.
But.... from numerous posts (not just on this forum), it's pretty obvious to me, that a fair few folks don't fully appreciate what they are buying into.

In no way am I trying to disrespect the OP. These are great little drives (like the SM951). But for some, it might be better to wait for the retail / consumer version to appear (as it will no doubt do).
IE. Longer warranty and fully supported by Samsung etc.

I was looking these the other day.. Lighting speeds

Good work Mr. B