Samsung Targets Gamers With 3 Extremely Fast 990 Pro NVMe SSDs

[Grim5]

TBH I'm not after the sequential R/W speed... 4k random is much more important but unfortunately optane is out of reach....

The OG consumer Optane drives arent particularly good for direct storage though and that's where games are headed. The sequential speeds matter more for direct storage and the old Optane consumer drives are slower than PCIE Gen 3 Nvme drives and it shows up that way in direct storage benchmarks as well.

There are newer Optane drives with better sequential reads and getting one of those would be the best gaming drive on the planet until gen5 Nvme arrives with 14GB/s sequential reads - for example the DC P5801X is a beast with 7GB/s sequential reads plus has the ultra lower latency and ultra high random read performance for old games.

The other issues with Optane is the power draw, the drives consume 20watts under load compared to 5 watts of a gen4 Nvme drive and because of this they require a large form factor so that a large heatsink can be placed over it. And price as well of course, with the DC P5801X coming in at $4000

 

[IA64]

Updated to latest firmware... Still at 93%... Can't tell if the firmware did anything to the drive but the update was very quick, 2 seconds maybe?

Drive performance is still all over the place for some reason. I think it's time to RMA and get myself a P41

 

[ChocAndGray]

How long did it take for those with issues to start seeing degradation to the health of the drive?

I've had mine for a few days now and still showing 100% but not sure if I've not had it long enough or written enough data for it to show issues

 

[mrk]

After the 2.1TB written mark is when I noticed it.

 

[IA64]

How long did it take for those with issues to start seeing degradation to the health of the drive?

I've had mine for a few days now and still showing 100% but not sure if I've not had it long enough or written enough data for it to show issues

OS or Storage SSD ? Update firmware before it's too late.

 

[^JP^]

Same as mrk here, mines at 3.3TB now and has just ticked down to 97% before I installed the new firmware.
Going to monitor it closely now to see if it keeps dropping and needs RMA or not.

Performance tests are consistently high so no worries there.

 

[ChocAndGray]

After the 2.1TB written mark is when I noticed it.

I'll get a few more games downlaoded then. I've already spoken to the retailer and they said if it suffers from premature degradation I can return it.

Would rather find out sooner rather than later.

I did update to the new firmware yesterday though, so if that is indeed a fix I may be ok.

One thing I've not tested yet though is the performance of the drive. The 980 Pro I had would slow down a fair bit.

 

[ChocAndGray]

OS or Storage SSD ? Update firmware before it's too late.

It's my main OS drive.

I updated yesterday through Magician.

This will likely be my last samsung drive moving forward.

edit:sorry for double post I'm not sure how you can edit a previous post and add a quote on there. I know you cxan ,multi-quote when doing a new post but I can't see how you do that editing a post?

 

[mrk]

I'll get a few more games downlaoded then. I've already spoken to the retailer and they said if it suffers from premature degradation I can return it.

Would rather find out sooner rather than later.

I did update to the new firmware yesterday though, so if that is indeed a fix I may be ok.

One thing I've not tested yet though is the performance of the drive. The 980 Pro I had would slow down a fair bit.

I think slowing down slightly after you start to install stuff and it's been through a bit is fairly normal, I saw it on the 990 pro, and I'm seeing it on this Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G as well. Although the Samsung was more wild, like from 4000MB/s on one run for read, then back up to 6600 and 7000. The Sabrent on the other hand has gone from 7000MB/s to what I tested today a consistent 6800MB/s - I may have additional IO activity as I've not rebooted but the slight drop is consistent even after back to back runs. The write speed however remains a constant 6900MB/s.

 

[IA64]

Before I RMA this thing, What do you think is a better alternative? SK hynix Platinum P41 or Sabrent 4 plus-G ?

 

[mrk]

Assuming 2TB versions, then the Sabrent has 1400TBW vs SK's 1200, the write speeds on the Sabrent are a bit higher too at over 6800MB/s vs the SK's 6500. Both have 5 years warranty, both have reliable controllers, both appear consistent in benches. The Sabrent is more expensive, I don't think the extra £40 odd at this moment is evident in the extra performance. It has a DirectStorage firmware, but nothing uses DirectStorage properly at v1.1, and the one game that does (at v1.0!) is a technically flawed game anyway.

No idea how reliable SK drives are but Sabrent does have the loyal following!

 

[IA64]

Sabrent ordered.

Only went for Samsung because Apple computers SSDs were Samsung NAND (Apple firmware ) Still strong after 7 years.

Your ego will kill you one day... Samsung should learn from Intel

 

[mrk]

Sabrent users circle unite!

 

[mrk]

Here we go:

Samsung 990 Pro SSD firmware update should halt—but not reverse—rapid wear-out

Samsung’s SSD reliability has been a selling point up until recently.

arstechnica.com

 

[ChocAndGray]

I've managed to get a return agreed by the retailer so will be going for something else.

I've started getting inconsistent write speeds, exactly as I did with the 980 pro, add to that the concerns with degradation, I think it's best to go elsewhere.

Just not sure what drive to go for.....

 

[mrk]

Quite a lot to pick from, all within similar perf range too, many mentioned earlier above.

 

[mrk]

Well looks like WD are going through things too :/

WD SN850X NVMe SSD that beat Samsung, Seagate, and Hynix is BSODing and freezing Windows 11

The WD SN850X drive, which recently put up great performance against other NVMe SSDs like those from Samsung, Kingston, Hynix, Crucial, is found to be buggy in Windows 11 causing BSODs and freezes.

www.neowin.net

 

[j4ska]

What do you get then? :/ Samsung offers £40 cashback on 980s making them around £130/2tb... WD has problems, others are around £180-200/2tb which is way to expensive... I wish I could wake up one day to normal world again

 

[mrk]

If you want to play it safe, then Kingston KC3000 seems to be a top dog without the top tier price?

Otherwise SK Hynix (although priced high for their top models), and if Puget are opting for Sabrent Rocket 4 series, then I suspect many will go that route too.

 

[Raiden85]

Well looks like WD are going through things too :/

WD SN850X NVMe SSD that beat Samsung, Seagate, and Hynix is BSODing and freezing Windows 11

The WD SN850X drive, which recently put up great performance against other NVMe SSDs like those from Samsung, Kingston, Hynix, Crucial, is found to be buggy in Windows 11 causing BSODs and freezes.

www.neowin.net

And I just ordered a 4TB SN850X to replace my 2TB SN850 which has been working flawlessly, typical. Will clone my drive over and see how it goes, at least I can use the band aid fix of changing the NVMe driver until they fix the firmware as that's been reported to work ok.

Will companies actually do some proper bloody testing.