Introduction
Samsung makes a ton of products, from computer parts to home electronics, and is a household name. So, it is not surprising that Samsung is here with an M.2 SSD drive that is a beast when it comes to speed and electric performance.
There are a lot of brands that people recommend I use for different computer parts and networking devices, but a constant is that all my friends usually recommend Samsung SSDs. I have reviewed a Samsung portable 1TB SSD drive previously, which I loved, so I was excited to review the Samsung Pro 950 256GB.
Building the Samsung Pro 950 on NVMe (Non-Volatile Media Express) technology, which is an interface designed specifically for SSDs, allows the Pro 950 to be super fast. A good introduction on NVMe technology can be found in our article on the Intel SSD 750 Series 1.2TB review, which is also what I will be comparing the Pro 950 to.
The Samsung Pro 950 comes in two models, 256GB and 512GB. The Pro 950 256GB costs (US$199, £130.05, AUD$276.45) whereas the 512GB model costs (US$399, £260.76, AUD$554.16). For the 256GB model, the price point is not awful for new technology and for the speed boosts you are going to get.
Put it this way, the performance of a normal SSD is going to be limited to SATA, and which generation Sata you have on your motherboard. But, the fact that the M.2 aspect of the Pro 950 interfaces with your motherboard directly, if applicable, or via a PCIe adapter where PCIe 3.0 x4 is going to be able to offer a higher read/write performance. Now, the Intel SSD 750 1.2 TB drive, which does offer more space, costs a lot more at $1,029 (£693, AU$1,360).
The Samsung Pro is going to be compatible with most operating systems. However, there are some software constraints with encryption on Windows 10, but nothing that is prohibitive to encrypting your data.
Design and specs
The Samsung Pro 950 measures 3.16" x 0.09" x 0.87" (WxDxH, 80.26mm x 2.29mm x 22.1mm) and weighs an incredibly light 0.02 lbs (9.07g). The Pro 950 uses an m.2 connector and supports PCIe 3.0 x4 (up to 32Gb/s) NVMe 1.1. If you don't have PCIe 3.0 then the speeds may not be equivalent to the tests in this review.
What is pretty cool is that the Samsung Pro 950 supports TRIM and Auto Garbage Collection (GC), which are both pretty crucial. TRIM and GC are instrumental in how an SSD is able to write over old blocks of data and in terms of how the drive performs. Additionally, the Pro 950 supports AES 256-bit for User Data Encryption TCG Opal.
The Samsung Pro 950 uses about an average of 5.1watts, 70mW on idle, which is pretty awesome. While this is all dependent on your computer's configuration, this could, theoretically, increase the battery performance of your laptop.
Performance and verdict
Samsung claims speeds up to 2,200 MB/s for reads and 900 MB/s for writes. I tested this drive on a SandyBridge Socket 2011 Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz, with 32 GB DDR3 RAM, on an Asus Rampage IV Formula motherboard, and a NVIDIA GTX 770SC video card. I used three applications for benchmarking: Samsung Magician, CrystalDiskMark, and ATTO Disk Benchmark.
Performance
The Benchmarks are as follows:
Samsung Magician:
- Sequential Reads : 2287 MB/s
- Sequential Writes : 960 MB/s
- Random Reads : 72079 iOPS
- Random Writes : 50355 iOPS
Crystal Disk Mark:
- Sequential Reads : 2301 MB/s
- Sequential Writes : 954 MB/s
- Random Reads : 73003 iOPS
- Random Writes : 51905 iOPS
- 4K Read : 33 MB/s
- 4K Writes : 128.2 MB/s
ATTO Disk Benchmark:
- Sequential Reads : 1600 MB/s
- Sequential Writes : 960 MB/s
The Samsung-provided-software set the tone of the overall performance of the Samsung Pro 950, which outperformed the 2,200 MB/s read limit in their documentation, at 2,287 MB/s and 960 MB/s for writes. For IOPs, I found that the Samsung Pro 950 read had about 72,079 IOPs and writes were lower at 50,355 IOPs. So, to put this in perspective, this drive can read Data at 2.2 GB per second (2,287 MB/s) and for writes the drive can handle almost 1GB, at 960 MB/s.
For the next test, I used Crystal Disk Mark to get a seemingly unbiased test on the 950 Pro's performance. What I found was interesting, as Crystal Disk Mark's test outperformed Samsung's software. While marginal, the outperformance is impressive and it confirmed the initial test by Samsung's Magician to be accurate. As you can see, at 2301 MB/s reads and 954 MB/s writes, the Samsung Pro 950 is fast. iOPS, also, shows that the tests here were slightly better with a 72,079 iOPS random read and 51,905 iOPS random writes.
The ATTO Disk Benchmark came a bit low on the sequential reads, at 1600 MB/s, though it confirmed the 960 MB/s writes. The lower read is a bit perplexing as both the other previously ran tests put the Samsung Pro 950 at above 2200 MB/s and ATTO came in lower at 1600 MB/s. Now, while 1.6 GB/s is still a fast speed, if this was a speed across the board I would probably be a little dismayed at the results. I ran this test a couple of times and ATTO always came in around the 1600 mark.
The Samsung Pro 950 comes in pretty close with Intel 750 SSD in terms of average read performance, but in peak performance the Intel 750 does hit higher reads at about 400 MB/s faster. In writes, generally speaking, the bigger the SSD the better the writes, so the higher writes on the Intel was a given, but the fact that the 256GB Samsung Pro 950 comes in at just 226 MB/s less than the 1.2 TB Intel 750 is something to pay attention to. Based on this I would suggest that the 512GB Samsung Pro 950 would come much closer.
Even in 4K reads the difference between the Samsung Pro 950 and the Intel 750 is 5MB/s while the Intel excels on writes with an 80 MB/s difference.
Verdict
There isn't much negative to say about this SSD. It's affordable, it's lightweight and slim, and it competes in a class with much larger devices. If you're in need of an SSD, you should certainly consider the Pro 950.
We liked:
The performance of the Samsung Pro 950 is outstanding. I cannot write about how awesome this drive is. I have spoken to some friends, data enthusiasts, and one friend was talking about saving up money to buy a M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD Drive for its performance. This is a drive that he should consider.
Now, the Intel 750 does tout a 1.2 TB drive, so if you have the money and need the better speeds then go for the Intel 750 SSD. But, the Samsung Pro 950 performs really well and while $199 seems a bit high for a 256GB drive, you are really paying for the performance. If you need the space, I would recommend buying the 512GB drive because you can get some serious speeds and have a decent space to write to.
We disliked:
The one thing that was a bit frustrating is that you can't just buy the Samsung Pro 950 and be ready to go, like you can with a traditional SSD or mechanical drive. If your motherboard supports a direct m.2 connector directly then you are good to go. If not, you have to go and buy a PCI express adapter. Although this is not expensive it is a bummer to have to take the extra step.
Final verdict:
The Samsung Pro 950 is going to be my next purchase. It's is a solid drive that gives you speed and performance with a decent price to match. The Samsung Pro 950 is a drive worth investing in and will be available for purchase November 1st.
from TechRadar: Technology reviews http://ift.tt/1P7Usxi
Question is how much of that spead will your system REALLY be using. It is like having a Lamborgini but you only drive in a city where max speed is limitied to 50 km/h. If you have some very specialized application, than you might have use of that speed, but in most day to day usage scenarios, that speed bus will be pretty much not saturated. I don't know yet of any OS that does 1Gb of random reads and write at a time. Maybe those extra $100 or $200 for the drive are better invested in larger RAM like 32or 64 gig and running all caches and temporary files off of RAM thus elimineated random even more random read and writes. With 64gig or RAM even video editing could be done in RAM, and speeds of even cheaper ram would beat those of M.2 sata drive. Would be interested if you make such a benchmark.
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