Samsung 950 PRO [Official Thread]

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sblantipodi

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I think that is the right moment to start the official thread of the
Samsung 950 PRO NVMe SSD.

Samsung950ProCar_678x452.jpg


Drive is really smaller than what it seems in real life :)

15%2B-%2B1


If you have bought this drive, don't forget to install the Samsung NVMe driver, they will improve performance by a lot.
 
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this is my ATTO benchmark using the 512GB version on Windows 10 on the system in signature.

950_NVMe_driver.JPG


Note: using samsung drivers improve performance by a lot.

Boot speed does not improved over an old Corsair Force GT 240GB.
 
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In any case, I noticed slower boot speed than my old Corsair Force GT 240GB, strange, very strange.
Click to expand...

The Intel 750 was slower to boot than a G1 80 GB Intel SSD on at least 1 review.
 
It's probably because the time it takes to power on a nvme device is slower than that of a sata drive. So, rather than it booting slow because it just reads slower, it's probably because it just takes the motherboard longer to initiate it.
 
alphataru said:
It's probably because the time it takes to power on a nvme device is slower than that of a sata drive. So, rather than it booting slow because it just reads slower, it's probably because it just takes the motherboard longer to initiate it.
Click to expand...

no it's not this the cause, the drive powerup fast because windows loading starts as soon as it starts when booting from Corsair Force GT.
the problem is the loading time, it tooks longer to load on Samsung 950 PRO than on Corsair Force GT.

Phuncz said:
For the record, secure erasing this SSD and the SM951 NVMe could potentially destroy it, voiding warranty too: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=secure+erase+sm951
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I don't think so since Samsung Magician software let you do a secure erase of the disk.

WarLust said:
crystalmark%20performance.jpg
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I have very similar results, good results but my boot is still slower than my old Sata SSD.
 
I'm quite disappointed by the boot time, is there someone else experiencing strange boot time?
 
sblantipodi said:
I'm quite disappointed by the boot time, is there someone else experiencing strange boot time?
Click to expand...

i'll let you know late decemeber. I won't haev tiem to test until then. Did you install drivers?

I also want to see boot times with encryptions...there is no way this will take longer in that envirorment.
 
rksIRjw.png


Results with the 256 Gb version. This is with Windows 10 and Samsung Drivers.
 
Grudus said:
rksIRjw.png


Results with the 256 Gb version. This is with Windows 10 and Samsung Drivers.
Click to expand...

do you use it as a boot drive?
I would like to get some feedback from users who use it as a boot drive.
how good is the boot speed compared to a SATA SSD?

in my case, 10 seconds worse (I have a lot of software loaded at boot)
 
Yes I use it as a boot drive. It doesn't seem any faster or slower than my 850 Pro SSD when it comes to booting up. Takes longer for the BIOS to initialize than to it takes to get to the desktop. Don't have an OS install on my 850 Pro anymore so can't do any real timing comparisons at the moment.
 
Grudus said:
Yes I use it as a boot drive. It doesn't seem any faster or slower than my 850 Pro SSD when it comes to booting up. Takes longer for the BIOS to initialize than to it takes to get to the desktop. Don't have an OS install on my 850 Pro anymore so can't do any real timing comparisons at the moment.
Click to expand...

ok thanks. in the mean time some benchamark on IOPS, can you post your IOPS bench please?

storage950.JPG


magician.JPG
 
I just got My Samsung 950 Pro thursday. I do like the compact size of it, and these ease of installation. But the main reason it
I purchased the drive, is speed it has all the benefits and none of the weaknesses of raided ssd drives plus it's a small 3 - 5 percent step up from
the fastest ssd drives. So below I have the Samsung 950 Pro benched with the Standard Nvme Express Controller driver and then the Samsung Nvme Controller driver.
You will see a small hit from Samsung driver, nothing to lose sleep about but I'm sure with future refreshes it will get better. Last but not least I'm put My favorite
ssd into the mix Samsung 850 Pro. Let the fun begin

Samsung 950 Pro 512 Standard Nvme Express Controller Samsung Magician


Samsung 950 Pro 512 Standard Nvme Express Controller CrystalDiskMark5_0_3 Shizuku



Samsung 950 Pro 512 Driver


Samsung 950 Pro 512 Samsung Nvme Controller Samsung magician


Samsung 950 Pro 512 Samsung Nvme Controller CrystalDiskMark5_0_3 Shizuku


Samsung 850 Pro 256 Samsung magician


Samsung 850 Pro 256 CrystalDiskMark5_0_3 Shizuku
 
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Any problems installing W10 on the Pro and getting it to boot? Anyone using a z97 chipset with this drive, any info would be great?
 
6700k @ 4.6GHZ | 16 GB G. Skill Trident Z @ 3200
Maximus VIII Gene (Z170)
980 Ti | Windows 10 64bit Pro
 
it seems that all of us is not able to achieve 300K IOPS, we all are around 150K IOPS,
driver and firmware needed :D
 
i7 6700k
asus z170 deluxe
samsung 950 pro m2 ssd
evga 980ti hybrid
corsair vengeance 16gb 3000
win 10 pro

MepS4rr.png
 
sblantipodi said:
I have very similar results, good results but my boot is still slower than my old Sata SSD.
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I have a slight hesitation during the BIOS load, but I suspect the drivers are just immature. Otherwise, it's a very zippy drive. Going to sell my 840 EVO and some of my old parts to make up the $ for buying another one of these for a RAID0 :D

3k MB/s Read/3k MB/s Write Yum!
 
Increase Q
Increase Threads

That will increase IOPs going on "at once" -- it's not real world desktop use though ;)
 
ToddW2 said:
Increase Q
Increase Threads

That will increase IOPs going on "at once" -- it's not real world desktop use though ;)
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Are you sure on that "it's not real world desktop use though "

you really don't know
 
the_real_7 said:
Are you sure on that "it's not real world desktop use though "

you really don't know
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You're right, I should have said something like "not real world for most" or "most gamers", of course you have the person running tons of VMs on their desktop system that may need the IO.
 
ToddW2 said:
You're right, I should have said something like "not real world for most" or "most gamers", of course you have the person running tons of VMs on their desktop system that may need the IO.
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Your right but I didn't say any of that, what I said was "you really don't know "

keep it simple sunshine
 
the_real_7 said:
Your right but I didn't say any of that, what I said was "you really don't know "

keep it simple sunshine
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:

Yes, I'm 100% sure... It's not real world, it's a benchmark.

Did you like that simple reply better?

Any attempt to "simulate" 'real world' falls short of actually doing 'real world' tests with say a database, video editing, or loading up on VMs...
:p

Having loaded up NVME drives and watching CPU usage climb I can say that for 99% of people hitting high queue and/or thread to reach higher IOPs it's rated for is NOT real usage pattern for almost everyone... ;) Load up your database, vms, video, rendering, whatever, and do some real world tests and monitor disk and cpu usage..
 
In any case I can confirm that I don't see real world benefit for my usage.

I'm a software developer,
I use VMs but as every developer when developing I don't need hundred of vm's because you can develop using few nodes and once finished scale the software on many nodes but on the real production iron.
So for my professional use I don't see any improvements neither on VMs, for my home use the most intensive tasks I do is video encoding and this is CPU/GPU bound, not IO bound so neither here I see any improvements.
Loading software is snappy but not more than what it was in my 850 EVO.
Windows boot is slower.

Having the latest and the coolest is fine, but I think that every comment that says that the difference in real world home use is sensible is only a placebo or a way to justify the new toy.

Saied that I love my Samsung 950 PRO, it looks super awesome and having it in my case makes my PC more bad ass, but if you aren't an hardware junkie like us, save your money.
 
I'm a software developer,
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Do you build large c++ projects? Something like the source code of Qt or vtk? I am interested to see if there is any speedup (versus SATA SSDs) in building c++ software that takes 30+ minutes to build on a 12 threaded Intel processor.
 
drescherjm said:
Do you build large c++ projects? Something like the source code of Qt or vtk? I am interested to see if there is any speedup (versus SATA SSDs) in building c++ software that takes 30+ minutes to build on a 12 threaded Intel processor.
Click to expand...

compiling code is CPU bound and often thread bound, no, it will not change anything.
 
Depending on the project I have seen lots of times on windows (with Visual Studio) where a build was not using 100% of all of my 12 threads. Although I do admit my two examples are not the best example. These for the most part use 100% of all threads during builds.
 
drescherjm said:
Depending on the project I have seen lots of times on windows (with Visual Studio) where a build was not using 100% of all of my 12 threads. Although I do admit my two examples are not the best example. These for the most part use 100% of all threads during builds.
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the fact that is not using all the threads at 100% does not mean that is not CPU bounded.
there are some software executions that simply isn't parallelizable
 
I installed the 950 pro on my Asus X99-Deluxe, but Samsung's magician is showing it is running at 10Gbps. Is there a setting I am missing to get the 32 Gbps? I have the latest bios for the motherboard.
m2_X99.jpg
 
vonmolk said:
I installed the 950 pro on my Asus X99-Deluxe, but Samsung's magician is showing it is running at 10Gbps. Is there a setting I am missing to get the 32 Gbps? I have the latest bios for the motherboard.
m2_X99.jpg
Click to expand...

its an error
 
vonmolk said:
I installed the 950 pro on my Asus X99-Deluxe, but Samsung's magician is showing it is running at 10Gbps. Is there a setting I am missing to get the 32 Gbps? I have the latest bios for the motherboard.
m2_X99.jpg
Click to expand...

can you tell me if your BIOS recognize the NVMe device please?
mine don't.

the option in this menu:

1000


is disabled and grey out:

1000
 
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