Thursday, May 15th 2014
![Samsung](https://tpucdn.com/images/news/samsung-v1723816949774.png)
Samsung XP941 M.2 SSD Shows Up at Retailers
At Computex 2014, we're expecting the proverbial Noah's Flood of new SSDs in the M.2 form-factor, which overcome the bandwidth limitation of SATA 6 Gb/s, and aren't as messy when installed as SATA-Express. The first generation of M.2, at its physical layer, is PCI-Express 2.0 x2, with a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 1000 MB/s per direction. Among the first such drives is the XP941 from Samsung. The drive went into mass production way back in June 2013, but it's only now hitting the stores, as the first motherboards with M.2 slots launched, with the advent of Intel's 9-series chipset.
What sets this drive apart from conventional M.2 drives is it follows a draft specification that mandates PCI-Express 2.0 x4 interface. When installed on slots with x4 wiring, the drive offers sequential read speeds of up to 1,170 MB/s, and up to 930 MB/s maximum writes. It also offers 4K random read performance of up to 122,000 IOPS, and 4K random write performance of up to 72,000 IOPS. The only 9-series motherboard with such a slot is the Z97 Extreme6 by ASRock. You could also try using PCI-Express 2.0 x4 add-on cards such as the one Plextor's M6e comes with. The 512 GB variant of the drive is priced at 79,800 JPY including local taxes (US $780).
Source:
PC Watch
What sets this drive apart from conventional M.2 drives is it follows a draft specification that mandates PCI-Express 2.0 x4 interface. When installed on slots with x4 wiring, the drive offers sequential read speeds of up to 1,170 MB/s, and up to 930 MB/s maximum writes. It also offers 4K random read performance of up to 122,000 IOPS, and 4K random write performance of up to 72,000 IOPS. The only 9-series motherboard with such a slot is the Z97 Extreme6 by ASRock. You could also try using PCI-Express 2.0 x4 add-on cards such as the one Plextor's M6e comes with. The 512 GB variant of the drive is priced at 79,800 JPY including local taxes (US $780).
14 Comments on Samsung XP941 M.2 SSD Shows Up at Retailers
www.amazon.com/dp/B00JOSM3TK/
www.ramcity.com.au/upgrade/data-storage/internal-solid-state-drives/samsung-xp941/81068
Edit: Oh, the source article is from Japan, so clearly Japanese retailers. Not really helpful on the other side of the planet... Seeing it at retail anywhere though is a good thing I suppose.
I'm just glad its here. Such things will become cheaper over time anyway. Just be glad the retailers are not jacking up the price to ~$1000+ USD and more.
Sequential Write/Read is not that useful unless you transfer a lot of data between SSDs and that's where this thing shines.
The Crucial M550 2.5", M.2, and mSATA are all within $10 of each other at a given size. Though, the M.2 model is using a SATA controller like the others. Hopefully the buttload of PCIe-based M.2 products said to be coming soon will keep prices under control.
And as seen as shit goes out of date over a month or so they gotta make as much as possible.
We've exported a lot of XP941's to the US and so far no complaints about duties. You can read more about it here: www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export/internet-purchases