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Samsung Announces the 950 PRO Consumer M.2 PCIe SSD

btarunr

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Samsung Electronics today announced the introduction of the Samsung 950 PRO solid state drive (SSD), designed to meet the demands of high-performance consumer and business laptops and PCs. The drive's M.2 form factor means that users with ultra-slim notebook PCs and workstations can benefit from industry-leading storage endurance, reliability and energy efficiency.

The Samsung 950 PRO SSD is Samsung's first consumer-ready Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) M.2 form factor SSD with vertical NAND (V-NAND) technology; supporting the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) 3.0 interface. With the introduction of NVMe, the first protocol optimized for SSDs, users of the Samsung 950 PRO will benefit from improved performance and power saving which can help increase battery life and potentially reduce operating costs. The drive is ideal for professionals who want cutting-edge performance, higher bandwidth and lower latency from their high-end PCs and workstations, for projects such as computer-aided design, data analysis and engineering simulation. The compact M.2 2280 form factor ensures compatibility with next-generation desktop and mobile platforms that support the M.2 PCIe slot and interface.



"With the introduction of the 950 PRO using NVMe and PCIe, Samsung is able to provide our customers with the memory needed to handle the increased storage demands of tomorrow's computing systems," said Un-Soo Kim, Senior Vice President of Branded Memory, Memory Business at Samsung Electronics. "Consumers and businesses alike can experience enterprise-quality performance and benefits such as speed, endurance and energy efficiency to support the most demanding applications. The 950 PRO is yet another example of a branded memory solution that continues to elevate our portfolio of products and reflects Samsung's continued leadership in the memory industry."

Featuring the PCIe Gen.3 x4 interface and supporting the NVMe protocol, the Samsung 950 PRO offers improved random and sequential performance over Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) interface drives utilizing the legacy Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) protocol. Users of applications that benefit from high input/output operations per second (IOPS) will experience up to four times faster performance than with traditional SATA SSDs.

The 950 PRO will be available in 512 gigabyte (GB) and 256GB storage capacities. The 512GB version delivers sequential read/write speeds of up to 2500 MB/s and 1500 MB/s. Random read performance is up to 300,000 IOPS, with write speeds of up to 110,000 IOPS. It features Samsung's second generation MLC V-NAND 32-layer 128Gb die with UBX controller and magician software.

The drive was built to last, with AES 256-bit Full Disk Encryption to protect data and Dynamic Thermal Guard, which can protect the device and data in inclement weather from 0 to 70 degrees Celsius. It can also withstand physical shock of up to 1500G/0.5ms and vibrations up to 20G.

Both capacities come with a 5-year limited warranty up to 200 terabytes written (TBW) for the 256GB and 400TBW for the 512GB. The 950 PRO will be available beginning in October 2015, with an MSRP of $199.99 for the 256GB capacity and $349.99 for the 512GB capacity.

For more information, visit the product page.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
This pleases me greatly.
 
some one had to do it.

4f361778_960px_shut_up_and_take_my_money_1024x1280_by_amnoartist-d8z92vq.jpg
 
Hopefully that render is accurate because the green PCB's of the other Samsung (non consumer 951?) really doesn't blend well with standard mobo colours. Last thing you want on your set up is a what looks like a stick of gum lying on your mobo.
 
and it also looks stylish.. that's a radiator i see there?
 
nice... but just like last week we finally saw in the shops Samsung previous 512/256/128GB NVMe M.2 2280 drives:
MZVPV512HDGL-00000, MZVPV256HDGL-00000, MZVPV128HDGM-00000 .... with about the same pricing... so what's the difference besides the improved black look on the new drives? Are they faster? Do they run cooler?
 
This has me excited and for the first time seriously thinking of replacing my Sammy 830 :)
 
QD1 4k reads are not that much better then what we already get from SATA drives, so it won't perform that much better. But it comes with everything you'd expect from a SSD in 2015.
 
So does anyone know if Bitlocker's eDrive functionality works over NVMe, or does it literally only work over AHCI and nothing else? I know over SATA it requires AHCI, but I don't know if it's compatible with the NVMe command protocol.
 
QD1 4k reads are not that much better then what we already get from SATA drives, so it won't perform that much better. But it comes with everything you'd expect from a SSD in 2015.
My understanding is that M.2 main feature is support for higher throughput, which means sequential read/write and support for NVMe which I think is not yet supported fully.
 
1TB for less than 500$ and I'm sold....
 
Sweet! This will boost the sale of 100 series boards even more than DDR4, since even budget boards (B150 and H170) seem to have at an M.2 3.0 x 4 slot. Even my Asus Z97 Deluxe has only M.2 PCIe 2.0 x 2 - useless! - finally some decently fast storage is available to the mainstream! Anyone want to buy a Plextor M6e 256GB disappointment drive?
 
So does anyone know if Bitlocker's eDrive functionality works over NVMe, or does it literally only work over AHCI and nothing else? I know over SATA it requires AHCI, but I don't know if it's compatible with the NVMe command protocol.
Just found the information on another site.
A future firmware update also promises to add TCG Opal support for Microsoft's eDrive standard.
 
My understanding is that M.2 main feature is support for higher throughput, which means sequential read/write and support for NVMe which I think is not yet supported fully.

And that's correct, but on the desktop random reads far outweigh sizeable sequential transfers.
But this is not because of M.2 (that's just a connector type), but because of moving from AHCI/SATA to NVMe/PCIe; PCIe provides more bandwidth, while NVMe is supposed to lower the protocol overhead.
 
So will this work on a z87 PCIE 2.0 x4 slot in AHCI mode with an adapter?
Will it be bootable?
When are the Sandforce m.2's expected?
 
Tempting. But I'll upgrade in 1-2 years when I upgrade my processor and motherboard too. Hopefully price goes down to .50 per gig or close to that by then.
 
So will this work on a z87 PCIE 2.0 x4 slot in AHCI mode with an adapter?
Will it be bootable?
When are the Sandforce m.2's expected?
This is a strictly PCI-E drive and wont work in a AHCI mode, also as it stands right now only Intel 90 and 100 series chipsets are capable of booting from a NVME drives not sure if that functionality was provided via a Bios upgrade to older 80 series chipsets if so just upgrade to latest bios and you should be good to go. There are already a couple of NVME drives running Sandforce controller have been announced(Seagate SF3000 pop into mind.) but as it stands most of those are enterprise drives right now not client drives.
 
I'll wait for the 950 EVO. It'll probably cost about 2/3 of the price and offer similar performance, if history is any guide.
 
Make it $150 for a 250GB and it shall be mine.
 
This is about damn time... I have been waiting for M.2s to be worth it and this is great! tell this Raid-0 850Pros we half the cost and the same speed as M.2
 
Come to papa, I think i need 1 of those :slap:
 
I'll take a 256GB for OS and 512GB for Games and WD Black 2TB for Multimedia. All on a MSI Z170A Gaming M5!
 
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