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  • Author Author: clem57
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The SSD 960 Evo

clem57

     Samsung is the leader in SSD technology offering two brands at the moment. The "PRO" brand is geared toward the power hunger users where performance requires the extra umph in their work and the "EVO" brand for the mainstream value oriented folks like me. A close second is Intel which are always in the hunt in this category. Today I would like to look at Samsung who introduces the 960 series of NVMe SSD. They are only available in M.2 2280 form factor and not as PCIe card. The PRO uses the older UBX controller with 3 ARM processors whereas the EVO has the Polaris controller with 5 ARM processors. Not bad for a mainstream side. Very little is known of this controller, but the specs at http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/review-samsung-ssd-960-evo-pcie-ssd-mainstream-champion?utm_source=hardwarezone_sg&utm_me… are very close to the PRO. The only thing is the PRO offers a full 512 MB storage compared to only 500 MB storage on the EVO. Tel me what you think. Are any one here using these or other M.2 cards?

 

Clem

  • in reply to shabaz

    I use my XP941 as my primary drive so bootup and app load is extremely fast, I also use it as occasional temp storage for when I am rendering videos, I also have two other drives in the main computer, one a pair of 10000 RPM Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB for rendering, these are configured for speed, then a pair of 2TB drives for local storage as stripe pair, to keep recent videos. pictures etc. All this is backed up to a server with 24TB of Raid 6 giving 20TB of useable storage and the ability to lose 2 drives before any data loss.

     

    Sure... not your typical home setup but it works for me image

     

    I agree with , once you go M.2 you never want to go back

  • Hi Clem,  I've not got the 960 Pro, but I have last year's 950 Pro M.2 PCI-E NVMe SSD.

    I also have an earlier Samsung version. I spent time examining reviews, and shopped around, and am happy with the decision.

    They are both in my laptop, plus a Micron SATA SSD in there, really just keeping the machine warm!

     

    After experiencing M.2 PCI-E versions, all I can say is the difference is so significant compared to SATA SSD, that SATA SSD now feels like a USB memory stick : (

     

    I went with 256GB versions, which was a compromise between performance and cost. For a laptop I think M.2 PCI-E and lower-cost SATA SSD make a nice combination, using the SATA SSD for any local documents/files that are infrequently used and do not need a performance boost. I think it will also benefit disk encryption (the Pro variants include built-in hardware encryption enabled by the PC BIOS as I understand - I'm not using this hardware feature today, or at least I don't believe I am).

     

    I'm not a power-user compared to developers/designers who might really benefit from M.2 PCI-E, however I still appreciate that the speed difference that can easily be felt compared to SATA SSD, and I no longer have to choose between "fast" and "slow" storage on the laptop, now the choice has shifted up, i.e. "ultra-fast" or "fast".

  • I am running one of the XP941 Enterprise units (Not normally available to the average consumer (Ebay is a wonderful thing image )

     

    Samsung XP941 Series Technical Specifications

    Form Factor M.2 2280

    Capacity (GB) 128, 256, 512

    Host Interface PCI-Express 2.0 x4

    MTBF 1.5 Million Hours

    Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate (UBER) < 1 sector per 1015 bits read

    Power Consumption (Active/Idle) 5.8W / 80mW Peak

    Read Sequential Performance Up to 1170 MB/s Peak

    Write Sequential Performance Up to 930 MB/s Peak

    Random Performance Reads: Up to 122K IOPS Writes: Up to 72K IOPS

    Physical Dimensions 22 x 80 x 4 mm Weight 8.5g

     

    It is very fast as you can see.