Samsung’s first mainstream M.2 solid state drive, the 950 Pro, is fast. Like, bonkers fast. It’s five times as fast as Samsung’s previous barnstorming 850 Pro, it uses less power, and the M.2 connector means it’s smaller and simpler to install in your high-end gaming PC or laptop. But here’s the best thing — you can buy it right now. Run, don’t walk, to your local computer store and get one.
The 950 Pro isn’t the first M.2 drive that Samsung has made — in fact, enthusiasts have been using the SM951 and XP941 in systems for a year or so now — but it’s the first that Samsung is pitching to regular computer enthusiasts, the kind of people that would have bought the 850 Pro or another SATA solid-state drive. It’ll still sell SATA drives, and they’re still extremely quick and energy efficient — but if you want the best, the 950 Pro is it.
SATA has been good to us for the last couple of years, but it’s getting a bit long in the tooth even in its third generation. SATA3 is capable of 6Gbps data transfers, but with overheads, that’s only around the 550MBps read/write point that drives have topped out at for a while now. The future is Non-Volative Memory Express (NVMe), a high-speed data transfer standard that works over motherboards’ PCI-Express ports — the same ones already used for high-bandwidth applications like graphics cards.
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NVMe works over regular PCI-E, but also supports M.2 — a tiny, bus-powered, multipurpose I/O port that was literally called the Next Generation Form Factor until a short while ago. That means you have a super-fast connector that is also compact and supplies its own power — so no more fiddly SATA cables and SATA power connectors, just a single port that the M.2 2280 (22mm wide, 80mm long) Samsung 950 Pro will slot into.
But if your PC does have that M.2 port, you can expect incredibly fast transfer rates. The Samsung 950 Pro is capable of 2500MBps read and 1500MBps write speeds, and 300,000 read / 110,000 write IOPS, and that makes it the fastest drive we’ve ever seen from Samsung by a significant margin. A five-year warranty as standard on the drive covers a total of 200/400TB of transfers on the 256/512GB variant — that’s about 220GB per day.
You won’t actually be getting the best possible performance out of the 950 Pro unless you have a brand new, Intel Z170 Skylake-based system with a sufficient amount of PCI-Express 3.0 lanes; a last-gen Z97 chipset will run the 950 Pro right up to 1250MBps read/write — still two and a half times faster than any SATA3 SSD out there — but that’s only half of what you can expect from the new drive’s ridiculous 2500MBps write speeds.
Available in 256GB and 512GB capacities, the 950 Pro is priced at $379 and $659 respectively in Australia, and should be in stock at all reputable PC component retailers around the country now. [Samsung]
Comments
12 responses to “Samsung’s 950 Pro SSD Is Out In Australia Right Now”
Ive got an 850 and it was my first SSD. The comparison in load times was phenominal. Especialy on games like Arma 3 (which map load times could take ages) and other platforms.
I also found i was having crash issues in certain games like Elite Dangerous but installing to SSD fixed it all.
The only thing i hate about it is the price. I know i can get 1tb or more of HDD for about $100. But at 5x the cost to get that in SSD is just unjustifiable at the moment. Hopefully this new range will reduce the price of the old somewhat.
This!
As much as I would love to buy it, the price/gb is too high at the moment for SSDs.
Those speeds are incredible but I can buy a conventional Samsung 1tb ssd hard drive for about 500. Sure the speed is no where near this but it’s fast enough to notice the difference between it and a spiner and the extra space is more important for me. Plus I’m stuck on the z87 chipset with my hero vi for a few more years…
Pccasegear has these at 299 and 529 respectively. Much better prices than the ones quoted above.
Is that the first m.2 drive with a black PCB? Honestly performance aside that might actually be the best thing they could bring to the table given how visibly annoyed many PC enthusiasts were that they had to use a green PCB in the middle of their new shiny black motherboard. Even the sticker looks pretty nice.
I’ll wait for a 1TB version. Sure is tempting though.
I knew there was a reason I bought the Gigabyte Z97MX-Gaming5 — onboard M2!
Has/is there an expected price drop on the Samsung850 SSD’s?
The 850’s are coming down very gradually, but I wouldn’t expect this to cause a further big drop directly, as they are 2 completely different interfaces. The 850’s are just a standard sata 3 ssd (in both m.2 and normal drive types), which most of the general population will continue to use for some time, while the pcie m.2 drives will fill that niche of performance hungry geeks for the time being.
That being said, it’s entirely possible there could be a price drop, but pcie 4x m.2 drives have been around a while already (just not widely available in Aus til recently) and the price hasn’t moved much during that time that I have noticed.
if you are really into this ssd but dont have a gen3 m2 slot
you can buy a HLHH AIC PCI-E gen3 slot in card adapter that has an m.2 slot gen3
(PCI-E > m2 adapter)
http://www.addonics.com/products/adm2px4.php
pccasegear pricing does not include GST, or shipping,… or surcharges… keep that in mind
last i checked (and bought many times) pccasegear’s pricing definitely includes gst, and what surcharges
“pccasegear pricing does not include GST”
orly? You must be doing it wrong…
Another article on here that fails to mention that most M2 slots/devices out there are SATA based.
First mainstream *PCIe M2, not first mainstream M2.
You don’t even talk about the different “key” pin headers between models.
Its like not distinguishing between a USB1 and USB 2/3 port. Massive Difference.