Last yr'due south Intel Haswell refresh wasn't particularly heady considering of the CPU improvements but because of the new Z97 chipset which brought SATA Express and the M.two interface to mainstream computing. That's a big deal in the storage globe and we were especially interested in M.2 (formerly 'Next Generation Form Factor' or NGFF).

Information technology wasn't long later the Z97'south arrival that Samsung moved to capitalize on the chipset'southward M.2 support by announcing the XP941, a PCIe 2.0 x4 SSD with height speeds of 1170MB/s reads and 930MB/s writes. To engagement, no other M.ii device has challenged the XP941, still as bonny as the Samsung XP941 may exist, it was meant every bit an OEM-merely product.

Even so, the bulldoze has been popular among enthusiasts -- pop enough for Samsung to denote a successor last January -- though once again as an OEM product. The new SM951 PCIe SSD is currently available through Australian company RamCity, and although the drive is listed in Australian dollars on the company'southward website, information technology's selling to US customers via Amazon for $460. That seems reasonable for such a fast One thousand.2 device.

We recently reviewed Intel's new SSD 750 Serial 1.2TB, a PCI Express SSD that supports the NVMe protocol. The SSD 750 Serial proved to be fast, but as well expensive at $ane.02 per gigabyte for the 400GB model.

NVMe support is the key feature of Intel's SSD 750 Series and it's something Samsung initially said the SM951 would have, later dropped, and just recently announced would ship as a separate revision of this drive with the same proper name. The SM951 we are testing today uses the AHCI command set as Samsung pushed the release of the NVMe version likely due to spotty compatibility for NVMe.

Not to worry though, if Samsung'south claims are true then the lack of NVMe support shouldn't exist besides devastating for the SM951 as read speeds are said to reach 2150MB/south and 1500MB/south for writes, which should give the SM951 an advantage in write tests over the Intel SSD 750 i.2TB (2400MB/s and 1200MB/southward reads and writes, respectively, using the NVMe driver).

Samsung SM951 in Item

The SM951 is available in iii capacities, making it more than client-friendly than Intel's SSD 750 Series. Those wanting extreme speed on a budget have the 128GB model for $140, the 256GB version costs $240 and the 512GB version (what we have) costs $460, $0.89 per gigabyte.

Although the 128GB model is relatively affordable it should be noted that it doesn't have the aforementioned 1.5GB/s write performance of the 512GB model. Instead, the write performance has been cut to just 600MB/s. That makes the 256GB model much more than desirable as it offers the same read performance equally the 512GB model with twice the write performance of the 128GB model.

Like its predecessor, the SM951 comes in the Grand.ii 2280 form factor, significant any arrangement with an 80mm long Chiliad.two port can support this SSD. That said, users will want to brand sure PCIe 3.0 is available as performance will be reduced when using PCIe two.0, though the SM951 will still be very fast regardless.

In addition to PCI 3.0, the SM951 is the get-go SSD to adopt the L1.2 depression power standby style (which allows all loftier-speed circuits to exist turned off when a PC is sleeping or in hibernation) as defined by PCI-SIG (the PCIe standards body). By embracing the L1.2 level of standby operation, the SM951's power consumption is drastically reduced – to nether 2mW, about a 97% decrease from the 50mW consumed using a L1 state.

At the eye of the SM951 is the Samsung S4LN058A01 and other than the fact that this is a PCIe 3.0 x4 AHCI controller, we know very little about it.

We didn't wait to notice planar 2nd NAND existence used on the SM951. While 3D V-NAND has done the rounds on all of Samsung's mainstream SSDs, the SM951 gets planar NAND. Found on the tiny 80mm x 22mm PCB are four 128GB Samsung 16nm MLC K9UKGY8SCD-DCK0 NAND flash chips.

Compatibility seems good and whatever motherboard/device supporting the M.2 interface should offer bootable support for the SM951. We tried information technology with a few Asrock and Gigabyte Z97/X99 motherboards and all worked perfectly.

While on the field of study of compatibility, information technology'southward worth noting that like the XP941, the SM951 won't piece of work with the Samsung Magician Software as this is an OEM product.

Because the SM951 is an OEM part, its warranty and endurance limitation are specified past the reseller instead of Samsung. The practiced news is sellers such as RamCity/Amazon are offering the full 3-yr warranty with a 72TB endurance rating, and so buyers tin can purchase with confidence.