# New Samsung M.2 drive has 2500MB/sec reads



## synthetic (Sep 23, 2015)

Samsung SSD 950 Pro 

256GB for $200 and 512GB for $350.

Yee-hah


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## stonzthro (Sep 23, 2015)

oh wow - that's phenomenal!


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## Lawson. (Sep 23, 2015)

Oh wow. I have 3 250GB 850 EVOs in RAID0 and I only achieve 1600MB/s. :(


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## EvilDragon (Sep 23, 2015)

I don't think we, composers, really need such speeds. Your CPU would give out sooner than you'd reach those transfer rates even if using the lowest DFD buffer setting...


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## synthpunk (Sep 23, 2015)

+1 E.D.
Lets hope 850 Evo and Pro prices now drop a little, that would be great.


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## stonzthro (Sep 23, 2015)

Maybe Hollywood Strings will now be able to run decently...


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## Vin (Sep 23, 2015)




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## chimuelo (Sep 23, 2015)

EvilDragon said:


> I don't think we, composers, really need such speeds. Your CPU would give out sooner than you'd reach those transfer rates even if using the lowest DFD buffer setting...



But benchmarks sell.

NVMe is the way around the old high watt/heavy CPU SATA III interface.
When you see such big numbers it's just an indicator that the real numbers we benefit from
are also high.
300,000 Random IOps puts you in the drivers seat of large multi mic recorded instruments/libraries.
For Kontakt NCW and tweaked DFD you can use SATA III and get by fine, sometimes with instruments using massive samples it takes longer to load, but that's about it.
NVMe devices are great for PLAY or VSL as you can load up all of your patches and layer like never before.
Your workflow dictates the necessity of these high bandwidth devices.
I use an NVMe M.2 just for Omnisphere 2.1 Dual Live Mode so I can call up another multi as fast as a ROMpler preset.

These devices are Intel 750s direct competition.
I use the 750s for samples and they are insanely fast too.
Run cooler than the Samsung's which get hot.
Not sure if this has been addressed on the 950 M.2s yet, but it's not a big deal unless you're doing outside shows in 100 degree weather with high humidity.

Anyone with an ASRock Z97 Extreme 4/6 will definitely love having a pair of these at 512GB.
Then put your old SSD for Apps+OS.

My ASRock screams with 32GBs of DDR3 CAS9 2 x Intel 750s and an MX-100 for OS+Apps.
My other spare uses a pair of SM951 NVMe's and an MX-100 for OS+Apps. with 16GBs DDR3 CAS8.

These DAWg's will hunt.

But do you really need this for recording...?

For those of us who want sick stuff.......

http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/intel-ssd-dc-p3608-review-1-6tb-over-5gbs-and-850k-iops/
http://www.thessdreview.com/daily-n...t-950-pro-consumer-m-2-ssd-capable-of-2-5gbs/


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## synthetic (Sep 23, 2015)

Yeah, but 512GB for $350, why not go this route. About the same price as an SSD. 

I just want to to make each component as good/fast as possible. Then if I need more performance in the future, at least I can rule out disk read speed.


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## synthpunk (Sep 23, 2015)

Samsung 500G 850 Evo were just $159 on Amazon last week. I will take 2 of those instead.



synthetic said:


> Yeah, but 512GB for $350, why not go this route. About the same price as an SSD.
> 
> I just want to to make each component as good/fast as possible. Then if I need more performance in the future, at least I can rule out disk read speed.


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## JohnG (Sep 23, 2015)

anyone know where you can buy them?


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## Mystic (Sep 23, 2015)

aesthete said:


> Samsung 500G 850 Evo were just $159 on Amazon last week. I will take 2 of those instead.


Bingo. The price of SSD is dropping like a rock now. I expect some big sales this winter with them which is good because the new build I'm doing is using 4 of them. We're likely going to see them continue to drop over the next year and a half.


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## JohnG (Sep 23, 2015)

going through the PCI bus is always likely to be faster than the SATA III. I have three Samsung 850s new in boxes on my desk but I'll send them back if these M.2 drives are actually available. Looks like they are not, yet.


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## JohnG (Sep 23, 2015)

chimuelo said:


> But do you really need this for recording...?



No, you don't, but I am dying to reduce latency. I'm running at 512 and want to get it down to 256 or even 128.

It's so frustrating, especially with percussion, to have that much latency when playing in a part.


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## chimuelo (Sep 23, 2015)

Jeez JG I didn't know yuze guys were forced to use such large buffers.

RME cards are suppose to be pretty low. Last time I used one even @128 samples/2.6 msec. it was solid.
I am not sure if that latency you see is a driver issue or not.

I have drivers that allow me .07 msec./@64 samples/96k but waste so many resources I stick with 1.4 msec./@128 samples/48k.

Everyone I know records/performs @48k.

Do you have an M.2 slot...?
I got a few spare SM951s, lowly 128GB's sitting around. I got so many of these suckers I have spares for the spares.
Don't need any bread from you, just send it to you and let you check it out.
The 256/512GB versions are slightly faster but not real world differences.


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## Guy Rowland (Sep 23, 2015)

What are folks using to interface an M2 with the PCI bus?

I'd hope we'd finally start to see genuinely powerful air-style laptops with this tech soon.


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## chimuelo (Sep 23, 2015)

Mystic said:


> Bingo. The price of SSD is dropping like a rock now. I expect some big sales this winter with them which is good because the new build I'm doing is using 4 of them. We're likely going to see them continue to drop over the next year and a half.



SSDs are already down to 33$ per GB.
Just wait until Christmas and snag what's left.
Manufacturers are stacking controllers and parts to move bigger SSDs just to get rid of excess, so be careful on anything over 1TB.
HGST is supposed to be a reputable enterprise storage group, UltraStar SAS drives are the very best RAID SAS you can get when paired with LSI Controllers, and even they are busted now selling these large phucked up SSDs which they usually never carried before.


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## chimuelo (Sep 23, 2015)

Guy Rowland said:


> What are folks using to interface an M2 with the PCI bus?
> 
> I'd hope we'd finally start to see genuinely powerful air-style laptops with this tech soon.



It's already out there bro.
MacBooks used XP941 M.2s years ago when I got my boy a Logic based MacBook.
Lenovo has some NVMe based units, HP and many others.

Personally I am waiting for Getac Military units to start shipping out what they give our troops.
We see the slow i7/i5 low RAM versions.
They got 1TB M.2s/64GBs of RAM and NVMe's from a confidential manufacturer.

As usual the troops get the best stuff first. And also applies to servers sold to corporations with high volume stock trades, etc.

trickle down economics is everywhere..........


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## chimuelo (Sep 23, 2015)

Also the ASRock boards use M.2 slots that bypass the SATA III bus and use PCI-e 4X speeds, twice the speeds of other motherboard manufacturers.
PCI-e 2X M.2s that Asus and Supermicro use do NOT go directly to the CPU but first stop at the CHipset.
PCI.3.0 using PCI-e 4x speeds takes you straight to the CPU....

Been messing with these devices for years now.
Lost my ass on a few, but landed on both feet with SM951s and Intel 750s.

The 950 above is direct competition for those, and actually replaces the SM951 that an American company bought out the stock of and resell it with their name now.


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## JohnG (Sep 23, 2015)

chimuelo said:


> I am not sure if that latency you see is a driver issue or not.



It could be a number of things but I have recent RME drivers so I don't think it's that.



chimuelo said:


> Do you have an M.2 slot...?


Guess I'd better check that. Ha!

I have one quite new computer that might have it, the other two I'd have to look at the --- MANUAL!!! AAAGGG!


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## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 23, 2015)

The buffer size you need has a lot to do with how much you're running, of course.

I think Chim is mostly playing live, no? Doesn't that mean less stuff going on?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 23, 2015)

It'll be interesting to hear from people using the new drives whether they make a difference. My hunch is that it's not bandwidth that matters, but that's just theory.


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## JohnG (Sep 23, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I think Chim is mostly playing live, no? Doesn't that mean less stuff going on?



Maybe. My impression is that chim does evening Las Vegas shows, which include strings, brass, percussion -- all kinds of stuff.

And what I'd love to get to is more of a "playing live" feel. I don't wish for my old romplers but I really miss their instant responsiveness.


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## chimuelo (Sep 23, 2015)

It's lots of things, ASIO limitations, Random IOps, number of MIDI tracks triggering instruments in real time while doing automations and over dubs.
But I am using less now as I am gigging with Rock Gods and recording, but preparing for a new room in 2016 where I will be doing the same old Big Productions while playing over the top to keep our sanity.
Big money, less artistic freedom.

Right now I don't need the 750s or 951s really.
I was doing fine with my old rig which is now the spare, and has a pair of SM951s.
It was using MX-100s and was fine for NCW/Kontakt stuff. Hollywood Strings is fine too once loaded.
But there's a difference in load and response times, no doubt.

Which is why I can send you an SM951 for free and see if it helps.
If not use it as an OS+Apps device.
Guarantee the loads will scale up.


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## JohnG (Sep 23, 2015)

thanks chim.


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## Simon Ravn (Sep 24, 2015)

This is all very impressive, but unfortunately probably won't mean much to us. Sequential speeds are useless for sure, since our sample streaming is all over the drive all the time. The question is what queue depth sample streaming equates to. If we are at QD1, random read speeds are still a measly 30-50mb/sec... I wish someone would do some streaming tests and post them, comparing different drives.


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## Pietro (Sep 24, 2015)

To me it looks like with IOPS at this level and general drive speeds, we are pretty much set and another bottleneck is going to reveal itself before we reach the drive limits. Especially, when running samples on a couple of those.

- Piotr


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## Simon Ravn (Sep 24, 2015)

Higher IOPS only matter at higher queue depths - and I am not sure how this translates to sample streaming. But yes, you are right, there're other bottlenecks for sure, like the software and the CPU.


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## EvilDragon (Sep 24, 2015)

CPU is really the biggest bottleneck IMHO. All those high IOPS numbers equate to tons of potential voices to be streamed... only to end up with CPU overs before you even reach half the IOPS (or even less)...


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## chimuelo (Oct 22, 2015)

Here's the guy with triple M.2 ASRock and the IOps for these 350 dollar 512GB M.2s.

http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/samsung-950-pro-m-2-nvme-ssd-review-256512gb/


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## chimuelo (Oct 25, 2015)

I got good news and bad news.
This is a very fast little M.2.
Only problem is thermal throttling kicks in after so long. Not quite sure what triggers the thermaling, but the Intel 750 NVMe is the random and sustained seq. King still.

Doesn't mean the 950s are bad. At 350 USD for 512GBs it's a great price.
But it would be best used as an OS+Apps or for Omnisphere 2.1 ( where I ended up putting it) where you want fast loads and don't rely on sustained streaming.

I tortured the little bugger and it still does what the XP941s I bought did.
They slow down from the heat and no telling which instruments caused it or when, as I didn't really notice the slow down until I had started using 32 tracks of automated MIDI+Instruments, and played over the top.

For some reason the pre NVMe Samsung SM951s do not do this. They are the AHCI versions that Samsung sold to Eluktronics here in the USA.
I still use a pair of them and they do not thermal down on sustained use.

Still the baddest boy around is the Intel 750 NVMe.
Sure there's some benchmarks saying that the Samsungs and others are "faster" but only out of the gate.
They pucker out too soon and Intel remains as solid as an Oak.


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## Simon Ravn (Oct 25, 2015)

I can tell you for sure that my SATA is in no way being saturated by streaming samples via Kontakt. Actually I am going to do some tests to see exactly how many stream I can actually stream, because I am surprised by how quick I actually get dropouts, and how quickly the Kontakt diskmeter goes into the red, even when my samples are spread over 5 SSD's over both SATA and PCIe.... It looks like I am getting no more than a couple of 100 voices combined on a Mac with Kontakt hosted in VEP. I don't know if disk bottlenecks, VEP, Logic or Kontakt is to blame, which is why I will try to do some testing inside and outside of Logic/VEP. But I can say for sure that streaming samples has nothing to do with sequential read speed benchmarks (mine reach between 200 and 500MB/sec per disk in Blackmagic drive test program - that is conservatively the equivalent of 4.500 stereo voices) - I think random read speeds (which are about 30-50MB/sec per disk) has a lot more to do with what we do, unfortunately. 45MB/sec across 4 disks is about 680 stereo voices at 44.1khz/24-bit - and even that I am not achieving on a Mac.

Would love to hear some feedback if others have done tests. Don't do the test streaming just one patch from one library. Although harder to do, try running a test where you use instruments more realistically - ie across several drives, and 10-20 patches at the same time or so. That will be more like a real life scenario.


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## EvilDragon (Oct 25, 2015)

Yes, DFD is all about random reads and seek time.


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## wpc982 (Oct 25, 2015)

I'll be watching for more info too. Got 3 SSDs, a samsung EVO, a samsung PRO, and an Apotop, plus a seagate hybrid. Sometime between building it all and filling it up, it got a lot slower after 9 months of use. Still not sure which drive is the culprit.


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## NYC Composer (Oct 25, 2015)

I feel like a broken record on this, but if it is the Evo 850 non pro, probably your culprit...though I know nothing about the hybrid, actually, and I don't think hybrids are generally great for streaming samples because of their small flash cache.


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## Simon Ravn (Oct 26, 2015)

I am using 840 Pro's and 850 Pro's, and a Crucial, and an older Intel one. It doesn't make much of a difference I think, since all of them are "very fast" - random access is just not getting much better with each new generation of SSD. It was around 30MB/s a few years ago, now it's 40-50 tops, even on the PCI ones. And no, hybrid drives will perform like regular HD's when doing sample streaming, unless you are using the same small (below the size of the SSD cache) sample library all the time - at which point there is no point in getting a 1 TB hybrid drive with 8GB SSD - you might as well get an 8 GB SSD...


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## NYC Composer (Oct 26, 2015)

I am using 4 Crucials and an 840 non pro. Simon, have you used a hybrid drive for streaming, or is what you're saying anecdotal? (what I'm saying is, btw)


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## Simon Ravn (Oct 26, 2015)

NYC: It is common sense. A hybrid drive is a regular HD with a small SSD cache. Usually I think it's 8-16GB. So if you have 200GB of samples on the drive which you all use regularly, it's obvious that the SSD cache won't do much good. Hybrid drives were mainly done to provide a cheap system/boot drive, with SSD-like boot speeds and tons of storage. As we see SSD's go down in price, hybrid drives are going to disappear.


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## wpc982 (Oct 26, 2015)

I used CrystalDiskMark just now to compare the disks. (Apotop, Samsung Pro, Samsung EVO, Seagate Hybrid, Seagate 'standard') All the SSDs are comparable, with the samsung pro the best but not by any astonishing amount. The samsung Evo is very close. My big slowdowns are with the system disk and the programs disk ... trying to track down the problem. They do a "random read" about 300 times slower than the SSDs, and 150 times slower than their own sequential read.


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## NYC Composer (Oct 26, 2015)

Simon-right-which is why you confused me when you said they will perform like regular SSDs. I said originally that their small SSD cache made them impractical for general sample streaming-which is what you just agreed with. 
So, you're saying that CAN perform that way-but not in any practical, professional music application using lots of stuff, which is what I...oh , never mind.


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## wpc982 (Oct 26, 2015)

Right, NYC Composer, I bought the hybrid not for samples, but for programs, used frequently, but not huge, and for backup, not used frequently but very sizeable sometimes.


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## Simon Ravn (Oct 26, 2015)

NYC, oh man - I was tired when I wrote that - I meant a regular HD - not an SSD! I just edited it

Hybrid drives can perform like an SSD for booting your OS - not for video-editing/streaming etc where you throw around a lot of data. That's what I meant


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## NYC Composer (Oct 26, 2015)

Simon Ravn said:


> NYC, oh man - I was tired when I wrote that - I meant a regular HD - not an SSD! I just edited it
> 
> Hybrid drives can perform like an SSD for booting your OS - not for video-editing/streaming etc where you throw around a lot of data. That's what I meant



I figured


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## wpc982 (Oct 26, 2015)

As I watch the disk check utility working on its 60th million 'cluster' I realize the cost of all this size: TIME.


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## Jan16 (Oct 26, 2015)

chimuelo said:


> I got good news and bad news.
> This is a very fast little M.2.
> Only problem is thermal throttling kicks in after so long. Not quite sure what triggers the thermaling, but the Intel 750 NVMe is the random and sustained seq. King still.
> 
> ...


In one test the new Samsung SSD's performance suffered from thermal throttling, in another it did not, even though they submitted the SSD to 10 hour tests.
During these 10 hours the 4k Random Write test was almost entirely constant without any drop in performance.

The team which did _not_ experience thermal throttling tested the new SSD under Windows 8.1 en Windows 10, and they did not use Microsoft's NVMe driver for the test because the initial runs resulted resulted in a bad performance with the standard Microsoft NVMe driver, but they used Samsung's NVMe driver and then performed the tests.

So, the thermal throttling issue seems to depend on the configuration which was used for testing. The team which tested the SSD with Samsung driver with positive results advises the use of Samsung's own NVMe driver instead of Microsoft's standard NVMe driver.


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## chimuelo (Nov 15, 2015)

Couldn't find my old thread about this M.2 and the performance drops after hitting sustained usage.

All of that has been settled finally. Samsung Drivers update and the Magician Software make this little M.2 the beast.
Very reasonable prices too.
But at the end of the day nothing touches the Intel 750/400GB using the M.2/U.2 adapter.

I use the 950 for OS+Apps+Omnisphere
Intel does PLAY Kontakt Pulsar and wav.

A pair of these if you want instant gratification...

Cheerz


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## chimuelo (Feb 23, 2016)

After months of testing a few of these I can assure anyone wanting to have the very best performance that these work great.
Also use other SATA III devices as they are on a separate bus.
Get the Samsung NVMe Driver and skip the Microsoft Driver, find it and delete it too.
Samsung also has a Windows 7 Driver now.
Great for guys like me wasting 400 USD on 3 x Windows 10 installs, just to go and buy 3 x Windows 7 COAs for peace of mind and stability.

Below is the 10GB test, not the default size AS SSD provides.
250k is more than we'll ever need, but you also get 2.3GBps Reads too.




img host


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## Prockamanisc (Feb 27, 2016)

That's awesome! If I have a slave, could I replace my current hard drive with an m.2 drive? I think my MOBO has a slot for it, the ASRock X99 Extreme4 (it has written on it "Ultra M.2, PCIe Gen3 x4"). Would I see much improvement? My biggest problem with my slave is that when I hit "save" it takes a couple seconds to save everything.


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## chimuelo (Feb 27, 2016)

Oh yeah.
These are getting bigger and cheaper since Samsung started this.


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## Prockamanisc (Feb 27, 2016)

This might just be a totally dumb question- I'm running a Samsung 850 EVO as my hard drive with an i7 5820k processor. The M.2 would make everything faster? I'm using around 20+ VEP instances all loaded up with samples...will those load faster and everything? I'm just wondering if it would be bottlenecked by the processor.


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