Samsung SM951 PCIe M.2 512GB SSD... M.2 take two (and still not there).

See:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-sm951-m.2-pcie-ssd,4045.html

Interesting that the insane temperature of the previous model was called out, yet still no temperature graphs to compare how much improvement this latest and still NON-NVMe capable, M.2 SSD offers.

and right after that quote,

This seems like a firm 'skip' for anyone looking for the highest possible performance in the next few months.

With the available M.2 SSD's available right now though, this seems to be the highest performing part (yet, it's not retail).

But with no temperature testing in an actual notebook, I would be approaching this SSD as with any Samsung TLC/EVO SSD... with extreme prejudice. Hopefully not for the slow old file write problems the EVO/TLC based SSD's have - but for the extreme temp's of previous M.2 based SSD's have proved to be plagued with instead.

For others, extensive testing before the return period runs out would be highly recommended. Any hiccup would be reason for a return with a full refund, imo.


Note that any complete platforms driven by this new SSD should be fine. 'Should be', being the key words.

 

My ASUS laptop has two small square heatsinks right under the M2 Samsung XP941 256GB SSD

The sequential read/writes are is if it was in RAID but the 4K Read/Write is crap:

 

Yeah, we need an NVMe capable M.2 drive soon. Almost any 2.5" SATA3 SSD can give overall scores like the XP941 shows, although the sequential speeds are something I would definitely make use of.

Interesting that your Asus has heatsinks for the M.2 drive. What kind of temps do you normally see from it?

As I mentioned in the OP, any complete platforms with these OEM drives should not have cooling issues as the notebook manufacturer should have seen the issue and taken steps to correct them (hopefully).

 

How many PCIe lanes 2 or 4 to the XP941 or is it running on SATA III and not PCIe?

 

All jokes aside: what is up with that?

 

I think it's over a SATA interface not PCIe.

A SATA SSD will perform better than the XP941 on SATA as an OS drive where the sequential numbers won't matter much.

His 850 Pro would out perform it in an OS environment but, I think, that drive bay is SATA II.

 

The left bay where the Samsung XP941 is installed is SATA III while the right port is SATA II where the 850 PRO 1TB installed.

I just learned that I can hook both drives to the SATA III port like this:

 

Ferris23, I can't understand what I'm seeing with your pic's. How are both drives connected to the SATA3 port?

 

When these M.2 SSD's become retail, this could be one future use for them.

See:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8986/intel-nuc5i5ryk-review-a-broadwellu-ucffpc-for-enthusiasts


They tested the one in the link with the older XP941 SSD and of course, it still blew everything away (storage-wise).

Note though; there are thermal pads on the latest NUC's specifically for dealing with the heat from the storage subsystem. And, it seems to work well, even with the excessively hot XP941 M.2 models.

With manufacturer's addressing the issues the new components are introducing, along with the actual components modified to address the issues themselves, it may be that 2015 is the year that M.2 becomes important.

Not these AHCI based models though; for that, let's take all these (indicated) improvements and put a real four lane PCIe NVMe controller instead.

Even in a fairly basic NUC setup, this kind of storage firepower would be most welcome and usable too with a wide range of workloads.