SM951 or Intel 750 PCIe SSD

[davidst99]

Hi, I posted a question about the Intel 750 PCIe SSD a couple of days ago. I been looking at the Samsung SM951. It looks like it's better on a client desktop then the Intel 750 PCIe SSD. Would any recommend the SM951 over the Intel 750 PCIe. I know if I get the SMP951 I would need to get PCIe x4 card since my motherboard doesn't have a PCIe M2 slot. I mainly use my desktop for gaming and working with VMs for my work. I initial thought I would be using my desktop for work but that's no longer the case. Thanks for any advice.

David

I have a
Intel 17 4790K
Gigabyte Z97 Gaming GT motherboard
2x GTX 980 SLI
32 GB DDR3 1800Mhz

 

[Turab]

My vote on Intel 750.

It comes with native NVMe and bootable on most common mobos.

Samsung SM951 is also an nice solution, but had questions about booting on some motherboards.

All in all, picking NVMe is a invest for future I believe.

 

[rci2990]

this is a easy one now that the nvme 951 is out and in stock at a few places.

 

[Phynaz]

Intel without a doubt.

Samsung hasn't demonstrated they have solved their hardware problems, why take the added risk if you don't have to?

 

[rci2990]

the 951 matches the intel and works just fine.

 

[lopri]

I do not like that AT omitted power consumption data in Intel 750 review.

 

[Phynaz]

the 951 matches the intel and works just fine.

Maybe it does, maybe Samsung still has issues. That's the point, it's too new to know. You still haven't answered the question of the reason to take the additional risk.

 

[Hellhammer]

Samsung hasn't demonstrated they have solved their hardware problems, why take the added risk if you don't have to?

The 840 EVO problem is irrelevant to the SM951.

I do not like that AT omitted power consumption data in Intel 750 review.

PCIe power testing is far more complicated than SATA, hence I don't have any power data for PCIe yet. I should have the right hardware at my lab already, but I haven't had time to properly set it up yet. That said, for desktops power consumption isn't really that relevant, although it's still an interesting metric when analyzing overall efficiency.

 

[Burner27]

this is a easy one now that the nvme 951 is out and in stock at a few places.

Where did you hear the SM951 has NVMe support? I read the reviews and it DOES NOT have NVMe....

 

[LurchFrinky]

first link from Google:
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/samsung-goes-to-volume-production-with-really-fast-sm951-nvme.html

So, it looks like it will have NVMe support, but this version is not available just yet.
The AHCI versions are available now.

 

[Phynaz]

The 840 EVO problem is irrelevant to the SM951.

It shows a major issue made it through QA validation. The 840 Evo issue is not the problem, QA/QC is the problem.

So far nobody has answered the question, why is the additional risk worth it?

 

[Burner27]

first link from Google:
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/samsung-goes-to-volume-production-with-really-fast-sm951-nvme.html

So, it looks like it will have NVMe support, but this version is not available just yet.
The AHCI versions are available now.

Thanks for the link. I think I will wait for the NVMe + 3D NAND version.

 

[Laststop311]

It depends on a variety of factors. You need to find out if your motherboard supports botting off the ssd you choose. So thats step 1. Step 2 is how much space do you need? If 256GB is enough then the sm951 is the way to go as you will save the most money. The 400GB intel is the next cheapest option. If 256GB isn't enough space but 400GB is then this is the best option. If 512GB is the sweet spot for you in space needs then the 512GB sm951 is the way to go. And if you need 1TB+ of fast SSD storage than the intel 750 is the way to go.

Performance of both drives is relatively equal. At the extreme speeds these drives can both run at you would be hard pressed to tell any difference in speed. So you need to check motherboard compatibility for being able to boot off of and what capacity do you need.

Also to a much less degree how much space you have can be a factor has the m2 drive takes practically no room. Also if thermals matter to you the intel 750 uses 4x the power and at almost 20 watts of power use it can actually throw off enough heat to effect a GPU right next to it if its in a very confined space like a SFF pc.

The 750 seems to be designed with an enterprise workload in mind and the sm951 with a consumer workload in mind. But as I said the differences in speed at that high performance is not really noticeable.

Once Samsung switches the m2 drives to V-nand which they have already said will be the next thing they do the samsung drive will probably be the better buy as the endurance on 40nm mlc cells that the samsung m2 drive would use would be miles ahead of more 20nm intel planar

If 512GB is enough space than I personally think the sm951 is the better buy. It reaches the same speeds as the intel drive and does while using much less power and giving off less heat. So the Samsung drive seems more efficient overall. But I think the intel drive is power loss protection and the samsung does not so if that is a major concern for you the intel is the only choice. Also there should be an 800GB intel drive coming out for around 700-750 if thats the spot you need to be at you can wait for that.

 

[ashishmishra]

Hi, I posted a question about the Intel 750 PCIe SSD a couple of days ago. I been looking at the Samsung SM951. It looks like it's better on a client desktop then the Intel 750 PCIe SSD. Would any recommend the SM951 over the Intel 750 PCIe. I know if I get the SMP951 I would need to get PCIe x4 card since my motherboard doesn't have a PCIe M2 slot. I mainly use my desktop for gaming and working with VMs for my work. I initial thought I would be using my desktop for work but that's no longer the case. Thanks for any advice.

David

I have a
Intel 17 4790K
Gigabyte Z97 Gaming GT motherboard
2x GTX 980 SLI
32 GB DDR3 1800Mhz

AFAIK With a Z97 and the i7 4790k, you have a maximum of 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0.

Your nvidia cards require a minimum of 8 lanes each for SLI. You won't have any lanes to give to samsung sm951 as a result.

Since I bought a i7 5820k with 28 lanes, my GTX 780 is down to 8 lanes because with two slots occupied my motherboard split the lanes as 8 & 8 since 16 and 16 was not possible. I wish instead of auto-splitting the lanes my motherboard gave me the option to custom allocate the bandwidth per slot.

If you hang the SM951 off the slots serviced by the DMI 2.0 bus then you'll run into bandwidth limitations as well.

 

[Laststop311]

Intel without a doubt.

Samsung hasn't demonstrated they have solved their hardware problems, why take the added risk if you don't have to?

their hardware problem stemmed from the use of TLC nand. TLC is more complex and something samsung did when writing the firmware did not work with TLC properly. Since the sm951 uses MLC it should be as rock solid stable as the 840 pro as it's the same nand that is used in that device.

A site did a SSD torture test and the samsung 840 pro was the last drive left standing after about 2PB of writes.

Also I have personally had a 512GB 840 pro since the first month it was released and it has worked with flying colors. Just as fast as the day I installed it. I'm waiting for Samsung 1TB ultra m2 drives with nvme and V-nand before i upgrade and I will be happy as a clam with my 840 pro till that happens and samsung's have good resell value.

 

[redzo]

Samsung hasn't demonstrated they have solved their hardware problems, why take the added risk if you don't have to?

I think that it would be stupid to argue all day long about this.
Intel had that power bug with older consumer drives.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/26...tel-acknowledges-bug-causes-ssds-to-fail.html

But it was nastier than samsung's as you'd get that data loss bonus. While you may argue that intel handled the issue better than samsung, don't forget that the bug itself was by far more severe than samsung's read speed degrade bug. When you loose customer data due to a bug: that's the nightmare of every storage device manufacturer.

Any new product out there, coming from any new or old company has to prove itself worthy as far as reliability is concerned after at least a few months of customer "torture". The same goes for this two drives.

 

[Phynaz]

The Intel issue was what, four years ago? Samsung's is still ongoing today. They are selling defective product right now.

 

[Phynaz]

A site did a SSD torture test and the samsung 840 pro was the last drive left standing after about 2PB of writes.

Also I have personally had a 512GB 840 pro since the first month it was released and it has worked with flying colors. Just as fast as the day I installed it. I'm waiting for Samsung 1TB ultra m2 drives with nvme and V-nand before i upgrade and I will be happy as a clam with my 840 pro till that happens and samsung's have good resell value.

First you make the mistake of equating endurance with reliability, then you use a sample size of 1 to prove reliability.

Buy all the Samsung drives you want, just don't tell other people to buy them.

 

[Makaveli]

First you make the mistake of equating endurance with reliability, then you use a sample size of 1 to prove reliability.

Buy all the Samsung drives you want, just don't tell other people to buy them.

A sample size of one is totally useless but how does one gauge reliability in a storage drive when you have enough samples.