Samsung 960 PRO M.2 1TB NVMe SSD review - Introduction

Samsung 960 Pro 1 terabyte M.2 NVMe SSD
Going from fast to very furious

In this review we test the new M.2 and extremely fast Samsung 960 PRO Series M.2 SSDs with all new Polaris based controller. These new M.2 units can now be purchased in volume sizes up-to 2TB and use the nvm express (NVME) 1.2 protocol which is even faster anno 2016. Storage technology is advancing hyper fast paces while remaining competitive in pricing. Yes, you read that right, it is based on a Samsung Polaris controller, not to be confused with anything from AMD, of course. Samsung actually releases 48-layer MLC and 3-bit per cell TLC NAND based model in the respective 960 Pro and Evo models.

Today we will focus on the Pro model, we have a 1TB version for testing. Samsung is to release the new 960 PRO model in capacities of 512 GB, 1 TB and seriously nice two Terabyte volume sizes. Performance wise you'll get a smile on your face, it these units are tagged with sequential transfer rates of over 3500 MB/s reads, with up to 2100 MB/s writes; up-to 440,000 IOPS 4K random-read, and up to 330,000 IOPS 4K random-write.

• Samsung SSD 960 PRO 2TB  - MZ-V6P2T0BW
• Samsung SSD 960 PRO 1TB - MZ-V6P1T0BW 
• Samsung SSD 960 PRO 512GB- MZ-V6P512BW

The 960 Pro is available in an  M.2 (NGFF-2280) form factor. These units obviously will require PCI-Express 3.0 with x4  lanes as the SSDs are using the latest iteration of the NVMe protocol. The 960 PRO delivers peak sequential read and write transfer speeds of 3,500 MB/s and 2,100 MB/s, respectively, and random read and write IOPS of up to 440,000 and 360,000. The Samsung 960 PRO promises heaps of endurance, depending on volume site 1.2 petabytes written (PBW), for the 2TB capacity, half that for the 1 TB version and again half of that for the 512MB model. The Pro series will receive a five year warranty. We are not reviewing the EVO today, but the 960 EVO is available in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities and offer sequential read and write speeds of up-to 3,200 MB/s and 1,900 MB/s respectively. The 960 EVO comes with a three-year limited warranty and up to 400 terabytes written (TBW), whichever occurs first, for the 1TB capacity version.

These new M.2 units use the NVMe protocol and that means storage technology at hyper fast speeds while remaining competitive in pricing. Samsung will shock and awe you a little with these puppies as the 1024 GB model we test today is capable of passing that 3GB/s marker for reads and 2100 MB/second sequential  writes. The Samsung 960 PRO SSD is Samsung’s second generation consumer-ready Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) M.2 form factor SSD with vertical NAND (V-NAND) technology (48 layers/128 Gb & stacked). Storage technology keeps advancing at the fast pace it does, the performance numbers a good SSD offers these days are simply excellent as you can reach say 450 MB/s to 500 MB/sec on SATA3 which is the norm for a single controller based SSD. Next to that, over the past year, NAND flash memory (the storage memory used inside an SSD) has become much cheaper as well. 
  

 
Samsung’s new 960 PRO M.2 product line is powered by the company’s new Polaris controller, which we think might be based of the older UBX one. The unit follows a smaller M.2 2280 form factor so it will fit on most ATX motherboards capable of M.2 just fine (or just use a PCI-Express daughter card but make sure you have x4 Gen 3.0 lanes available for it). IOPS numbers are now passing the 400K for read and 300K for writes marker (depends on volume size). At just one-tenth the weight of a traditional 2.5-inch SSD, the M.2 SSDs are ideal for users looking to upgrade their desktop or ultra-thin PCs with high-capacity, high-performance storage.

Remember, you do need a modern motherboard with capable NVMe supported M.2 (PCIe x4 connected) interface though, please do check out your motherboard manufacturer for that. But ever since Z97/Z170 and most last gen X99 chipsets have been released, the mainstream to high-end class motherboards almost all support the M.2. interface with NVMe protocol.

Yeah, have a peek, and then let's head on-wards into this review.

Samsung 960 Pro Series SSD with MLC V-NAND M.2  NVMe