• Happy holidays, folks! Thanks to each and every one of you for being part of the Tom's Hardware community!

Finally got the Samsung SM951 256GB M.2 SSD --- Faaaaaaast

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Sort by date Sort by votes
Yes, we've all been hearing & reading about those extraordinary benchmarks-reported speeds of that Samsung SM951 especially when installed in a PCI 3.0 x 4 slot.

What perplexes me in your post is that you indicate the OS "was loaded in about 4 1/2 minutes." Could you flesh that out? Are you indicating that it took about 4 1/2 minutes for the system to arrive at the Desktop following a power-on of the PC?

And could you provide your experience with the performance of that drive in day-to-day activities in comparison with possibly one or more other SSD's you've been using? Thanks.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


curious - what mobo are you using?
and did you have any issues installing windows as OS on it and which version of windows?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


From the time I clicked install to desktop it was about 4 1/2 minutes. Honestly since i was using the Xp941 earlier there isn't that much difference. I do notice things like my games I have on there, Steam games, EverQuest and ESO all pop up more quickly. :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Win 8.1 .. MOBO Asus x99 Rampage.

This loaded up perfectly with zero issues through the UEFI Bios. The Xp 941 gave me a few issues when I first got it, but this was like any other drive. I disconnected all my other SSD/HDD when I installed and it was the only available option to install and it went perfectly.

Heat wise it is much cooler than the XP 941 supposedly. I have a heatsink on it currently to help out.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Thanks - i just installed an xp941 and kinda wished i'd waited for the SM951 - i may still order one as i need to keep a cloned copy of my OS drive and suspect a clone won't work when cloned to a MBR partitioned SSD drive
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Honestly the difference between the xp 941 and the sm951 can only be seen if you have a PCIe 3.0 x4 or M.2 3.0 x4 slot to use them in. If you have a 2.0 x4 or 2.0 x2 slot you aren't going to see much difference between the two.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Just out of curiosity...why would you think the partitioning scheme would have any effect on the disk-cloning operation?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
first off, i really am a "Fred Flintstone" of computers, but i've had so many problems related to GPT partitioning vs MBR, that i assume there'll be some sort of "translaction", when it clones to the MBR drive and/or when it clones back or if i try to use the clone target drive as the primary drive


do you know it won't - please enlighten as i'd love to know i'm wrong and won't need to buy an SM951

bear in mind, just partitioning, or attempting to partition the GPT drive (ie create a "D" partition from one large "C" partition) caused it to BSOD so badly that it corrupted beyond being repairable with windows disk. 11-12 hours of re-installation of drivers, windows, programs, adjusting settings, activating accts, updating windows, gone in a blink
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


i swear i thought I responded your post - whatever, here goes again

thanks, hadn't considered that but you're right. I might still get a NVMe SM951 if i go with a 2nd PCI SSD for my backup drive, if for no other reason that i might upgrade my mobo
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


As a general proposition a clone is a clone is a clone. So at least in theory there shouldn't be any "manipulation" by the disk-cloning program of either the source or destination drive as a consequence of the disk-cloning operation.

Having said that, we all know from bitter personal experience that s*!@ sometimes happens and then all bets are off. This is another way of saying that it's conceivable that some disk-cloning programs may indeed have some effect on the partitioning scheme. I just don't know any and although I've worked somewhat with various disk-cloning programs I haven't come across that situation.

Except when I'm experimenting with this or that disk-cloning ("data migration") program my day-to-day program is the Casper program. I've been using this program for a fair number of years and for various reasons I've never found a disk-cloning program its equal. Unlike most of the other d-c programs it's not a freebie - costs $49.99, however there is a 15-day trial edition available at...https://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/trial/
The trial version is slightly crippled but will give you a good idea of the commercial version. You might want to take a look at it; I think you'll like this program (perhaps even enough to purchase it!)

While I was virtually certain there would be no problem with Casper cloning a GPT-partitioned disk, I did test it out before sending you this post. No problem whatsoever.

As I've indicated, other disk-cloning programs also may not have any problem either in this area. It would seem likely that would be so. It's just that I haven't had sufficient experience with them to offer a comment one way or another.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
i'd already cloned the xp941 to the my sammy sata SSD last night, did a complete wipe on it, then partitioned it GPT etc, and cloned the xp941

what i'm concerned about though, is that we won't know or i won't know it doesn't work until i need it and try to clone back to the xp941

went to boot from it a few minutes ago, and the first time it booted, but i noticed a number of "services" that i'd disabled in msconfig were "re-enabled" - went into msconfig, dis-abled again, rebooted to apply the changes, and it wouldn't load - oddly, where on the first boot it had not shown a "windows boot manager" as the xp 941 does, on the 2nd attempt it did - but would not boot regardless of which boot device i selected, either the samsung drive itself or it's "windows boot manager"

i think the only way is going to be to buy another drive, and try to clone from the cloned sata SSD and see if it can be used as a bootable drive.

It's either that, or keep an SSD set up as a MBR drive, and be constantly moving program updates (ie invoice, data files) over to their appropriate folders, so that in the event of a failure i could at least be backup running in short order, but then there would be the hours spent rebuilding or re-installing the xp941 which i do not relish

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
additionally, i posted both here and on the asus forums asking if a clone going from the xp941 to a sata connected SSD (also partitioned GPT) would be a useable clone and received no response on either forum - so i have to assume no one knows

i just went into Disk Management and noticed the difference in derscription of the "C" partition (OS partition on the xp941 and the "A" partition on the cloned sammy 810

shot%20of%20disk%20management_zpszi3x7ool.png


that difference causes me some hesitation but it could still be a useable clone
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
As best I can make out from the DM graphic you posted it appears that both the pertinent partitions of the source & destination drives contain the identical GBs of data, i.e., 122 GB. So what's the "difference" that troubles you?

And when "push comes to shove" can't you simply boot with the cloned drive and determine whether any problem relevant to the partition scheme arises?

BTW, what disk-cloning program are you using? Samsung's Data Migration?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


compare the details described for C in that box with the details described for the corresponding clone of that partition, "A" in it's box

and as i described earlier, the samsung 810 booted on the very first attempt, and on that attempt it was only listed once in BIOS as "P4 Samsung 810...."
then on subsequent attempts, it appeared with two entries, one as "UEFI P4 Samsung 810" and the second as "Windows Boot Manager", but would not boot from either listing - i've tried 4 times now.

on the Xp941, while it has two similiar listings, it will only boot when i select "windows boot manager"

having a known working clone for my business is critical, it's not something i can hope works.



 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I just ordered a M2 brace to put the XP941 in my Asus G751 laptop. Can't wait to see how that little puppy runs with the XP941.

The Samsung 951 is running perfectly and unbelievably fast. Most noticeable is the launch speed of many of the games and loading times between zones has reduced dramatically!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom