How to install Samsung NVME drive on OEM drive (PM961)

[Ravipe]

Pretty straight forward guys. I have purchased Samsung PM961 256gb and although performance is not extremely terrible with Windows 10 x64 drivers still there's a lot room for improvement. Problem is, if you try to install for instance Samsung 950 Pro NVME driver it first detects if that drive is installed in the computer or not automatically cancelling the installation. Anyone in similar situation? Any ideas how to work around that? Or even to point best driver so far for OEM ssds from Samsung? Thank you all in advance!

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

think the PM961 is an OEM only SSD and not retail so all you get is the hardware and use the Windows 10 NVME drivers.
I too have the PM961 (256GB) (£83 bought from Novatech UK on 12th Nov 2016) and would like to compare my performance to another user here.
I downloaded Samsung Magician software which contains a Performance Benchmarking tool.
My PM961 scored 877MB/s Sequential Read, 755 MB/s Sequential Write, 156196 Random Read IOPS, 126623 Random Write IOPS.
This is massively under the advertised specs.
The Samsung tool does not think that the PM961 is a Samsung drive as the other features of the tool are disabled.

I also ran CrystalDiskMark 5.2.0 x64 with the following results.
Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 895.858 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 782.300 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 659.611 MB/s [161037.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 529.460 MB/s [129262.7 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 719.160 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 638.629 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 49.619 MB/s [ 12114.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 153.715 MB/s [ 37528.1 IOPS]

Date : 2016/10/15 17:08:20
OS : Windows 10 [10.0 Build 14393] (x64)

Comments welcome...
Thanks

 

[mtemtko]

think the PM961 is an OEM only SSD and not retail so all you get is the hardware and use the Windows 10 NVME drivers.
I too have the PM961 (256GB) (£83 bought from Novatech UK on 12th Nov 2016) and would like to compare my performance to another user here.
I downloaded Samsung Magician software which contains a Performance Benchmarking tool.
My PM961 scored 877MB/s Sequential Read, 755 MB/s Sequential Write, 156196 Random Read IOPS, 126623 Random Write IOPS.
This is massively under the advertised specs.
The Samsung tool does not think that the PM961 is a Samsung drive as the other features of the tool are disabled.

I also ran CrystalDiskMark 5.2.0 x64 with the following results.
Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 895.858 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 782.300 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 659.611 MB/s [161037.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 529.460 MB/s [129262.7 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 719.160 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 638.629 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 49.619 MB/s [ 12114.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 153.715 MB/s [ 37528.1 IOPS]

Date : 2016/10/15 17:08:20
OS : Windows 10 [10.0 Build 14393] (x64)

Comments welcome...
Thanks

http://puu.sh/rNjGO/f90707680a.png I have this kind of performance after turning off windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device (in device manager)

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

Thanks mtemtko. My sequential reads are way lower than yours.
Are you using the default Windows 10 NVMe drivers or have you found a SAMSUNG driver for the PM961 (If so, where can I get it) ?

 

[mtemtko]

Thanks mtemtko. My sequential reads are way lower than yours.
Are you using the default Windows 10 NVMe drivers or have you found a SAMSUNG driver for the PM961 (If so, where can I get it) ?

Nope, default drivers, can't install anything else

 

[Mento]

I also ran CrystalDiskMark 5.2.0 x64 with the following results.
Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 895.858 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 782.300 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 659.611 MB/s [161037.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 529.460 MB/s [129262.7 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 719.160 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 638.629 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 49.619 MB/s [ 12114.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 153.715 MB/s [ 37528.1 IOPS]

Date : 2016/10/15 17:08:20
OS : Windows 10 [10.0 Build 14393] (x64)
Thanks

My PM961 arrives tomorrow... (115€). I'll post Crystalmark results in this thread, but I don't expect a great difference with your results

Did you search for drivers on Lenovo or Dell XPS laptops support page?, there are a bunch of high end laptops with PM961 bundled... It's risky... It's desperate
EDIT: As I promissed yesterday, this is my performance for PM961

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 3459.558 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1433.369 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 440.751 MB/s [107605.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 388.335 MB/s [ 94808.3 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 2156.659 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 1428.041 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 47.979 MB/s [ 11713.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 165.415 MB/s [ 40384.5 IOPS]
Test : 1024 MiB [J: 0.1% (0.1/238.3 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
Date : 2016/11/09 16:27:09
OS : Windows 10 Enterprise N [10.0 Build 14393] (x64)