m.2 to PCIe adapter / heatsink for Samsung 950 Pro ssd

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honey2015

honey2015

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Oct 8, 2015
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as title say I would like to know which adapter to get, but quality one.

does Samsung Pro 950 require any special adapter?

and does adapters provide any data transfer reduction, or increase in latency? if does, than which one is best regarding that.

also, is heatsink needed? as we know, for SM951 is recommended. even if not needed, it would not hurt to have one and lower temperatures.

advices, names, links, tnx 😉
 
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Is the seller "shallothead" an Authorized Reseller? cuz if he's not, then you don't get the 5 year Warranty.

Also wanted to add that if you import it from another country, and he is authorized to sell and you get the warranty. The warranty is regional, not international. So if you import it from Australia, and you live in the US, and the drive fails for some reason, you will have to do the warranty with Samsung Australia.
 
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if you mean expansion card adaptor, they're fairly simple affairs, no drivers req'd etc
the addionics is the one i'm running and my xp941 is running at full specs (1180 MB/s read, 870 MB/s write).

http://www.addonics.com/products/adm2px4.php

The addionics can be had on amazon for $24 - $27 shipped - don't waste any money on any more expensive, plus a few of them, like the Lycom DT120 appears to be the exact same unit - prices have ranged as high as $54. For sure don't waste money on the ones with a heatsink - the reviews online, a number of them have noted how the "heatsink" has a gap between it and the ssd's controller - and it would have to with the card's mfgr allowing for various thickness PCIe SSDs

pictured below, with a 40x25mm fan mounted right over it - i suggest active cooling vs heat sink

IMG_1757_zpsx5lhrgkc.jpg
 
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The adapter cards are very simple pass-through cards so ssd performance is not affected. The cards serve no other function. Therefore the brand and model do not matter. You just need one that is designed for use with M.2 3.0 x 4 solid state drives and an appropriate PCIe 3.0 slot on your motherboard.

Samsung does not require or recommended use of a heatsink. Instead, Samsung recommends adequate airflow. The problem with attaching a heatsink is that the paper label attached to the ssd will have to be removed which voids the 5 year full factory warranty. For the 950 Pro Samsung has a thermal guard feature. We'll have to wait for tehnical reviews for more information.

Worldwide distribution and availability is as follows:

Europe - Middle of this month
Austrailia - Latter part of this month.
USA - Next month. ExcaliberPC estimates 5th of November. Microcenter only said next month.

Right now all vendors offering the Samsung 950 PRO are pre-order only, even the one you linked to at ebay.com.
 
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All the adapters that I have tested with the SM951 are useless. I have tried three different vendors Addonics, Lycom and Syba You get less than half the performance that you get with it installed in my X99-E WS motherboard. They do work great with the XP941 which I also have. Here are the results of my Crystal Disk Mark tests. Real live application testing the write performance is also bad.

http://ppbm5.com/SM951-PCIe-vs-MB-CDM-5.png


 
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Most adapter cards that I know of will give you terrible results. I have tried three different vendors cards with my SM951 and all reduce the performance to half of what I get on my X99-E WS with the onboard M.2 socket.
1. My first try was the Addonics ADM2PX4
2. Second was Lycom DT120
3. Third try was SYBA SY-PEX50073

It turns out that #1 and #2 are absolutely identical.
Here are the results of my testing with Crystal Disk.
SM951-PCIe-vs-MB-CDM-5.png


This shows the identical SM951 installed on the same X99 motherboard and with the Addonics in a PCIe slot. Do not get me wrong if you use an old XP941 you get great results.

NEW Test Results 11/7/2015
The above problem was caused by my specific model motherboard the ASUS X99-E-WS. There was an update to the BIOS awhile back that was listed for the Hyper Kit, the Hyper kit has nothing to do with the ASUS Hyper M.2 X4 adapter card, it is another M.2 card that converts that socket to a mini SAS adapter. ASUS Tech Support had me roll back to that BIOS which I did and it did not help and then I tried unsuccessfully each BIOS version after that. The end result with ASUS T. S. was they gave me an RMA to return the board. I was not happy with that solution and when I received my 950 PRO on Thursday I installed it on the motherboard connector and obtained the essentially same wonderful results that my SM951 got. But installing it in any one of the three adapter cards in got the same lousy results. While looking into the BIOS under the NVMe
heading I happened across the Hyper Kit enable button. Having nothing to loose I enabled it an IT WORKED!
I suspect was due to the complex nature of this motherboard due to the PCIe bus extenders that ASUS had to install to accomplish the 7 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slots.

 
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now you ruined my day with that info 😀

looks like it is capable to work with XP941 lesser bandwith, but can't cope with SM951 higher bandwith. obviously there is some serious restriction in that adapter cards.

my idea was to avoid using M.2 to avoid DMI 2.0, which I suppose to be restriction for S. Pro 950.

also, take a look at this review, in which they tested SM951 and adapter card, looks like they didn't run into same problem as you. link :

http://www.legitreviews.com/samsung-sm951-512gb-m-2-pcie-ssd-review_161689/3
 
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There is something strange.

You all claim that XP941 work great with adapter card and do 1180 MB/s read, 870 MB/s write.

Than how faster SM951 with same type of adapter cards can't even achieve XP941 speed, but it have even less speed?

Also, in that Legit Review testing, they used adapter card (Asus) and they didn't mention such problems (problem was about temperature, not adapter limiting speed).
 
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I just ordered a ASUS Hyper M.2 PCIe adapter to see if it works
 
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Bill-PPBM - There is a confirmed compatibility issue with the Asus X99-E WS server motherboard. It does not play nice with the Samsung SM951. Trying different adapter cards will not make any difference.

Check the Asus web site for any BIOS updates. Sometimes the updates improve compatibility. This is especially true for the NVMe version.

Check the Intel web site for any Intel X99 chipset updates. Sometimes the updates improve compatibility. This is especially true for the NVMe version.

BTW - The SYBA adapter card you mentioned is not PCIe 3.0 x 4. It is only PCIe 2.0 x 4.
 
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Would the 950 pro would work fine on the z170 deluxe ?
 
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Refugee47 - According to the Asus web page the Z170 Deluxe motherboard supports the newest M.2 NVMe solid state drives. However, we have no confirmation from technical reviews. The 950 Pro will not be available in the USA until next month so it is too early to tell.

Bill-PPBM - There is one more thing to check in the UEFI BIOS. Take a look and see if there is a BIOS section called "PCIe Configuration" or something similar. The section might list the motherboard's PCIe slots and show what they are being used for. You also might discover the PCIe slot for the ssd is set to "auto detect". Sometimes the auto detect feature does not work very well. You can usually select something different from a drop down menu. Unfortunately I am not familiar with Asus server motherboards so I can't be more precise.
 
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Thank you, I just checked and it is set to Auto, but the only other options are Gen 1 and Gen 2, no way to make sure it is Gen 3. Do you happen to know of any tool that will tell me actually what it is running at when I am using it?
 
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you're looking under PCI-E speed setting - and mine has the same, limited to "Auto", "GEN 1" & "GEN2". I set that to Gen 2

But under Advanced\Systems Agent Configuration\NB PCI-E Configuration, open that page and you'll find PCI-EX16_1 Link speed and there'll you'll find a Gen 3 setting option - set that one to Gen 3

Gen%203_zpsui1njhb9.jpg

 
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Thank you again for the good detective work on my BIOS. Yes, indeed I have a seven slot board an did indeed set slot 5 to Gen3, but it did not provide any change with any of the three adapters, but that my be a clue since as you pointed out the SYBA card is only a Gen2 card and it gives the same results as the "supposed" Gen3 cards. I sure wish I could find a test that shows the cards actual operating speed like GPU-Z does for graphics cards. Another interesting and confusing factor is that I started with th Lycom DT-120 which at the time had a XP941 installed and tested it and then installed and tested the SM951 and the XP941 had appreciably better results than the SM951.

I am scheduled to receive my Asus Hyper M.2 card next Monday
 
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Bill-PPBM

well i ordered one of those ASUS expansion cards saturday and received it yesterday (Monday) so the seller definitely ships fast - came from Indiana btw

but something honey2015 noticed, that the xp941 performed to spec on your cards while the sm951 didn't even perform to the xp941s specs - the more i think about that the more it points, as JohnnyLucky indicated, to your mobo or it's BIOS

i'll definitely be curious to see what results you show with the ASUS card when it arrives
 
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