Discussion Mixing multiple Samsung NVMe models and the impacts of using propriety and generic drives simultaneously

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I have multiple systems with multiple models of Samsung NVMe drives including 970 Evo, 970 Evo Plus, 970 Pro and I've just purchased a 980 Pro.
My production system has all of the 970 models installed and I will be replacing the 970 Pro 1TB with a 980 Pro 2TB.
I went looking for an updated driver for the 980 pro only to discover that no such driver exists. The use of the Microsoft driver, which is often understood to be under-performing, is the only option.

Certainly, when doing a search I found that random IOPs in all tests on 980 Pro models using the Microsoft standard driver is somewhat lower than 970 Evo Plus models using the Samsung propriety driver.

I'm wondering if a system using 3 different models of drives, the 970 models using the Samsung Driver, and the 980 using the Microsoft driver will even work.?

Has anyone tested this?
Has anyone come across any difficulties in mixing various models?

I have a dedicated test system which is very similar to my production PC, so I will spend the next week or so doing various tests and will provide those results here, but if anyone has any guidance or advice regarding this situation I'd welcome the feedback.
 
I have multiple systems with multiple models of Samsung NVMe drives including 970 Evo, 970 Evo Plus, 970 Pro and I've just purchased a 980 Pro.
My production system has all of the 970 models installed and I will be replacing the 970 Pro 1TB with a 980 Pro 2TB.
I went looking for an updated driver for the 980 pro only to discover that no such driver exists. The use of the Microsoft driver, which is often understood to be under-performing, is the only option.

Certainly, when doing a search I found that random IOPs in all tests on 980 Pro models using the Microsoft standard driver is somewhat lower than 970 Evo Plus models using the Samsung propriety driver.

I'm wondering if a system using 3 different models of drives, the 970 models using the Samsung Driver, and the 980 using the Microsoft driver will even work.?

Has anyone tested this?
Has anyone come across any difficulties in mixing various models?

I have a dedicated test system which is very similar to my production PC, so I will spend the next week or so doing various tests and will provide those results here, but if anyone has any guidance or advice regarding this situation I'd welcome the feedback.

Are you trying to run them in RAID? If not, there is no issue. Each drive will perform separately.
 
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I have multiple systems with multiple models of Samsung NVMe drives including 970 Evo, 970 Evo Plus, 970 Pro and I've just purchased a 980 Pro.
My production system has all of the 970 models installed and I will be replacing the 970 Pro 1TB with a 980 Pro 2TB.
I went looking for an updated driver for the 980 pro only to discover that no such driver exists. The use of the Microsoft driver, which is often understood to be under-performing, is the only option.

Certainly, when doing a search I found that random IOPs in all tests on 980 Pro models using the Microsoft standard driver is somewhat lower than 970 Evo Plus models using the Samsung propriety driver.

I'm wondering if a system using 3 different models of drives, the 970 models using the Samsung Driver, and the 980 using the Microsoft driver will even work.?

Has anyone tested this?
Has anyone come across any difficulties in mixing various models?

I have a dedicated test system which is very similar to my production PC, so I will spend the next week or so doing various tests and will provide those results here, but if anyone has any guidance or advice regarding this situation I'd welcome the feedback.
Past Samsung 960 series no special driver is needed or exists or is a must for W10 and 11 that are up to date.
Initial performance of each drive depends on a port it's installed in but data transfer between them depends on slower one.
 
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The Samsung driver 3.3 I have was updated for the 970 Evo Plus. 3.2 for the 970 Evo and so on.

I always put my boot drive on the port connected to the CPU (Which is where the 980 Pro will go). But given there is only one port connected to the CPU and the others are via the chipset I expect there will be a performance difference.

Certainly some reviews I've read showed substantially lower random IOPs for the 980 with the Windows drivers vs the 970 Evo Plus on the Samsung driver. If I can find the posts I saw I'll link to them.

I'm going to test all 3 drives on Windows drivers, and rotate all drives through the the different ports to see the differences. Then I'll add the NVMe driver and repeat the same set of tests.

That should keep me busy for a while :)

I also read somewhere that installing a 980 Pro on a system with the NVMe drivers bricked the boot on that PC... Again, if I can find the article I'll link it.