new system - M.2 SSD question

rajc

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i am building a new System. i play 0 games. what i need is fast compiling and stock/futures trading machine.


i am going to buy one of the x99 boards but i am leaning towards ASrock X99 Extreme6 or Gigabyte GIGABYTE GA-X99-GAMING G1 WIFI. but i can go for Asus X99-DELUXE.


nonetheless, for fast and future proofing, i am wanting to buy M.2 SSD. i have been reading up here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-xp941-z97-pci-express,3826-5.html

questions:
1. they keep saying that "Then the XP941 jumps up a notch by peaking in excess of 1000 MB/s when we drop it onto ASRock's CPU-attached Ultra M.2 four-lane slot."

if i buy one of the above mentioned MOBOs with M.2. will i be able to take advantage of speed that this drive provides?

2. if i get the drive will i be able to hook up at least 4 27in screens with 2560 x 1440 resolution while assuring the GPUs run at PCI Express 2.0 16 ? how many GPUs will run at that rate?

3. on the last page (page 9) the article says "...NVMe won't make it into Intel's driver until the Rapid Storage Technology 3.7 release...".

now does that mean if and when its released i would be able to take advantage of it via some software / bios update?

4. here is the drive i found newegg. is this the same drive that is mentioned in the article? because the legend in the article says "Samsung XP941 M.2 Pcie Gen 3 x 4" however the spec on new egg says gen2. but read speed is at 1080MBs. while article seems to show speed above 12MBs.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147366


sorry i am hardware noob.

 
Solution
The Samsung XP941 M.2 NGFF PCIe 2.0 x4 is a small format PCIe ssd that requires four PCIe 2.0 channels for maximum performance. All of the other M.2 ssd's are either PCIe 2.0 x2 (2 channel operation) or SATA 3 6Gb/s. Currently the XP941 is the world's fastest consumer oriented ssd providing it is connected to a motherboard that can support it with 4 PCIe 2.0 channels.

There are no Z87 motherboards that can properly support the XP941.

There are only three or four Z97 motherboards that can properly support the XP941 and allow the XP941 to function as a boot drive. Two of the boards are the ASRock Z97 Extreme6 and the ASRock Z97 Extreme9. The other two are Asus boards but I can't remember which models.

The situation with the new X99...
The Samsung XP941 M.2 NGFF PCIe 2.0 x4 is a small format PCIe ssd that requires four PCIe 2.0 channels for maximum performance. All of the other M.2 ssd's are either PCIe 2.0 x2 (2 channel operation) or SATA 3 6Gb/s. Currently the XP941 is the world's fastest consumer oriented ssd providing it is connected to a motherboard that can support it with 4 PCIe 2.0 channels.

There are no Z87 motherboards that can properly support the XP941.

There are only three or four Z97 motherboards that can properly support the XP941 and allow the XP941 to function as a boot drive. Two of the boards are the ASRock Z97 Extreme6 and the ASRock Z97 Extreme9. The other two are Asus boards but I can't remember which models.

The situation with the new X99 motherboards is a little better. There are a few more X99 motherboards that can fully support the XP941 but the majority of boards still only use M.2 connectors with two PCIe 2.0 channels.

One of the biggest problems is trying to determine which motherboards support the XP941. Most motherboard descriptions are incomplete. They do not distinguish between M.2 PCIe 2.0 x4, M.2 PCIe 2.0 x2, and M.2 SATA 3 6Gb/s. There are a few exceptions. ASROCK calls an M.2 PCIe 2.0 x4 connection "Ultra M.2" and an M.2 PCIe 2.0 x2 connection as plain "M.2". Some of the other motherboards are listed as "M.2 10Gb/s" which is PCIe 2.0 x2 and M.2 32Gb/s which is PCIe 2.0 x4. Unfortunately a lot of the motherboard descriptions only list "M.2" and it is a royal pain trying to find out which ones actually use 4 PCIe channels.

Your question about graphic cards is out of date and a little confusing. Modern graphic cards use PCIe 3.0 x16 slots on a motherboard. Did you mean you wanted to operate four monitors with four graphic cards or did you mean something else? It can be done with just one graphic card. For example, AMD's EyeFinity-enabled graphic cards support up to six DisplayPort-enabled displays. Here is an example of a graphic card that works with 6 monitors:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129274&cm_re=eyefinity-_-14-129-274-_-Product

NVMe mode will be replacing ACHI mode in a motherboard's system BIOS. I do not know if BIOS updates will be available for current motherboards that don't have it. The new Samsung SP951 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 ssd will be released in about six months will be one of the first ssd's to use it.

I had the ASRock Z97 Extreme 6 motherboard and a Samsung XP941. I was able to configure the XP941 as the primary boot drive and install Microsoft Windows Pro 64bit from a an installation disk. It can also be installed from a USB flash drive. Unfortunately, there were problems of a different type:

1. The motherboard had a defective Intel Ethernet Connection adapter. That meant no internet connection. It had nothing to do with the XP941.

2. The XP941 is strictly an OEM ssd that was not meant for retail sales. It was never meant for desktop pc's. The XP941 was designed for use in small mobile computers like tablets. The XP941 has been in mass production and distribution for well over a year. Samsung has lucrative contracts to supply OEM versions to companies like Dell, Lenovo, Apple, and other "off the shelf brands".

3. The Samsung SSD Magician utility will not work with the XP941 because the ssd is not a retail version. That means all of the ssd and OS optimizations have to be done manually.

4. If the XP941 is installed in a desktop pc, then it is not being used for its intended purpose. The ssd cannot be registered with Samsung and there is no Samsung warranty. I know because I tried. Technically the few vendors that are selling them to consumers are selling them as replacements. At the other extreme, if a consumer purchases a tablet with an XP941 and the ssd goes bad, the tablet warranty includes the ssd. A warranty claim would be submitted to the tablet company instead of Samsung.

There is no future proofing right now because of additional changes coming. New standards were adopted last year and we are just now beginning to see the changes in new products. The biggest change was the adoption last year of the new SATA 3.2 standard. It signaled the beginning of the migration from SATA 3 and mSATA ssd's to PCIe and M.2 ssd's.

I maintain the ssd database listed in a sticky at the very top of this forum section. Here is the link:

http://www.johnnylucky.org/data-storage/ssd-database.html

Scroll down to the Samsung section and follow the links to the technical reviews of the XP941.
 
Solution

biocentrism

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for posterity...I would stay away from an M.2 SSD for now. i have a Samsung xp941 installed on a native M.2 slot on an Asus X99-Deluxe and have 50% SLOWER write times than to a SATA SSD and HDD! have read elsewhere about possible problems and conflicts with other system components at askubuntu.com but i haven't a clue what they are talking about.

would like to hear anyone elses real-world experience with the Samsung XP941 M.2 SSD.
 

biocentrism

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for posterity...it turns out it seems that the Samsung xp941 is working fine. the reason for the much slower run times is due to the fact that the SSD is very slow when writing very small packets of data, say under 4K. it only starts to outperform non-M.2 SSDs for data writes >20K and really shines for data writes >32K (these are rough numbers). for the data I work with, the packets are very small. but if you are moving around even moderately sized packets of data then the M.2 should be better. and probably, for very large files it will be great.

so is probably a great drive to have as your boot drive. I probably wouldn't recommend it for database work as it is prohibitively too slow. just stick with a SATA SSD.

hope someone finds this helpful.
 

PwrBOSS302

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Just curious what you think... I just ordered the X99 Deluxe MB and the I-7 5930 CPU for my new PC build. I also ordered a Plextor 256 GB M.2 PCI-E SSD. I was planning on using that as my boot drive since I'm a photographer and I transfer large quantities of photos (RAW format - CR2 = more MBs) to my PC. I also purchased 2 480GB SSD to use as data storage and I already have a 4TB USB 3 external WD storage Book as well. I just wondered if I should still use the M.2 SSD as the boot drive?
 

biocentrism

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I do not have experience with the Plextor M.2, but as for the Samsung M.2 it makes a great boot drive. There have been issues with the Samsung not waking if the computer goes into sleep mode, so I don't let it go into sleep just screen saver. Not sure if there are any issues with the Plextor as the boot drive. I would Google it to see if others have had any problems.

But in general as far as the M.2 technology goes, it makes a great boot drive. Very fast boot and shutdown times. This is one area where the drive excels.
 

PwrBOSS302

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Thanks for the input. That pretty well solidified my decision on that issue. I hope to start building by the end of the week since several components haven't arrived yet.
 

Cynic1025

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I am actually running a Samsung XP941 M.2 as my current boot drive with Windows 8.1 and I must say I am VERY impressed with its perfomance thus far. Boot times are anywhere from 5-7 seconds from cold boot and that is everything loaded at the desktop ready to launch applications. It was kind of tricky at first getting it setup but was well worth the trouble in my opinion. Got to setup a flash drive using UEFI though and boot to it but was able to install windows 8.1 in about 5 mins with using USB 3.0 Flash Drive. Also I am using an Asrock Extreme6 Z97 Motherboard and I have it in the Ultra M.2 getting PCI-E Gen3 x4 speeds. Also for anyone interested I do have a GTX 970 in my PCI-E x16 slot but have not noticed any performance drops while using the Ultra M.2 because I actually have dropped to x8 with losing 4 PCI-E lanes. Would highly recommend if you have the capabilities to run this at its full potential. Also I have not experienced any problems with coming out of sleep mode with this drive but will update if anything happens I really can't say anything bad about this drive just wish I would have opted for the bigger 512GB one only have 128GB at the moment.
 

PwrBOSS302

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That's good to know. I haven't begun to build yet as all the components haven't arrived. I ordered 2 ASUS GTX 970 mostly due the price and reviews.
 
17 Feb 2015 - UPDATE:

This morning Tom's Hardware published a technical review of the Lenovo OEM version of the Samsung SP951 M.2 3.0 x 4 ssd:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-sm951-m.2-pcie-ssd,4045.html

Four items of interest:

1. The article confirms that NVME support is delayed until the latter part of the year.

2. The author "suggests" Samsung might release another M.2 3.0x4 ssd later in the year. It "might" be one with NVME support and Samsung's new 3D V-nand flash memory.

3. Intel will be releasing their own M.2 ssd in the not too distant future.

4. There have been several press releases indicating more companies will offering M.2 ssd's later this year.

I have added SP951 to the ssd database. Here is the link:

http://www.johnnylucky.org/data-storage/ssd-database.html