Samsung M.2 upgrade

[adjudicator1]

Hi, I'm looking to add more storage space and want to upgrade my Samsung EVO M.2 256 gb to 512 gbs. A quick search shows that Samsung also carries the SM950 and PM951 series. This has me all confused now. Can someone recommend the best M.2 in the 512 gb range? My MB is an ASUS Z170 D3 and E6500. Thanks in advance.

 

[Eximo]

Going to assume an i5-6500 as an E6500 would be a much older dual core.

Samsung 950 Pro is probably what you are after, much faster then the Evo. Though nothing wrong with just getting the larger Evo. Most people can't reach the speeds those drives are capable of on a daily basis.

Samsung's other offerings are intended for OEMs, but a few stores carry them. I think the 961 just came out? Basically the same top speed as the 950 Pro, but soon available in a 1TB format?

 

[Mr Kagouris]

The main contenders are the 950 Pro and the SM951. They have reasonably similar performance without a clear winner, so I'm not sure what the difference between them is.

 

[Eximo]

Yes the 961 will soon be available as a 1TB M.2 drive, it is the eventual replacement for the 951 which still uses Planar memory if I recall while the EVO and 950 Pro use the 3D memory.

 

[adjudicator1]

Yes, you are right, it is an i5 6500. So the SM961 is out now and it appears to be close to the 950 Pro. It appears then that the SM961 would be superior than the EVO. I'm checking the SM961 as it appears to be the latest incarnation. Hopefully its worth the investment.

 

[Esenbek]

I was using PM951 512gb version, read speed was 1600mb, write 800mb I bought it for $170, this was actually more than enough for my needs, one huge minus it gets crazy stupid HOT under the load.
Switched to PRO 950, temps are lower, way lower, read speed 2600mb write speed 1700mb, crazy fast, but not really noticeable in real world.
Keep in mind, performance somehow gets slower once you fill it with information, idk why though

Not sure about SM version, I don't think it worth getting 512 gb version, just invest into the normal SSD with higher capacity, you can get 1tb SSD for just $200, while 512gb costs around $310 and will not last long

 

[adjudicator1]

I started to feel like a bigger SSD is a better investment.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

Depends on your needs really. If you're just gaming the NVMe SSDs won't really be useful to you. They're mostly useful to professionals with high end systems as scratch disks, because you can actually get to the point where your hardware is so good that project exports and such are limited even by a regular SSD, so 3-4 times the sequential writes becomes useful.

 

[Esenbek]

I started to feel like a bigger SSD is a better investment.

yeah, like he said, fast ssds are for pros where they need to render video, edit photos very fast, for gaming and every day use normal SSD is more than enough, in your case I would just invest into the bigger capacity ssd, 256 gb m.2 pro is a great ssd for your OS and few other applications