Samsung Xp941 M 2 Pcie Ssd

Samsung XP941 256GB Ultra M.two PCIe SSD Review

The rush is on for Haswell-E and X99 boards. Most of them back up PCIe x4 lanes for M.2 loftier speed storage. It's what you lot need to take advantage of them.

Published Sep 2, 2014 11:38 AM CDT | Updated Tue, November 3 2020 6:59 PM CST

11 infinitesimal read fourth dimension

Introduction & Specifications, Pricing and Availability

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By the time you read this, the initial Intel X99 motherboard and Haswell-E processor reviews should exist online. Before X99, a small number of products supported the G.2 interface, and even less support the PCIe x4 option. With X99 that changes, most all of the X99 motherboards we've laid eyes on back up PCIe x4.

The Yard.2 class factor supports both SATA and PCIe SSDs, but only PCIe based SSDs take advantage of the extended performance range over SATA Three. At this fourth dimension, in that location are only two products available on the market that meet both criteria, M.ii and PCIe. Those products are the Plextor M6e, a PCIe two.0 x2 SSD and the Samsung XP941, a PCIe ii.0 x4 SSD.

The fastest production of the two is the Samsung XP941 and that'south the model you desire. The Plextor M6e is a prissy product and you tin can buy it with a M.2 to PCIe adapter in the box, merely since both price about the aforementioned, your money is better spent on the Samsung drive.

Early on, using the Samsung XP941 required some hoops to bound through to go information technology to boot. Those issues revolved around using the device on older chipset motherboards that didn't accept full reward of UEFI. Virtually all of the big proper name motherboard manufacturers have updated BIOS information and it's now possible to get XP941 to boot on well-nigh Z87 and Z97 motherboards. X99 should exist the starting time chipset to have null issues equally the norm.

Specifications, Pricing and Availability

Today, nosotros're looking at the Samsung XP941 256GB, one of three capacity sizes offered by Samsung. We've already tested the 512GB and the 128GB models, all provided to u.s. by RamCity.

The XP941 256GB has a sequential read speed of 1080 MB/due south and a sequential write speed of 800 MB/south. This is a pregnant step up from the functioning of the 128GB model, but only a fleck shy of the big 512GB XP941 model. Random operation on the XP941 256GB comes out to 120,000 read and sixty,000 write.

To get that level of performance, Samsung tapped a new 3-cadre controller and paired it with Low Ability DDR2 DRAM and 19nm Toggle MLC NAND wink. The UAX controller is a PCIe to SATA bridge that operates on PCIe ii.0 in either x2 or x4 style. To get the well-nigh out of your XP941, you lot demand to use an x4 slot, but using an x2 (10Gb/s) slot will only reduce the sequential read past lxxx MB/south and have little or no effect on the sequential write speed.

RamCity has all three capacity sizes in stock and ready to transport. Customers outside of Australia don't pay the Australian taxes. Without the tax, the prices come out to $129 (128GB), $249 (256GB) and $488 (512GB). Today, we're looking at the 256GB model at $249. The price falls into my 'less than 300 per component' sweet spot. It's notwithstanding close to $1 per GB and around $49 more than an 850 Pro 256GB. That said, the XP941 256GB is faster than the 850 Pro, and surpasses the limits of SATA Three.

The XP941 products from RamCity ship with a three year warranty.

Samsung XP941 256GB Ultra M.2 PCIe SSD

The XP941 uses the Yard-Primal, the notch on the connector. PCIe x2 and SATA based M.2 drives use the B-Central, a notch on the other side of the connector.

There is non a lot happening on the back side of the XP941 256GB. Most of the power regulation circuits are on this side.

Hither we run into the Samsung UAX controller and the Samsung LPDDR2 package.

Simply two NAND flash packages make upward the 256GB chapters size. Each package is 128GB in density.

Test Organisation Setup and ATTO Baseline Performance

Desktop Examination System

Lenovo W530 - Mobile Workstation

We employ two systems for SSD testing. The desktop runs a bulk of the tests, and the Lenovo W530 runs the notebook power tests as well as the real-globe file transfer benchmark.

ATTO - Baseline Performance

Version and / or Patch Used: two.34

ATTO shows the XP941 256GB could use some optimizations to balance performance, simply overall, the functioning is high beyond the board.

The sequential read speed came out at just over 1064 MB/s. That's nearly twice what you tin look from a good SATA III SSD. The sequential write performance is nearly 860 MB/s. Again, well over what's possible with SATA III.

Benchmarks - Sequential Performance

Hard disk Tune Pro - Sequential Performance

Version and / or Patch Used: 4.55

At this time, at that place are merely two products on the market using PCIe based M.2. Later in the year that volition change when Marvell releases a PCIe 2.0 x4 controller code named Altaplus, but for now, the Marvell PCIe 2.0 x2 and the Samsung XP941 PCIe ii.0 x4 are the just game in town.

The Samsung XP941 is conspicuously the functioning leader in the PCIe M.2 category, with the 512GB model being the fastest. The 256GB model we're focusing on today isn't much slower, and when it comes to reading data, all three XP941 drives are very fast.

Writing data is where we see the largest separation betwixt the three XP941 capacity sizes. The 512GB model delivered an average sequential write speed of 738 MB/s and the 256GB model averaged 707.3 MB/s in our examination using 64KB blocks. The 128GB XP941 merely managed to write 450 MB/s in this test. That's on par with the fastest SATA III SSDs on the market today.

HD Tach - Sequential Write Functioning after Random Writes

Version and / or Patch Used: 3.0.4.0

Later running the XP941 256GB through a reasonable number of random and sequential write tests to button the drive by FOB state, we ran HD Tach. In this test, we utilise 128KB sequential data to see the performance roll off with garbage collection working.

The XP941 retains the high read performance nosotros saw in the previous test, merely the drive drops to effectually 500 MB/due south sequential write speed. After the drive writes 50% of the capacity all at the same time, the sequential write speed drops downward to just over 100 MB/s. It's rare for anyone to write over 100 GB of information in i sitting as fast as possible, but this is what happens when you do.

Benchmarks - Anvil Storage Utilities

Anvil Storage Utilities

Version and / or Patch Used: RC6

So what is Anvil Storage Utilities? First of all, information technology's a storage benchmark for SSDs and HDDs where you lot can check and monitor your performance. The Standard Storage Criterion performs a serial of tests; you can run a full test or just the read or the write test, or you tin can run a unmarried exam, i.e. 4k QD16.

Anvil Storage Utilities is non officially available yet, merely we've been playing with the beta for several months now. The writer, Anvil on several international forums, has been updating the software steadily and is adding new features every couple of months.

We can use Anvil several different means to prove different aspects for each bulldoze. We've chosen to apply this software to show the functioning of a drive with 2 different data sets. The commencement is with compressible data and the second data set is incompressible data. Several users have requested this information in our SSD reviews.

0-Fill Compressible Data

Incompressible Data

The XP941 doesn't lose performance going from compressible to incompressible data. This ways you volition not lose write speed when working with audio, video or highly compressed files in RAR and ZIP packages.

Depression Queue Depth Read IOPS

Surprisingly, the 256GB model delivered the highest QD1 4K IOPS performance. The difference between all 3 XP941 drives is quite small and I incertitude anyone would actually observe.

High Queue Depth Read IOPS

At high queue depths, the 3 XP941 drives all fall into place by the capacity size. It should be noted that all 3 XP941 drives manage to outperform the best SATA 3 drives at high QD. The 256GB model turns in 125K IOPS and the best SATA III drives all stop at roughly 100K.

Low Queue Depth Write IOPS

Random data writes is where we see the largest distinction between the iii XP941 drives. All iii drives hit roughly 32K random IOPS at QD1. The 128GB model starts to coil off at QD2, delivering just over 41K IOPS, while the two larger models hit 54K and 56K. The 256GB XP941 starts rolling off around 57K at QD4, but the large 512GB model keeps going to 78K at QD4.

High Queue Depth Write IOPS

By the time we get to QD8, most of the XP941 drives have reached or nearly reached the wall. The 256GB model gets up to 64K IOPS at QD8, and so starts to coil back due to latency, every bit the commands stack up.

Benchmarks - Mixed Read / Write Workloads

Mixed Read / Write Workloads

In this series of tests, we measure mixed workload operation. Nosotros start with 100% read and and then add data writes to the mix until we get to 100% writes, in x% increments. We believe this volition be the next major area SSD manufactures will address afterwards performance consistency.

Mixed Workload Bandwidth

At this time, all of the consumer M.2 PCIe drives employ the AHCI command set. AHCI is just one-half-duplex, so the drive can merely read or write at i time, but not both at the same fourth dimension. NVMe SSDs are full duplex and will exist able to read and write at the same time.

80% Read / 20% Write Bandwidth

For consumer workloads, nosotros utilise the 80% read / 20% write point to mensurate performance. Oddly enough, the 256GB model is a bit slower than the 128GB when we measure at 80/twenty. We ran both drives through the test 3 times and got the aforementioned results each fourth dimension.

Random Mixed IO

In this exam, we use random data in a fifty/fifty workload. Here you can see the 256GB XP941 outperforming the 128GB model. Also, until now, the 512GB model was only a fiddling faster than the 256GB XP941, merely in this test, the 512GB model is quite a bit faster.

Benchmarks - PCMark Vantage - Drives with Data Testing

PCMark Vantage - Drives with Data Testing

For a complete breakdown on the Drives with Data Testing please read this article. You will be able to perform this test at home with the files provided in the article - full instructions are included.

- Cursory Methodology

SSDs perform differently when used for a period of time and when data is already present on the drive. The purpose of the Drives with Data testing is to show how a bulldoze performs in these 'dirty' states. SSDs also need time to recover, either with TRIM or onboard garbage collection methods.

Drives with Data Testing - 25%, fifty%, 75% Full States and Dirty / Empty Test

Files needed for lx (64GB), 120 (128GB), 240 (256GB)

60GB Fill - 15GB, 30GB, 45GB

120GB Fill - 30GB, 60GB, 90GB

240GB Fill - 60GB, 120GB, 160GB

Empty but Dirty - a test run only later on the fill tests and shows if a drive needs time to recover or if performance is instantly restored.

One of the reasons why I like testing solid state drives so much over other products is because they are complicated parts. In i area, a drive may test faster than another, but in a unlike situation, it could exist slower.

In this test, we put data on the drives and run each through PCMark Vantage. Drives apply DRAM to enshroud the location of the information, kind of similar a map. The DRAM is a unlike size on each capacity size drive. Some companies actually employ the aforementioned DRAM size on the 512GB and 1TB models. This means the 1TB drives are actually a niggling slower since the table data that isn't cached in the DRAM has to be read from the slower NAND flash. At the aforementioned time, smaller capacity drives have smaller maps, more of the map information is actually held in the DRAM buffer.

With 50% of the drives filled with data, the XP941 128GB puts up a higher performance number in PCMark Vantage's HDD examination. The smaller chapters size needs less garbage collection time to shuffle the data around. I suspect if we were to use more than three minutes between each test, the numbers would piece of work out differently.

PCMark 8 Consistency Test

Futuremark PCMark 8 Extended - Consistency Exam

Version and / or Patch Used: 2.0.228

Heavy Usage Model:

FutureMark's PCMark viii allows u.s.a. to wear the test drive down to a reasonable consumer steady land and so watch the bulldoze recover on its ain through garbage collection. To do that, the bulldoze gets pushed down to steady land with random writes and then idle time between a number of tests allows the bulldoze to recover.

Precondition Phase:

1. Write to the drive sequentially through up to the reported capacity with random data.

ii. Write the drive through a 2d time (to take intendance of overprovisioning).

Degradation Phase:

1. Run writes of random size between eight*512 and 2048*512 bytes on random offsets for 10 minutes.

ii. Run functioning test (one laissez passer only).

three. Echo 1 and two for 8 times, and on each pass increase the duration of random writes by 5 minutes.

Steady land Phase:

1. Run writes of random size between 8*512 and 2048*512 bytes on random offsets for 50 minutes.

2. Run operation test (i laissez passer only).

iii. Repeat ane and 2 for 5 times.

Recovery Phase:

1. Idle for v minutes.

2. Run functioning exam (one pass only).

three. Repeat 1 and 2 for 5 times.

Storage Bandwidth

PCMark viii's Consistency test provides a ton of data output that nosotros apply to judge a drive's functioning. Here we meet the 3 states of operation for the select SSDs, lite employ, consumer steady state and worst example.

Simply as the specifications bear witness, the XP941 drives rate in performance past the capacity size. The 128GB is slower than the 256GB and the 256GB is slower than the 512GB. PCMark 8 is one of the few tests that companies tin can't fool with optimizations.

Storage Bandwidth All Tests

Here we see all of the tests combined on 1 nautical chart. The XP941 256GB runs very close to the larger 512GB model through near of the tests.

PCMark eight Consistency Test - Continued

Total Access Fourth dimension

The admission time test measures the full latency across all 18 tests. This is one of, if non the most important exam we run at this time for consumer SSDs. When your latency is low your computer feels fast, information technology'southward but that elementary.

You'll notice we've added a handful of other PCIe drives that employ a RAID controller continued to a PCIe interface and more than i SSD. We see here that the native PCIe XP941 drives perform meliorate than the workstation products that practice really well in sequential workloads, but not also in real-globe, general computing workloads. The Plextor M6e has the highest latency of all of the drive in this test.

Disk Busy Time

In the final test, we measure the corporeality of time the bulldoze worked to read and write the data to complete the exam. When a drive is active, information technology uses more than power so the faster it tin consummate the tasks the faster it can autumn into a depression power state.

There are just a few notebooks that can utilise a PCIe 1000.2 SSD, but we suspect that will alter over the next year. Disk Busy Time is one of the tests we utilize to understand battery life functioning changes with unlike SSDs. The sooner a drive tin complete a job, the faster it can return to a lower power state. The XP941 256GB and 512GB complete the tasks very fast and should be able to drop to lower power states quickly.

Concluding Thoughts

In a perfect world, we would all already take a system with the fastest processor, the fastest and most characteristic rich chipset and the all-time solid state drive. In a perfect world, you would take an XP941 512GB. Not anybody has that opportunity and sometimes we take to make compromises. If you aren't quite set up to spend nearly $500 on a XP941 512GB, then the 256GB drive at $249 is a expert option for you.

Not long agone, we tested the 128GB XP941 and weren't sold on its balance of operation, capacity, and price. Before that, nosotros tested the 512GB model, and brutal off our seat from everything but the price. The XP941 512GB is the fastest client SSD you tin put in your calculator, so the toll can be higher than other SSDs, because it's a premium product. The XP941 256GB is nearly every bit fast as the larger model, but costs significantly less. The capacity size is cut in half, but for some, 256GB is plenty for the operating system and the programs required in a serious workstation. About of us don't build workstations for work so throw a bunch of games on information technology to run every in one case in a while.

That'south really the perfect arrangement for the XP941 256GB. You have enough capacity for your operating organisation, your serious work programs and space to work data with. Gamers and enthusiasts can still use the 256GB model for a few games, simply not an entire Steam collection on the drive. This isn't a limitation exclusive to the XP941, we all prioritize with SSDs, but the functioning and user experience make up for the tradeoffs.

If an X99 system is in your future, then you desire to take full advantage of everything the new platform has to offering. The XP941 is the only SSD on the market right now that turns the flash up to x4. If the 512GB model is out of your budget, then the 256GB is your next best option.

We want to thank RamCity for supplying us with the XP941 SSDs.