The side opposite of the connectors sports an M key notch to denote PCIe x4 and SATA compatibility. This displays various information pertaining to the drive, including the model number and certifications. The front side of the drive comes with a sticker, which partially covers the NAND chips. As a result, users must take care in transporting the device. It looks virtually identical to its brethren, lacking any casing, which leaves its components exposed and vulnerable to damage. Samsung SM951-NVMe M.2 SSD is much smaller 2.5 inch SSD and offers a thickness of under 4mm. Support up to 16K Queue entries for each I/I Queue.Compliant with NVMe Express Specification Rev.1.1a.Compliant with PCIe Base Specification Rev.3.0.PCIe Gen3 8Gb/s Interface up to 4 lanes.Random Read: Up to 300K IOPS (All capacities).Samsung SM951-NVMe M.2 SSD Specifications We will be looking at the 256GB unit for this review.
The Samsung SM951-NVMe comes in capacities of 512GB, 256GB, and 128GB. As a result, the overall power consumption SM951-NVMe is significantly reduced to under 2mW. Like its AHCI-based equivalent, the SM951-NVMe uses the L1.2 low-power standby mode, allowing all high-speed circuits to be turned off when the host computer is in sleep mode or in hibernation.
This tiny SSD will likely be a huge boost in performance in any scenario for anyone looking to upgrade their ultra-slim notebooks or PCs with an M.2 slot. Even though SM951-NVMe packs a huge haymaker in the performance column, the drive’s thickness is roughly 3.73 millimeters when equipping chips on both sides of the board and weighs less than 7 grams. Both models are equipped with Samsung’s UBX 3-Core controller technology. Looking at its random read operations specifications, Samsung indicates that the SM951-NVMe can process 300,000 IOPS, which is more than twice the speed of the 130,000 IOPS rate of the PCIe version. These figures are slightly better than the PCIe 3.0 version, which touted a maximum of 2,150MB/s read and 1,500MB/s read for the 512GB model. As such, looking at its potential performance, the new SM951-NVMe is quoted to reach sequential data read and write speeds up to 2,260MB/s and 1,600MB/s, respectively. Samsung also has indicated that it will be incorporating its 3D V-NAND technology into the SM951-NVMe sometime in the future, which will further increase the drive’s density as well as help it to boast even better performance.īecause Samsung’s new drive uses the NVMe protocol, it brings various performance improvements. With this new highly-anticipated NVMe edition, Samsung is adding a powerful and welcomed drive to its quality SSD portfolio all the while reinforcing its dominance in the flash memory market.
Samsung has been offering an AHCI-based PCIe 3.0 version of its SM951 line for several months now.
Samsung also has indicated that it will be incorporating its 3D V-NAND technology into the SM951-NVMe sometime in the future, which will further increase the drive’s density as well as help it to boast even better performance.ĭesigned for ultra-slim notebook PCs and workstations, the Samsung SM951-NVMe is the industry’s first M.2 NVMe PCIe to hit the market. Samsung has been offering an AHCI-based PCIe 3.0 version of its SM951 line for several months now. Designed for ultra-slim notebook PCs and workstations, the Samsung SM951-NVMe is the industry’s first M.2 NVMe PCIe to hit the market.