Alienware 17R3 and M.2 ports with Samsung 950 Pro report

Greetings everyone. There were a few threads with questions about the M.2 slots as well as what the best/fastest SSDs to plug into them would be and I promised to post my results once the got my Pro 950s I preordered.

Well I'm happy to save the drives are working well and I think I know what the ports support. I plugged two 512GB drives into each of the slots. Unfortunately there is no way to stripe them at the bios level and in fact the bios (A02) doesn't even see the drives at all. However, using a UEFI windows boot disk I was able to install windows onto the drives so it seems they are bootable. (although I had another small 2.5" SSD already installed and it might be using that as the boot manager I haven't checked yet)

Once windows was installed I tried running AS SSD with pretty disappointing performance. I check for drivers and found Samsung has special drivers available for the 950 Pros. I also installed Samsung Magician while I was at it, and while missing support for some of it's features, Magician does recognize the drives. It also provided some nice details (see screenshots below). It looks like M.2 has 4 channels, while the other only has 2. Benchmarking them again with the drivers gave much better results and seems to confirm that one drive doesn't have full bandwidth.

Overall though its working great and despite one drive being slightly gimped I think I'll be keeping both drives in the laptop.

Boot drive. Notice link width is 4 of 4


Storage drive. Notice link width is 2 of 4


Boot drive performance


Storage drive performance. Oddly the sequential read is a lot slower and the write is somewhat slower, yet because the 4k's were slightly faster it got a higher overall score. Also note that the Boot drive had windows running on it simultaneously which is why I expect the 4k's and read access were slower.


If anyone has any questions let me know.

 

Too bad my Alienware 15 R1 doesn't have an M.2 with a PCIE interface.
Otherwise, would have bought it too.

 

Thanks for the report, Avalon. I'm afraid I'm more confused than ever.

I can see that one of the 950 cards is reporting that it's using x2 lanes vs x4 max. Is this a hardware limitation because of card position (slot1 vs slot 2), a logical limitation because of card priority or some other factor, or is it simply a temporary lane assignment for some PCIe reason?

What would the results be if you switched the cards between slots?

And is the Samsung magician now doing ram caching that somehow factors into this?

 

hi, my 17r3 have a PM951 on slot 1, I booked the 950Pro, when it comes, I connect to the slot1 to get the maximum performance and the PM951 slot2 I move on?

Tnx
Ciao

 

Hi, but in the packaging is a screw to secure it to the pc.

Tnx

Ciao

 

I also got the 950 Pro, and it works great. Removed the HDD, and installed the SSD. Ended up doing a clean install of Windows 10, and manually installed all the drivers.

As noted above, make sure you install the Samsung 950 pro driver, else you won't get good performance.

 

Other thing, you need a M2 screw, but make sure the head is large. I ended up taking a screw from my other alienware, and using it.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience with the community. I'm sure some users might find this very useful. Saving for my personal file of recommended readings haha. :thumbsup:

 

Thank you very much, while I downloaded it, then when I get the 950Pro, configure for well 17R3.

ciao

 

i am considering doing this to my new 17 (2 950's in raid) once i buy mine.... but im not as tinkering proficient .... would be nice to see a vid or walkthrough....seems easy enough but that also usually is my downfall....

im also going to put in 32gb ram over the 16gb ram....and probably switch out the hard drive for a 850 pro 2TB SSD....getting the graphics amp with the titan x...but was thinking about an EVGA hydro copper version... thoughts?

anyone can point me to what i need to do?
I saw that HIDevolution will do it all for me if i buy from them... worth it? i dont really know that company

 

n00b here, how fast is program opening, saving stuff, browsing, photoshoppin' on the 950 pro versus a typical ssd like the 850 evo?, not talking about raw numbers but about more about perception. Could u tell which pc is using the 950 and the 850 if they were side to side opening regular programs? (aka: not editing 4k video for instance).

 

Glad to find out these drives work. I ended up ordering an Alienware 17 R3 and decided to save a couple hundred bucks with getting a 950 pro. So is Alienware ever going to support these or are they trying to force us to user their SSD's?

 

I assume the bandwidth of the pcie m.2 slots is the same on the AW 15 R2. Quick question to original poster the images you uploaded arent loading for me can you tell me what the read/write performance is on each 950 pro drive? If 1 drive is only running at pci gen 3 x2 I would assume it is getting throttled to around 2gb/s read speed "a single PCIe 3.0 lane, at 8GT/s, can send 985MB/s." Is this the case you found for the drive running at x2? Also does utilizing both M.2 slots at PCIe speeds effect the graphics amplifier PCIe bandwidth in anyway? Also please check out the new Bios for the 15 R2 and 17 R3 supposedly it fully supports 950 pro and displays properly in bios now.

 

Sorry for starting this and then abandoning it. Some reason I wasn't setup to get email notifications.
So a few points based off the comments.

Yes you will need screws. I was able to find some existing screw from an older laptop that I could salvage.

Also sorry, but you won't be able to get hardware raid working with these drives, at least not right now. The bios settings doesn't see the drives so you can't set them up in raid. I'm also not sure the chipset can support nvme in raid even if the bios is updated. I've only heard of x99 desktop motherboards supporting nvme raid. And that is the third problem with raid, you want the drives to read and write at the same speed, but I'm pretty sure there arn't enough PCI express lanes available, so one drive will have more lanes than the other and will run slower.
So in conclusion you might want to wait for the 1tb SSD coming out next year rather than getting two 512s or a single 512 instead of two 128s.

As for installation, it is a little tricky. I made a fresh install windows on the new drive and didn't even try cloning it from the original drive. I'm also not sure if you can use the serial that came on it, as I used a serial from a computer this is replacing. But I assume you can copy the serial out of the default install. Because the bios didn't see the drives I wasn't sure I could boot to it, so I left the original drive in to hold the MBR. I used made a uefi usb installer and the windows installer could see the drive and it installed no problem. After installing it was essentially dual booting to either the original or new install but I edited the MBR to only have the new install. There might be easier or better ways of working this, but it worked for me. If anyone is trying and gets stuck feel free to message me (assuming I get email notifications on that!) and I'll do my best to help.

And finally, in case anyone couldn't see the screen captures, the 4 channel drive gets 2003.08/s sequential and the 2 channel drive gets 1262.42. I haven't verified which slot is faster than the other but I expect it is the furthest slot that is full speed and the middle slot next to the 2.5 drive slot that is only 2 channel.

 

Hi to all, yesterday I got the 950 pro, works 100% putting the 1st slot (2,041 MB/s read 1,534 MB/s write)
The problem is that I can not clone the PM951 on the 950Pro, you can clone the hd? bios do not see it.
thank you

 

Even with latest bios?



Bottom right one is SATA 2.5" Liteon 512GB SSD.

Other photos are a combination of two PCIE 512GB SM951 AHCI M.2 SSD's.

 

Sorry for the delay in responding Chris. I wrote in another thread, I will post here as well so if you are subscribed, you can read it:

You will see absolutely ZERO difference in fsck-all-anything if you have $100 SSD or $900 SSD. In IT, latest and greatest is mostly a gimmick done for morons with lots of money. If you were using a mechanical drive, a PM951/950PRO, being SSDs, will make a real difference. If you have already been using an SSD, a 950 will make no difference in nothing. I have both 950PRO (2500 MBps) and Crucial MX200 (600 MBps), exact clones of each other. Benchmarks sure look great, but I cannot tell which one is plugged in and I have server VMs running inside these drives. I use MX200 SATA SSD (it supports hardware encryption) and 950 Pro is just in a cupboard.

 

Some people told me it you'd only see a difference in 4k video production where very large files are being written but other than that they are overkill.

 

Thanks for sharing. Has anyone played around with 2 M.2 NVMe drives in the AW15 R2? I'd assume the findings of this post apply (no RAID, one slot gimped)...

 

yes, last bios, but when I enter the bios I see this





but everything works smoothly, expect a new bios, maybe things system

Ciao

 

I am new to ALienware and M.2. I have a new 17r3 with a 1Tb spinning drive . I would like to install the latest and greatest M.2 in it. It sounds like I wont be able to use Acronis or any software to clone ONTO my new M.2 correct?
I will need to do afresh install of windows but not from my recovery partition, correct?
What are your suggestion on choosing a drive from one of these two, or perhaps YOU have a favorite that is proven to work, Thanks for any input.

1.
https://jet.com/product/256GB-SAMSU...CIE-M2-512MB/772b01180cc94dc0b7e5cea30ca89a9d

2..
https://jet.com/product/SAMSUNG-SM9...te-Drive-SSD/a4ac023652824b0bb281c718e7f1ee0e

 

I'd take the 950 Pro without doubt.

Acronis would work in theory, the first attempts have failed to clone the PM951 (PCIe SSD Boot) on 950Pro bios did not see him.
I then did a full bck of PM951 on HD (ssd evo 850 on bay 2.5 ") created a USB key to boot from acronis using the" Rescue Media Builder "and selecting" WinPE with Acronis Plug-in " with the usb key boot I did the recovery.

I hope I explained myself.

Ciao

 

Thanks, Good Info, I will be in that situation soon. My 17R3 should arrive on my doorstep Monday, I will use the 1tb boot drive until my 950 pro arrives. It will have the 6700HQ cpu, do you know if I will be able to overclock it?
I should have gotten the HK but $1,380 was more than I wanted to spend anyway. Maybe in the future i can get an HK cheaper.

 

I cloned my AW15 R2 system drive onto the 950 pro using Macrium reflect. Pretty straightforward. I didn't switch to AHCI mode. Benchmark results in RAID mode are fantastic (around 2.5 GB/s seq. read), so not sure the reinstall to get the Samsung driver to work is worth a bother.

 

Excellent info, I will look for "Macrium reflect". When you said "I didn't switch to AHCI mode." are you talking in the bios? If so what setting did you use, RAID? I'm talking blind because I haven't received my 17R3 yet, it should arrive 1/4/2016
Thanks!

 

Yes, talking about BIOS: left it on the initial RAID setting. I'm trying to change to the AHCI mode without reinstalling to see if there is any further perf benefit

 

OK, so switching to AHCI and the Samsung NVMe driver was simple: just booted to safe mode and installed the Samsung driver. I posted the perf results here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-worthy-replacement-for-aw15-r2.786065/page-2

Basically matched a high-end Clevo machine, but with lower temps.

 

Interesting to see that my AW15 outperformed the single drive performance by a good margin:

 

Before re-installing IRST, downloaded from the page of Dell drivers::

Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver
Serial-ATA_Driver_H7N90_WN32_14.6.1.1030_A01

Restart and put on RAID in BIOS instead of AHCI


Now I see everything



I still have this weird thing, but it all works without problems


Hello

 

So you are trying to RAID the 950 Pro and the PM951 together?

 

No, I only have to change settings in the BIOS, the two PCIe are not in the raid, the 950pro is Boot, the pm951 is the secondary disk

Ciao

 

@etern4l

Your benchmarks on the AW 15 R2 with the Samsung 950 pro. Were they done before or after installing the Samsung Magician NVMe drivers?

The reason I ask is that I just bought an AW 15 R2 Skylake notebook and have been trying to determine whether the motherboard really supports PCIe x4 or not. The AW 15 R2 does have two M.2 connectors inside, however the M.2 can be either PCIe x4 or SATA III (or both) depending on how the motherboard is designed. In a call to Dell Tech Support I was told that their M.2 ports were not PCIe x4 but were Sata III.

The high speeds seen with the 950 Pro (2200+ seq read) can be realized over a SATA III m.2 using the Samsung Magician NVMe drivers. These drivers cache the SSD in unused RAM.

To determine whether you are really usiing PCIe from your notebook would require you disabling/removing the Samsung Magician software to see what the actual benchmark speed is without the driver because it caches your SSD in unused RAM. The Magician software can fool the benchmark and make the 950 Pro look like its getting the full speed because you are actually loading files from unused RAM acting as a cache for the 950 Pro when using the Magician driver.

I don't know whether I can believe the Tech from Dell as to whether the M.2 ports support PCIe or not. He says only SATA III. Do I believe him?

I can get a 512 Gb Samsung Evo M.2 SATA III SSD for half the price of a 950 Pro 512 Gb. Don't want to pay the 950 Pro price if my M.2 only supports SATA III because you aren't getting the full potential of the SSD through a M.2 supporting only SATA.

To add more confusion, I noted that Dell's website specs on the AW 15 R2 prior to the holidays did not specifically say that the M.2 was PCIe, but just a couple days ago it does now. So which is it?

The fact is, reviewing the pinout for an M.2 connector, you can see that it can do either SATA or PCIe, but which it does depends on whether the mother board routes the SSD data over the PCIe lanes on the connector or on the two SATA lines. Dell's specs aren't specific or detailed enough to tell, and I've not had good experience that their tech support are that knowledgeable on the hardware design.

In addition to motherboard design, your chipset must support PCIe. My AW 15 R2 has the Intel 100 series/C230 chipset and according to Intel's data sheet it is capable of PCIe Gen 1, Gen 2 and Gen 3. But the third thing is that the BIOS must also support data transfers by PCIe, so for true PCIe support, you have to have the motherboard, BIOS, and chipset all supporting it. Can't seem to find out from Dell whether all three support it or not.

The only other way I know to confirm is to just bite the bullet and buy a 950 pro and test it myself without the Samsung Magician software driver to see if I really get the 2200+ seq. reads with a 950 Pro.

If the AW 15 R2 Skylake doesn't really do true PCIe, then a 950 Pro is a waste of money since you can get nearly the same performance as 950 Pro with an Evo SATA III when using the Samsung Magician software since it caches the SSD in unused RAM.

 

One M.2 slot is x4, the other is x2. Benchmark results are with the x4 slot. Samsung magician caching option you were refering to were disabled. I actually obtained similar results in RAID mode. There is no question on whether the lane is x4.

 

Hello, I can only answer for my new AW17.

Slot M.2 has only 2
I put a 950Pro (boot) on slot 1 and goes on X4 X4
I then PM951 on slot 2 and goes to X2 on X4


ciao

 

Your post is confusing "Slot M.2 has only 2" and then you go I put a 950Pro (boot) on slot 1 and goes on X4 X4?
so which one it is 2 or 4 for 950pro?

I tried to install 950 pro 256 in my Alienware 17 R3 and failed to do it. I used Samsung migration to cloned drives but then got no bootable device detected error and other errors later. Never got it working and load windows.

Do you have any installation steps that i could use for my alienware? Could you share them here?

 

someone have a video of his booting speed with the samsung 950 pro ???
my 850evo let me start with 8-9 seconds

 

according to this tomshardware.com article, it says
"Don’t count out its OEM cousin, the SM951-NVMe. Look for the model with the lowest price when shopping for the best deal."
Is that to say they are identical except for the labeling?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

 

new aw17 have only 2 slots M.2
photo


in bios, you set raid or ahci?

for cloning the 950Pro, try looking at this link ,then if you still have any doubt write

ciao

 

This detail concerning X4 on X4

950Pro max performance X4 on X4



PM951 X2 on X4


ciao

 

Hi,

I tried to use ahci, I think otherwise alienware did not see 950 pro. So you installed clean windows 10 right? Where did you get windows key from for that?

 

if I configure the bios AHCI do not see 950 Pro (the bios)
if I put RAID, I see (in bios)
both with and ahci raid, win10 works without problems.

However, if imposed RAID, samsung magician does not make me see properly 950pro and I can not install
"Samsung NVMe Driver Installer"
and AIDA64 can not monitor the 950Pro (speed, temperature, etc ...) because it does not see it properly.

I just cloned the PM951 of 950Pro, no problems (except the bios)

ciao

 

Lucky you, I cloned my HDD and got error, no bottable drive found or something like that.

 

you're sure to have cloned all the partitions? even those that they are hidden?
these:


Ciao

 

Are you using reflect?

 

I Acronis 2016, and Symantec System Recovery 2013 R2 (I think works best)

ciao

 

AND? You use both to clone your drive?
Have you had bad results with Reflect?
Thank you for your input!

 

Reflect have not used it because I had the other two.

Reflect have not used it because I had the other two.


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Ciao

 

Interesting...if this holds to be true then it looks like we could save some change.....

Did you end up ordering any particular one?

 

I don't think it was mentioned in this thread (skimmed it) about raiding the two m.2 drives together for even faster speeds. Since one of the slots is 2 channel instead of 4, I'm curious how fast the speeds are if two drives are combined. Can it even be done?

 

it can be done but the benefit seems to be only in terms of write rather than read throughout. Search posts by @komoornik