How to install and set up your Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD [17" R3]

Is there any way without re reinstallation of changes in the bios drives with Raid on the AHCI?

 

Yes I would like to know this too. Mine is stuck in RAID now.

 

I remember this being mentioned somewhere...let me try and find the post.

Update: Glad you've found the solution.

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The solution was simple.
Enter safe mode.
Install the drivers Samsung NVM and running

 

The solution was simple.
Enter safe mode.
Install the drivers Samsung NVM and running

 

Got it running now. Finally the full benefits of the drive installed.

 

Has anyone tried any thermal pads for the 950 pros in the 17r3? I have a pair of 512GB 950Pros and the C: drive stays at 75-77C and the D: drive about 64C. Thanks

 

What could be the cause of poor performance storage disk drive C :? Reading level 2500 / mbs a write level 750mbs?:-(

I tried to driverach samsung and nothing, I have a second drive on the second port M.2 so fried and there read and write at the level of 1500 / mbs ....

 

In another thread that got buried,I tested some high end thermal pads on the 950 pro and temps did drop up to 10 degrees. But those were seriously expensive pads and I don't recommend buying unless you're using them on video card first and left overs on the 950 pro.

 

Insufficient write on the disk 950 Pro is the responsibility of temperature .. if the temperature jumps over 60C this write drops to 500-600mb / s.
Needless to think about the improved passive cooling.

 

I'm having some trouble trying to set my SSD to be the boot drive. I have an Alienware 15 with a 1 TB HDD and a 240 GB MyDigitalSSD. The OS is originally installed on the HDD, but I'd like to have the SSD be the boot drive. Now, I managed to clone the OS to the SSD but anytime I go into my Bios, the SSD shows up under "Second HDD" for some reason; shouldn't it fall under the m2 ssd part? I want to have the HDD just be a storage drive and I've tried changing to Legacy and it's currently set to AHCI. Do I need to set it to RAID for this to work? There's probably something I'm not doing right about this :x.

 

I don't seem to be getting anywhere near the speeds i should be.

My write speeds especially are slow, are there any common things to check, i have the latest bios from alienwares website, i have the legacy rom disabled in the bios and the latest driver for the freefall sensor.

My speeds are below (its the 256GB version)

 

Read looks good, write seems a little slow. Did you install it into the left or right slot? Left slot is full speed, right slot has limitations.

 

Left slot, shows as full 4x speed in Samsung magician.

I think however the throttling is kicking in, i re-ran the test again after laptop has been off a while as my second sequential test was higher as were write speeds but still not what was advertised.

 

Remove the HDD and let it start only from the SSD first. Erase the old HDD in a different pc or use an external usb to sata connector to hook it up while in windows to format it there. As long if the bios reads a bootsector on the HDD that is created earlier than the one on the SSD it will boot from there.

 

Hi, i got a samsung SM951 m.2 256. I would like to ask how to install the SSD physically? The alienware 15 has only m.2 NGFF B type slot. While SM951 is an M type. I searched everywhere for the converter, but found none. Please help. Thanks

 

Is there any advantage to the 950 pro compared to the 840 pro? I know the 840 pro is a 2.5" drive but if the 950 pro is faster, then I would rather stick to that and make the 840 pro a slave drive.

Planning on running windows 10 pro.

 

To be honest, as fast as the 950 pro performs in benchmarks, I don't really feel any big difference vs using your standard 2.5 ssd. It's not loading stuff drastically faster, and yes I am getting the reported max speeds that everybody else is getting in their tests. Although, since the 2.5 slot has really large capacity options, I would use that slot for data/storage and use the nvme slot for boot and programs. (That's just how I like to organize my set up)

 

Ditto....well said.

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Ok thanks guys, got my new 17 R3, where is the cd key for windows 10 pro? Or is it already in the bios and there is no need to enter key manually?

 

Congrats! Welcome aboard the Mothership.

The key is stored in your BIOS.

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Thank you, repped.

Any point in installing a fresh copy of windows as opposed to cloning the previous hard drive? I don't see a whole load of bloatware on the laptop as of now.

 

IMO, I'd always do a fresh install.

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I installed windows on 850 pro and have the strangest error. After installation of windows 10, when the laptop restarts, it says not boot device found. If I manually select hard drive from boot options, it boots up fine. Really dont know how to solve this.

 

Go into BIOS and check your boot order. You may need to disable some that do not need to be "active," and/or disable secure boot.

 

Didn't think I was going to fight the AW17R3 on installing the 950 Pro. It refuses to install Windows 10 but now I've got it going. Windows 10 was pretty glitchy when I got it earlier this week. Now I need to hunt down a M2x3 for the second SSD. Storage for VM and backups. Now I need to finish the install of Windows and add the 850 Evo I have for game storage and junk.

 

Glad you got it figured out. The 950 pro is a beast. Rock solid.

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I had Windows installed and running in about 10 minutes, I'm blown away. Installing drivers now. Is there any special driver for the 950 Pro I would need or software? Also, do I leave SATA on ACHI or do I go ahead and change back to RAID. I don't plan on running a RAID right now. I still have to install the 1TB 850 EVO.

 

IMO and with the opinion of others on here, it's best to NOT run the magician software and/or any software for that matter. Just install the Samsung drivers, but that's it. I get a solid 2500 Read / 1500 Write.

Also, keep it on ACHI and you'll be golden.

When you get a chance run a CrystalDisk bench if you would...that'd be great!

 

Is it possible to use adapter of nvMe to be used in the alienware 15 R1?
I have 2 pcs samsung SM951 256GB and cannot use it at all due to different type of m.2 key

 

iunlock, just trying to figure out a few things. I noticed I was getting really slow write speeds. If I tried to run the bench twice. First time, I was hitting 2.5Gb and 1.5 Gb but after running the bench a second time, write speeds drop. I ran HWinfo to see what my temps where at and I noticed it throttling in the upper 70s. Starts to slow down when it touches 70c. I think I'll need some thermal pads. I noticed there was talk on that subject but I didn't read if anyone had any positive results. I still haven't found a screw for the second M.2 drive.

 

Hmm...70's sound a little high. I'd definitely go the thermal pad route. What you can do is sandwich the m.2 with thermal pads and make sure that the top and bottom layers touch. For the top (the one facing the lid cover) you can use a 1mm thermal pad and for the bottom you'll need to stack two 1mm pads. Make sure both the pads on both sides touch each other so that it can transfer the head to the copper plate on the bottom.

I know it's dumb how AW decided to position their m.2 as it should be the other away around (chip side facing the copper plate), but it is what it is eh...

This does work...I have it on one of my AW 17R3's and it does wonders...(ie..this is not a theory haha)

As for the m.2 screws....I'll PM you.

Update: I forgot to ask...do you have Samsung Magician software installed? Intel RAPID drivers installed? If so, delete the magician software and only download/install the Samsung NVME driver only. Not the magician, just the driver for the m.2. - It has been noted on here and other forums that having all the different software installed can actually conflict with each other causing it to heat up... I am running my m.2's just with the Samsung Driver installed and nothing else. I get 2.5/1.5 all day...back to back runs...and it stays very cool.

 

Could someone maybe show a picture of thermal pads on the ssd? I'd like to see how it is supposed to look before I attempt it.

 

Just lay it across the chip side, making sure the pad touches all the chips. It's just a strip that lays across the length of the m.2 ...

I may repaste soon so I'll take some pics when I do....But, I'm sure you'll find some faster by searching around...

 

Thanks, do I take it the stickers on the drive need to be taken off? Mine are both the oem drives (PM and SM 951) so they both have stickers on both sides.

 

I personally feel better about taking the sticker off so that the thermal pads are making bare contact with the chips, however, it'll likely void the warranty if you do so. I'd try it with the sticker on first and see how it works out as it should be just fine.

I have only removed the sticker on a 256GB m.2 for giggles, because I didn't really care about it....however, I have not removed any off of my Samsung 950 Pro's....

 

Can you post photos of your's when done please

 

How did you get a 1TB Samsung 950 Pro?? To my knowledge only 512GB is available... Do you have a link.?.

 

Ah I thought I changed that typo...it's the 1tb 850 Pro 2.5" ...

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Thought so; you had me googling and thinking google is stupid! LOL

 

Haha I would have done the same. I'm hoping the 1tb m.2 950 Pro's launch soon...my 512GB is filling up quick.

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I noticed a number of you raising concerns on performance drops when the 950 Pro's get hot...

Some of the best thermal pads you will ever put in your machine are ModRight Ultra Extreme Thermal Pads that I used in my AW18 beast... Just ordered another sheet for the 17R3 as I plan to do a re-paste next month; they are NOT cheap, but your mind will be blown (literally) when you see just how effective these pads are!!

Here is a link to the one I just ordered: LINK 1

Another link for anyone interested in a larger variety/smaller quantity: LINK 2

If anyone else knows of a better performing thermal pad-please share what you use.?. I don't mean cheaper solutions; I mean better performing solutions.

Cheers!

 

These are the thermal pads I have recently bought. 7W/mk in 1mm or 0.5mm (not as high thermally as ModRight but a fraction of the price at $8.5 / $9 a strip). Put the ASIN into Amazon search to find them. I'm going to build up a layer underneath the SSD's so that the heat pads are in contact with the copper heat pipe. I also have purchased a 2mm solid copper plate and will be replacing the SSD/Memory cover plate with it, I will then add thermal pads to the top of the SSD's to make contact with the copper cover plate. That should keep the SSD's very cool at a fraction of the cost of those ModRight heat pads.

1 of Phobya thermal pad XT 7W/mk 1mm [ASIN: B0051C287K]
1 of Phobya 19099 Thermal Pad XT 7W/mk 0,5mm [ASIN: B0051C2L1S]

 

Is there any way in windows to see the temps of the SSD?

 

In my 17r3, 950 Pro has extremely low random IOPS in Windows 10 (40k for both read and write. Sequential speed is fine.)
The exact same machine does not suffer from this problem under Ubuntu.
I tried both Samsung and Microsoft stock driver, and Microsoft's driver gave an even lower IOPS.

Any ideas?

 

EDIT: remove duplicate post.

 

Hi ccsasuke,

Is it in AHCI mode? Have you tried setting the BIOS to the default settings? Have you tried the Intel RST driver?

 

Hi Thanks for the reply!
Yes it is in AHCI mode. I was forced to switch to AHCI long ago due to some problems with the default RAID settings which I don't remember now.. (Maybe related to the fact that I have two SSD (950 pro + stock PM951) installed? Sorry but I forgot what problem I encountered when using RAID..)
And yes Intel RST driver is installed.

I don't want to bother with re-installing the OS just for fixing this. So is it possible to switch back to RAID in BIOS without reinstalling the OS? Or at least, would it be a problem if I switch to RAID and back to ACHI just to test out? I imagine the latter one won't ruin anything, right?

Thank you.

 

Hi ccsasuke,

I wouldn't try RAID unless you have a RAID setup, it's more likely to make things worse.

I would go for the BIOS default settings first, as another post on here said that fixed speed issues for someone else.

Then use the Samsung NVMe driver, I think you only need the Intel driver for RAID. The Samsung driver (from the Samsung site) has also fixed other people's speed issues. Check it's still the driver for the drive after a reboot in device manager.

 

Hi, if I recall correctly, RAID is the default setting in BIOS. (And the only other option is ACHI which is what I am currently on.)
I am now using Samsung drivers. Device manager also shows Samsung driver being used.
It is a weird problem since the exact same machine gave 220k random read IOPS on Linus vs. 40k on Windows 10...