Samsung SM961 (OEM version of 960 Pro) $150 on Newegg

The Samsung SM961 1TB SSD is $150 on Newegg right now with free shipping and comes with 3 year warranty from the seller:
https://flash.newegg.com/product/9S...a97cf6836995d55b0INT&AID=10446076&PID=1225267


Considering it's effectively a 960 PRO MLC drive, I would buy this over the 970 EVO TLC drives as being a MLC drive it can sustain it's high write speeds in large transfers as it does not need a SLC cache.

Sold via MyDigitalDiscounts on Newegg, same guys who sell the MyDigital BPX and SBX drives.

 

Excellent SSD ... I've had great experiences with SM series MLC goodness....

I just picked up the 970 EVO Plus and that thing is monstrous as well...

Samsung TLC still has far better integrity than other el cheapo brands MLC .... I'd take a Sammy TLC over them any day.

It'd be fun to RAID two of the SM961's for fun.

 

The item is not available in my region. Only USA. Thank you for sharing.

 

Thepm 981 which is like the 970 is cheaper on ebay
I'm not sure what you like is better avout the 960 over the 970 but its not speed.

And neither of them are as fast or have the mtbf of the competitors at full price at the moment.

Hp 950ex or sabrent rocket

The speed youre describing of sustained writes is normally considered not important.

But if it is inportant the sabrent rocket series sold under several names is the fastest it has the fastest cpu

 

Just to play devil’s advocate, you say sustained writes aren’t important (Probably not for most home users), in that case how many people need 3GB/s sequential writes anyway or even notice the difference (most people don’t need that either)? It depends on a combination of workload and pricing.

As for controllers no they are not as good as the Samsung’s Polaris, though not bad by any means.

 

Is this the one you were speaking of:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/BRAND-NEW-...ALR-3D-M-2-PCIE-FAST-BLOWOUT-147/192897505129

 

Yes

And definitely the new cpu in the sabrent rocket blows the samsung cpu away but the samsung to be released next will leapfrog it

Don't take my word for it its just readily available googling the specs Nd speed if the two peices if hardware and its not close phison etc in mean it blows away thr 970ex or whatever which is faster than these two similar pm 961 pm 981
And its slower in reality than the sm in in the hp 950ex but it is faster ij sustained read and right speeds

As far as what matters to me? Read speed take one half second off boot its better.

Take 3 seconds off a large file transfer eh

An pm 981 is a 970 just so it won't be confused for a 980

I own one also I have a 1 tb pm 981 and a 2 tb. hp 950ex

And ill agree not a huge difference. Were looking at the end of the line for speed soon

But a hp 950 ex is 2 models ahead of a sam 970 and I can tell like the hp 920 was better too its like a 970 ex and a 980 will be similar to whats out now from competitors when it comes

 

Bit of topic on my part but here’s I go lol:

Just going even a good SATA drive to nVME boot times won’t be that different. Sequential isn’t the main determinant here.....
There have been enough tests showing that.... For god’s sake even the boot time between my 960 Pro and 850 Pro (I Dual boot) is negligible. Problem is people think sequential is everything when it comes to responsiveness, it’s not.


Here’s one test: Less than 1 sec (closer to 0.5 seconds) difference in boot time between 860 EVO and 970 EVO.... Infact an Optane drive with slower sequential speeds will be more responsive and boot slightly faster than your SSD because as I said earlier that isn’t the main determinant for responsiveness and boot times.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fastest-windows-10-boot-time,5810.html

Rather than reading off superficial specs on the website, better go look at things like random reads/writes, mixed workloads etc, in depth tests. Service time and sleep to wake latency are also other stats to look at. Yes the newer drives you mentioned will definitely win on some of these aspects but not for sustained performance and endurance for those that need it.


For raw specs:
960 Series including 961 OEM series.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/10698/samsung-announces-960-pro-and-960-evo-m2-pcie-ssds
EX950 and XPG SX8200 (Controller: Silicon Motion SM2262EN)
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13759/comparing-adata-sx8200-pro-vs-hp-ex950
The SM961 has lower writes but better Random IOPS. So its not as black and white.
Also the 970EVO is better than the EX950 look at the destroyer benchmarks. Also full drive performance & latency on the EX950 is like 1/3 of the 970EVO also look at the full drive latency. Even the 960 PRO and SM961 will perform better there. The EX950's controller is no match for the Samsung 970's.That shows you how much better the Samsung Phoenix controller is better at moving data round. EX950 Performs well with low power usage but just look at the the massive idle to wake latency for example which can impact responsiveness.

Also there’s more to an SSD performance than “cpu”, it’s a combination of NAND gen, NAND channels to controller and the controller itself. The Phoenix (970/980 series) is a better controller than the SM2262EN.

Once again those aren’t bad SSDs by any means and are pretty good. But if you want the absolute best it’s the 970 PRO/EVO. This is taking into account overall performance, not just sequential reads and writes. And for those who need constant write performance like for video exports and other write intensive work an MLC drive of the 960 series is still a good buy at similar prices to some of the newer TLC drives. Not to mention it can sustain higher speeds even as the drive gets full. 960 Pro 1TB has a 800 TBW endurance and the HP950 1 TB has 650 TBW despite using newer gen NAND because it’s TLC. Sabrent doesn’t publish a TBW but it’s not going to be much different.

 

I mean, my 6 year old Win 8.1 SATA machine says it boots in 5.7 (hybrid shutdown disabled) - I can live with that.

 

Thanks, this is a good deal for such drive. Definitely better than TLC alternatives and considering original $400 price this is a huge discount.

Edit: Your link shows $200 price, I believe it only works with Flash sale link, if you want to change it here is the one that works:
https://flash.newegg.com/product/9S...a97cf6836995d55b0INT&AID=10446076&PID=1225267

 

Bizzarre there literally is no category a 960 pro is bot slower than an no 920 whatever you are quoting has no link to actual tests

The 950 is newer

It is the fastest tested consumer drive its mtbf is much higher but its just a number they make up
https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compa...-HP-EX920-NVMe-PCIe-M2-256GB/m200373vsm537061

Its true the controller on the hp is similar thr one where the controller is better is the phison something on thr sabrent. It has the fastest sustained write times its cheaper sold under different names I believe seagate also

I actually have a samsung and the hp they are in different computer's different sizes etc I notice the hp as faster but no big difference.
Its 970 though

 

I trust Anandtech’s reviews over superficial benchmarks like userbenchmark because they are far more in depth and truly show performance of the drives.

Here’s the link same as from last post. They compare the EX950 & SX8200 with the 970EVO in many of those tests. Look at all the benchmark pages.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13759/comparing-adata-sx8200-pro-vs-hp-ex950


Here a is a Phison E12 drive that’s similar to the Sabrent, it trades blows with the 970EVO but I wouldn’t say it’s better.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1395...a80-ssd-review-phison-e12-with-newer-firmware

Sabrent doesn’t even post a TBW that they warranty till.

MTBF at this point is a joke and is meaningless compared to TBW (Terabytes Written). Even in TBW terms most manufacturers are very conservative so many decent drives can last much longer than rated TBW. Most consumers don’t know any better that’s why some companies only put ridiculously high MTBF numbers and hide the TBW which is the real decider of the SSDs life. You can have the same MTBF but have massively different write endurance. Both the 970 and EX950 have around 600-650 TBW. The MLC based 960 PRO has a warrantied 800TBW. All are TBWs for 1 TB models. In older long term tests Samsung drives generally beat competitors at write endurance far after the warrantied TBW limit was crossed, even beating some of the newer models from competitors because Samsung is much more conservative when setting warranty TBW limits.

If you really want you can try doing a constant write test, with intermittent data retention checks till the drives die like Tech Report once did for older SATA SSDs, I garuntee you the 950EX will fail before the 960 PRO/SM961 and 970EVO.


Just because something is newer doesn’t automatically make it better.... The 970EVO is better than the EX950 overall. The EX950 can’t maintain its performance as the drive fills up and has terrible idle to wake latency. The 950’s controller is weak compared to the 970EVO as it can’t reorganize data fast enough in full conditions.

As for the 960 PRO, it being a MLC drive means it also has low service/recovery time and can maintain performance under full drive conditions also it doesn’t suffer from the idle to wake issue either. Yeah the EX950 may win “empty to near empty drive” tests over the SM961 but over time it can’t maintain its lead abs the drive fills.

 

Amen.

 

In tech, this is a golden truth.
Another case in point: The WD Black SN750, despite being newer than the likes of the 960 Evo, deliberately omits TCG OPAL support.