The Samsung SSD 850 EVO mSATA/M.2 Review
by Kristian Vättö on March 31, 2015 10:00 AM ESTSequential Read Performance
Our sequential tests are conducted in the same manner as our random IO tests. Each queue depth is tested for three minutes without any idle time in between the tests and the IOs are 4K aligned similar to what you would experience in a typical desktop OS.
In sequential read performance the difference between drives is rather marginal, but in power consumption we start to see some differences. At 250GB and 120GB the 850 EVO is very efficient, but the 500GB and 1TB are again more power hungry.
Looking at performance across all queue depths doesn't reveal any surprises: at QD2 and higher all drives are practically saturating the SATA 6Gbps interface. What's notable, though, is that the 1TB degrades in performance as the queue depth increases. I wonder if this is a thermal issue (mSATA/M.2 don't have a chassis to use as a heatsink) or just poor firmware optimization.
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Sequential Write Performance
Sequential write testing differs from random testing in the sense that the LBA span is not limited. That's because sequential IOs don't fragment the drive, so the performance will be at its peak regardless.
In sequential write speed the capacity plays a more significant role because the 120GB and 250GB are noticeably behind the 500GB and other higher capacity drives. The poor performance of the 1TB model is once again a surprise, though.
The full graph of all queue depths shows the reason for the 1TB's low performance: it starts high at ~430MB/s, but after that the performance decreases.
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nmm - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Uninteresting releases like this are the reason M.2 is having so much trouble gaining traction. Desktop users have no reason to choose the M.2 variant since they'll get similar performance out of a much more versatile SATA variant. The only obvious reason I can see to buy mSATA/M.2 versions of this drive is if you've got a laptop that can't slot a regular 2½" SATA drive. What a waste of shelf space.bricko - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
These are all way slow and almost outdated. INTEL and others coming out with NVMe and PCIe 3 stuff that are 2 to 4 times as fast. Big event from INTEL listed here.http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/PCPer-Live-...
Best to have an X99 mobo to make them bootable. Lots of these m.2 stuff is not bootable without lots of bios messing etc. Lots of info here
http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/intel-ssd-...
http://hothardware.com/reviews/Intel-SolidState-Dr...
blanarahul - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Those drives will cost upwards of 0.8$/GB. So you can't really compare those drives with these ones.Not to mention, they would be HHHL cards instead of M.2 and they use 20nm NAND which is almost 2 generations old.
bricko - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Many of the m.2 sticks run very hot and manu are insertin g them into adapter cards to fit in pcie slot.Here is link to one....but its been removed from server and being sold before the consumer version is out. The cost is enormous because no other supply yet, but should be out to consumer in day or 2.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L0LFKQW/ref=wl_it_dp_o...
here is m.2 adapter card with heat sink for the samsung 941 ssd drive to put into pcie slot
http://www.amazon.com/Sintech-PCI-e-Adapter-Samsun...
but again, these early ones are difficult to make bootable, need x99 mobo and to get the nvme you need windows 8.1 which has native driver.
bricko - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Here is link to intels countdown clock for their big announcement on m.2 ssdhttp://www.intelgamingpromo.com/intel15b/ssd/notic...
bricko - Wednesday, April 1, 2015 - link
Mushkin Hyperion M.2 SSD Reaches 2.8GB/s and 350K IOPShttp://www.thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz...
Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, April 1, 2015 - link
While I'm under NDA for that announcement, what I can tell you is that there's no M.2 coming tomorrow.bricko - Wednesday, April 1, 2015 - link
Good explanation on how and what these new m.2 drives are and what you need to get them to work.http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2468965/ssd...
SunLord - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
I was so hoping to see a m.2 42mm option from Samsung...WackyDan - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Same here... So these aren't available in 42mm?