The Samsung 950 Pro PCIe SSD Review (256GB and 512GB)
by Billy Tallis on October 22, 2015 10:55 AM ESTMixed Random Read/Write Performance
Most real-world use consists of a mix of reads and writes, and interleaving the two often poses a particular challenge to drive controllers. This mixed random access test is conducted across a 16GB span of the drive, but on a full drive and with a queue depth of 3.
Mixed random access seems much improved over Samsung's earlier M.2 drives, and the 950 Pros fall behind only the Intel SSD 750. The 512GB drive is well behaved here and surpassing the 256GB drive as it should.
In this case, the higher power consumption of the 950 Pro is very well justified by the higher performance.
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There's not much variation across the different workloads. Performance hardly drops during the middle of the test where many controllers have trouble with a balanced mix, but on the other hand the performance at either end of the test is nothing spectacular. Power consumption climbs hand in hand with the proportion of writes, but is accompanied by some increasing in overall data rate.
Mixed Sequential Read/Write Performance
The queue depth of 3 is sufficient for many drives to perform very well at either end of this test, while testing 100% reads or 100% writes. In between, performance typically suffers greatly, and that's where the winners and losers of this test are determined. Anything that's duplicating duplicating or transforming a large amount of data on the drive will produce I/O patterns similar to this test. Creating a System Restore snapshot, backing up files to a different directory on the same drive, and file compression can all produce interleaved reads and writes of large blocks of data, though not necessarily fast enough to be limited by the drive's performance.
These sequential workloads allow the PCIe drives to stand out and achieve average speeds that would saturate SATA.
With power consumption in the same neighborhood as the SATA drives, the 950 Pro is significantly more efficient.
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Looking at the breakdown by workload, the 950 Pro performs well on the balanced mixes and far outstrips the SATA limit on the very read-heavy workloads and the pure write section at the end of this test.
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SunnyNW - Saturday, October 24, 2015 - link
Actually shame on you for telling others what their priorities should be. Boot times are Very important to me and was one of the main reasons I upgraded from a hdd to a ssd in the first place. I dont want to have to wait more than the 15 seconds it takes my system to boot right now. People have to boot/restart their machine for various reasons and variable amounts of times, I dont want to have to wait more than 20 sec or so Every time I update software/drivers that require a reboot (windows update, gpu driver update, etc.). Almost every time I leave my house for more than 8 hrs or so I shut down my machine, I just dont have good luck with sleep on it, not sure if it's because of the radeon or what but ehh.Rajinder Gill - Saturday, October 24, 2015 - link
If you leave the house for 8 hours, your time cannot be worth enough money to be worried about 20 seconds of BOOT time :)SunnyNW - Sunday, October 25, 2015 - link
LOL!!! You are one Hilarious (my most polite way of saying pathetic) character. If you had any clue as to how much I Actually earn for my time, from all my various ventures especially my business, your ugly little smiles at the end of all your comments would more accurately be portrayed with a symbol that expressed your jaw wide open and hitting the floor. : 0 And how many times are you going to mention S3, lol, let me guess it's something you just recently learned about so you spout off about it Every single chance you get. Please don't reply to my comments in the future. I come here for intelligent interactions, not some nonsense from someone that has No Clue. Thank You in advance, Oh and just for you ;)Rajinder Gill - Sunday, October 25, 2015 - link
S3 resume, USE IT! One more time just for you :)xype - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
SunnyNW, I never met one single person who made a shitload of money "with their time" who spent that time arguing online on tech sites, and arguing trivialities like SSD boot times—congrats, you’re the first!No person I know that makes $150+/hour gives a shit about boot times, and the people who do (working in IT, specifically high availability infrastructure ops) are in a whole different market from the one that AnandTech usually covers.
SunnyNW - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
You are entitled to your opinion. But I agree, this was the first time I made a reference to my personal life finances thru comments and there is no need for that here. I just become Very annoyed when one judges others' priorities and I was already upset from other bs. Anyway not one of my finer moments.SunnyNW - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
Lastly Ill add that 'making wrong assumptions' (especially when insulting) and 'questioning others priorities' are my pet peeves. On any other site I would not have replied in the first place. I dont know why but I feel differently when it comes to anandtechs community, I feel there is a higher standard here and many of the comments are usually very informative and worthwhile discussions. I work extremely hard and do not need someone telling me how much my time is worth. I hate when people sit behind their computer making assumptions about someone that they know absolutely nothing of, I do not expect that from the community here. I highly respect most of the commenters on anandtech and would like that in return. I feel anandtech is full of mostly intellectual persons. There are not many commenters on anandtech like mr. gill and I just let him get to me way more than I should have. Again I shouldnt have to explain myself to you but iunno here I am doing just that...I just turned 22 recently so gimme a beak, I'm learning.Rajinder Gill - Saturday, October 24, 2015 - link
If the sleep issues are due to the Radeon and BOOT time is that important, then perhaps a S3 resume complaint VGA would get you back to the desktop quicker. ;)SunnyNW - Sunday, October 25, 2015 - link
What is a "S3 resume complaint?" I have no complaints with my GPU and am very content with the 15 seconds it takes my machines to reach the desktop.ewitte - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
Working in IT the most annoying thing is boot times on OTHERS machines. I still run into spinning drives and insufficient memory which could be upwards of 10 minutes before performance stabilizes after a reboot.