Samsung 960 evo vs 960 pro SSD

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Bape

Commendable
Apr 10, 2016
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Hi,

I am currently debating on these two

Although, the pro should be superior seems like the evo has faster 4K read speeds + faster (and deep) peak deep queue read/write and stronger server IO. As shown on here http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Samsung-960-Pro-NVMe-PCIe-M2-512GB-vs-Samsung-960-Evo-NVMe-PCIe-M2-500GB/m182182vsm204072

Also on storage review it shows the EVO beating the PRO in many tests which are concerning me. http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_960_evo_m2_nvme_ssd_review

I am leaning on the pro as the evo uses a TLC V-NAND rather than MLC.. + warranty is 2 years longer on the PRO

Budget is not an issue as there is only a $80 difference between the 960 pro 512GB and 960 evo 500GB. Which would be the best choice? (The fastest and superior one)

Thank you.

I don't know if this is extra information that'll help, but I use/watch everything in 4K.

 
Solution
Solandri
There's very little speed difference in real-world use because the bottleneck is 4k speeds. And both SATA and PCIe SSDs have almost the same 4k speeds. The extra bandwidth of PCIe does not give you any advantage for 4k speeds which are down around 30 MB/s.

Say to load up a game the computer needs to read 1 GB of contiguous files (sequential read) and 1 GB of small files.

The SATA drive has 500 MB/s sequential speeds, 30 MB/s 4k speeds.
The PCIe drive has 2 GB/s sequential speeds, 30 MB/s 4k speeds.

- SATA drive takes (1 GB / 500 MB/s) = 2 sec to read the sequential data, 1 GB / 30 MB/s = 34.1 sec to read the 4k data. Total time is 36.1 sec.

- PCIe drive takes (1 GB / 2 GB/s) = 0.5 sec to read the sequential data, 1 GB / 30 MB/s =...
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geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
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Really, except for synthetic benchmarks, you will notice no difference.
I might pick a 2.5" 850 evo or pro.
The pro has longer endurance, but with large ssd devices, endurance is no issue.
If you have a choice, larger is better.

I noticed no real difference changing from a 850 PRO to a pcie 950 pro.
 
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B

Bape

Commendable
Apr 10, 2016
45
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1,530
I see thank you for your input!

People do say the real world performance is minimal between some hardware (such as GPU and CPU too), however, in this case, if it can boot the computer and programs even 1 (hopefully a couple) second faster because it all adds up over time I'm willing to always upgrade because $$$ is never an issue. We can never get back time or buy it.. I do have a 850 pro also which is great but reads/write are 4-5x faster on a pcie (or 1/3 quicker in real world performance) which I find to be a great advantage and benefit for the value of time. Saddens me a bit you do not see much of a difference between 2.5 SATA and PCIE :( Every second counts!
 
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geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
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I have to admit, virus scans on the 950 PRO are faster.

Do not be much swayed by vendor synthetic SSD benchmarks.
They are done with apps that push the SSD to it's maximum using queue lengths of 30 or so.
Most desktop users will do one or two things at a time, so they will see queue lengths of one or two.
What really counts is the response times, particularly for small random I/O. That is what the os does mostly.
For that, the response times of current SSD's are remarkably similar. And quick. They will be 50X faster than a hard drive.
Larger SSD's are preferable. They have more nand chips that can be accessed in parallel. Sort of an internal raid-0 if you will.
Also, a SSD will slow down as it approaches full. That is because it will have a harder time finding free nand blocks to do an update without a read/write operation.

As to boot times, I do not normally boot.
I use sleep to ram(not hibernate)
That puts the pc in a very low power state.
It takes 3 seconds or so to sleep/wake on windows 7.
Windows 10 may be faster.
As I look at task manager, it says I have avoided cold boots for for some 9 days now.

If you really want fast, keep your eyes out for kaby lake and the 200 series chipset.
It is supposed to permit the use of the Xpoint OPTANE devices, said to be an order of magnitude faster in both latency and sequential access.

 
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Solandri

Solandri

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Jan 4, 2012
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There's very little speed difference in real-world use because the bottleneck is 4k speeds. And both SATA and PCIe SSDs have almost the same 4k speeds. The extra bandwidth of PCIe does not give you any advantage for 4k speeds which are down around 30 MB/s.

Say to load up a game the computer needs to read 1 GB of contiguous files (sequential read) and 1 GB of small files.

The SATA drive has 500 MB/s sequential speeds, 30 MB/s 4k speeds.
The PCIe drive has 2 GB/s sequential speeds, 30 MB/s 4k speeds.

- SATA drive takes (1 GB / 500 MB/s) = 2 sec to read the sequential data, 1 GB / 30 MB/s = 34.1 sec to read the 4k data. Total time is 36.1 sec.

- PCIe drive takes (1 GB / 2 GB/s) = 0.5 sec to read the sequential data, 1 GB / 30 MB/s = 34.1 sec to read the 4k data. Total time is 34.6 sec.

99.9% of people will not be able to tell the difference between 34.6 sec and 36.1 sec without a stopwatch.

This is why I keep telling people to ignore the sequential speeds and instead concentrate on the 4k speeds and IOPS. In the above two examples, 94% - 98% of the drive's time is spent on the 4k reads. So a SATA drive with slightly faster at 4k read/writes will actually be faster in real use than a PCIe drive with much faster sequential speeds. e.g. If the SATA drive has 35 MB/s 4k speeds.

- (1 GB / 500 MB/s) = 2 sec for sequential data. 1 GB / 35 MB/s = 29.3 sec to read the 4k data. Total time = 31.3 sec, which beats the PCIe SSD with slower 4k speeds.

If the drive with the best 4k/IOPS is a PCIe drive, great! But if it's a SATA drive, I would get that SATA drive.
 
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