Rod Bland, CEO and Upgrade Evangelist of RamCity, revealed that a shipment of Samsung SM961 1TB SSDs are en route to his company. The SM961 is faster than the previous generation SM951 and retail 950 Pro. The new OEM-targeted NVMe SSD uses a new controller that should produce less heat, a move aimed at reducing thermal throttle conditions. The Polaris controller boosts V-NAND performance up to 3,200 MB/s (sequential read) and up to 450,000 random read IOPS at queue depth 32.
| Product | SM961 128GB | SM961 256GB | SM961 512GB | SM961 1TB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | NA | $159 | $280 | $512 |
| Controller | Samsung Polaris | Samsung Polaris | Samsung Polaris | Samsung Polaris |
| DRAM | Samsung LPDDR3 | Samsung LPDDR3 | Samsung LPDDR3 | Samsung LPDDR3 |
| Flash | Samsung MLC V-NAND | Samsung MLC V-NAND | Samsung MLC V-NAND | Samsung MLC V-NAND |
| Sequential Read | 3100 MB/s | 3100 MB/s | 3200 MB/s | 3200 MB/s |
| Sequential Write | 700 MB/s | 1400 MB/s | 1700 MB/s | 1800 MB/s |
| Random Read | 330,000 IOPS | 330,000 IOPS | 330,000 IOPS | 450,000 IOPS |
| Random Write | 170,000 IOPS | 280,000 IOPS | 300,000 IOPS | 320,000 IOPS |
| Warranty | Varies By Reseller | Varies By Reseller3-Years From RamCity | Varies By Reseller3-Years From RamCity | Varies By Reseller3-Years From RamCity |
The SM961 will ship in four capacity sizes, but we don't expect to see the small 128GB used outside of the OEM and system integrator market. RamCity plans to carry the 256GB, 512GB and 1TB drives. We learned the initial pricing details and found a presale page for the SM961 1TB.
The first thing that stands out to us is the pricing. The SM961 costs less than the Samsung 950 Pro 256GB and 512GB. The large 1TB model is unrivaled in the NVMe M.2 form factor. The drive sells for half of the price of Intel's SSD 750 1.2TB. The pricing listed above comes from RamCity and was listed in USD.
Samsung hasn't replied to our questions about the new Polaris controller nor the flash. We suspect the controller uses an 8-channel design and a new process node to reduce heat output to combat thermal throttling. We also expect the SM961 1TB to use 3rd generation V-NAND technology like the Samsung Portable SSD T3. Samsung's third-gen V-NAND stacks 48 layers high and doubles the density of previous 32-layer (Gen2) V-NAND flash.
We obtained the performance specifications for all four capacity sizes (see above). The SM961 is easily the fastest consumer SSD to ship, ever.
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware, covering Storage. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Very good for consumers...
Is Optane even available to the public yet?
I guess it's faster than previous gen SSD's so it attracts a premium.
Does that transfer speed make any difference at all besides transferring between two of these SSDs?
Ignorant about the fact, curiously looking it up, there still seem to be some bandwidth headroom with PCIe 3.0 x4 at 3.9GB/s, if Wikipedia is to be believed! Though, at this rate, interface bandwidth cap is soon upon us... but so is also PCI 4.0!
PCIe 3.0 uses a 128b/130b "jumbo frame": 130 bits / 16 bytes = 8.125 bits per byte
x4 PCIe 3.0 lanes @ 8 GHz / 8.125 bits per byte
= 3.94 GB/second
x4 PCIe 4.0 lanes @ 16 GHz / 8.125 bits per byte
= 7.88 GB/second
Intel should increase the number of lanes
in their DMI link. Right now, a single NVMe M.2 SSD
has exactly the same upstream bandwidth as the DMI 3.0 link.
And/or, an NVMe RAID controller with x16 edge connector
and 4 x U.2 ports would be excellent too, provided that
it supported all modern RAID modes.
Intel P3700 SSD TBW is 7300 TB and double the price of the P750 but guess which is cheaper ?
The P3700 is Cheaper cos The P750 TBW is ONLY 219TB TBW !!!!
making the P3700 33 TIMES BETTER at double the price only ! 7300 TERA BYTE WRITES vs 219 !!!
33 times ENDURANCE !
yet you just mention the 750 in your Analysis.
you dont even bother to mention the TBW , which is the LIFE of the SSD ..
you CANT use SSD for movies and Huge Files and expect them to last much ! or heavy write / delete operations like Hard disks. here where the High TBW comes handy , I never Bought Low TBW SSD !!!
yes you pay Double , but you write 33 TIMES MORE ! in case of Intel 3700 vs 750
Samsung 950 pro is just 400 TBW by the way
that is , you fill it 400 times , ONLY.
The OEM 951 was ONY 75TB TBW !!!
Thanks !
Please include TBW Analysis in your SSD reviews as well , not only the Performance.
There is a Huge hidden cost people dont notice when They decide on which SSD drive is best to buy ..
TBW per dollar is very Important if you delete files often , or use it for Large files.
The Intel 3700 should be the popular one and not the 750 ... but most people dont notice !
For example (to explain for readers) ,
lets assume that you write 219 TB on intel 750 SSD in one year (all its TBW)
The 3700 will work 33 years more (or until the internals fail) !!! the same use ! (7300 TB) !!!
and just twice the price !!!
TBW is very Important in Choosing . should be 25% points in Reviews .