Samsung (News - Alert) has released the 950 PRO solid state drive (SSD), designed to meet the demands of high-performance consumer and business laptops and PCs.
The drive’s M.2 form factor targets ultra-slim notebook PCs and workstations, for projects such as computer-aided design, data analysis and engineering simulation.
“With the introduction of the 950 PRO using NVMe and PCIe, Samsung is able to provide our customers with the memory needed to handle the increased storage demands of tomorrow’s computing systems,” said Un-Soo Kim, senior vice president of branded memory within the memory business unit at Samsung. “Consumers and businesses alike can experience enterprise-quality performance and benefits such as speed, endurance and energy efficiency to support the most demanding applications. The 950 PRO is yet another example of a branded memory solution that continues to elevate our portfolio of products and reflects Samsung’s continued leadership in the memory industry.”
The Samsung 950 PRO SSD is Samsung’s first consumer-ready Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) M.2 form factor SSD with vertical NAND (V-NAND) technology; supporting the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) 3.0 interface. With the introduction of NVMe, the first protocol optimized for SSDs, users of the Samsung 950 PRO will benefit from improved performance and power saving which can help increase battery life and potentially reduce operating costs.
It also offers improved random and sequential performance over Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) interface drives utilizing the legacy Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) protocol. Users of applications that benefit from high input/output operations per second (IOPS) will experience up to four times faster performance than with traditional SATA SSDs, the company said.
The 950 PRO will be available in 512 gigabyte (GB) and 256GB storage capacities. The 512GB version delivers sequential read/write speeds of up to 2,500 Mbps and 1,500 Mbps. Random read performance is up to 300,000 IOPS, with write speeds of up to 110,000 IOPS. It features Samsung’s second generation MLC V-NAND 32-layer 128Gb die with UBX controller and magician software.
The news comes just as Intel announced its fastest-ever SSD line aimed at supercharging the data center market. The Intel (News - Alert) SSD DC P3608 comes in three flavors, all boasting top-line performance: 1.6TB, 3.2TB and 4TB capacity. The 1.6TB and 4TB models have a sequential read speed rating of 5Gbps, with 3Gbps and 2Gbps writes, respectively, according to Intel. The 3.2TB model’s sequential reads are rated for 4.5Gbps, with 2.6Gbps writes.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson