Customer reviews from Samsung US
Samsung - 950 PRO 256GB Internal PCI Express 3.0 Solid State Drive
Average customer rating
4.7
(57 Reviews)
Rating breakdown 57 reviews
5 Stars
50
4 Stars
2
3 Stars
2
2 Stars
2
1 Star
1
91%of customers recommend this product.
(
49 out of
54)
Customer Reviews for Samsung - 950 PRO 256GB Internal PCI Express 3.0 Solid State Drive
Customer Rating
5
Very Fast - High quality product.
on December 6, 2015
Posted by: hapkiman
from Missouri, USA
Expertise:Expert
I was shocked how small this product is. Barely bigger than a stick of gum. Make sure you know how to configure your motherboard's BIOS for installation of Windows as it can be a little tricky (needs to be UEFI bootable). And make sure you have a compatible motherboard that this 950 will work properly with. You need x4 PCIe lane to get the proper speeds - and you don't want to rob from your graphics card. Basically Intel X99 and Z170 chipsets are the only safe bet at this point, although I'm sure that will change over the next year or so.
I have an MSI Z170A Gaming M7 board with a i7 6700K and a GTX 980 Ti graphics card. My graphics card still runs at PCIe x16 and the Samsung 950 is in one of the M.2 slots. Samsung Magician and CrystalDiskMark confirm the 950 is running at x4 speeds. Blistering fast. Strangely though boot times are actually a tad slower than with a traditional SATA Samsung 840 EVO SSD but only by about 8-10 seconds. Probably a UEFI or mobo issue that could be fixed with BIOS or firmware updates. My system now boots in about 30 seconds, and with the 840 EVO it was 19-20 seconds.
Once you are loaded up though, the 950 Pro is WAY faster than the 840 EVO. I absolutely love it. And so far I am not experiencing any heat issues/throttling as some have complained (although I have great air flow in my case).
If you have the money (yes it's a little pricey), and a compatible board, I highly recommend this .
The last thing is a question to Samsung. Almost all M.2 connectors I have seen mount the drive from right, back to the left. So your cool looking sticker is then upside down. Why did you put it on this way? Not a huge thing and doesn't affect performance only aesthetics, but I have a clear side panel and like to look at my rig, and it's obvious. The first thing everyone says that comes over is "why is that little Samsung M.2 drive upside down?" Argh......
Anyway, excellent product. I would buy it again.
Pros: Durable, fast!!!!!, very small
Cons: label upside down, a little overpriced., slower boot time
I would recommend this to a friend!
Features
5
Performance
5
Design
5
Value
4
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
2
drivers do not install. Magician software says that drive is not Samsung's
on January 18, 2016
Posted by: AlexeyK
from Tampa, FL, USA
Expertise:Expert
I have Dell Precision 7510
bought m.2 NVMe 950 PRO.
installed into the laptop
used Samsung data migration to copy windows to 950 PRO
all worked well
now I have only 950 PRO as the only drive
system boots, loads and works fine,
disk management shows that my drive is "NVMe Samsung SSD 950""
when trying to install "Samsung NVM Express Driver 1.1" got this error "Samsung NVM Express device is not connected"
and Magician says that my drive is "aSsmnu gSS D50 0RP O52G6 B(0.00 GB)"
does not allow to do anything but run benchmark tests
sRead 1573 MBs
sWrite 845 MBs
rRead 108179 IOPS
rWrite 41725 IOPS
bought m.2 NVMe 950 PRO.
installed into the laptop
used Samsung data migration to copy windows to 950 PRO
all worked well
now I have only 950 PRO as the only drive
system boots, loads and works fine,
disk management shows that my drive is "NVMe Samsung SSD 950""
when trying to install "Samsung NVM Express Driver 1.1" got this error "Samsung NVM Express device is not connected"
and Magician says that my drive is "aSsmnu gSS D50 0RP O52G6 B(0.00 GB)"
does not allow to do anything but run benchmark tests
sRead 1573 MBs
sWrite 845 MBs
rRead 108179 IOPS
rWrite 41725 IOPS
Cons: Did not meet expectations, does not work as promised
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Features
3
Performance
4
Design
4
Value
3
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
5
Easy Install with no driver hassles
on October 29, 2016
Posted by: AnotherDeano
from Texas
Expertise:Intermediate
Installed this Samsung 950 512GB memory card on a RamPage V Edition 10 mobo. Real simple. Keep your grounding wrist-strap handy, and use common-sense handling care when inserting.
Really nice & compact!
Really nice & compact!
Using it for my boot drive with WIN10 OS. Self-installed, no driver headaches. This was on a new WIN10 install, and I made sure there were no other drives whatsoever in the system (at least until the initial 950 installation was complete). BIOS Boot assignment configurations are not always reliable, depending on how many times the system POST's.
This card, in an M.2 slot, is THE best place, mainly because the back-end of any newer GPU these days, dropped in the X16/X8 slot, extends well over the M.2 bed. This precludes any K.2 connector in this space (why would you want to do this?).
If you have PCIe slots available, it would be far better to add K.2 memory using a Funtin NVMe SSD adapter card (FF-8639), and (except for power) forget the cables! This is what I did, although the Intel 750's require grueling drive-software installation.
Overall the 950 is sweet.
Pros: Durable, simple install and user startup
I would recommend this to a friend!
Features
5
Performance
5
Design
5
Value
5
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
2
Would be great if there were any drivers/support that properly worked.
on December 3, 2015
Posted by: chrismdlikescheese
from Victoria, Australia
Expertise:Intermediate
Have been trying for several days to get my Windows installer to even see the drive, let alone the motherboard. It's a new product which I get, but doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to use it.
Pros: fast (assumably)
Cons: drivers, no support
Features
3
Performance
5
Design
4
Value
4
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
1
Can not get the advertised speeds.
on May 26, 2016
Posted by: usedtobeasamsungfan11
Expertise:Intermediate
The Random IOPS speeds I am getting on the Samsung 950 pro are about half of what is advertised. My random Write IOPS on the Samsung 950 Pro is half as fast as what i am getting on the 850 Evo. Very disappointed. And my motherboard is fully compatible with this drive and was bought especially with this drive in mind.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Features
1
Performance
1
Design
3
Value
1
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
3
Not Achieving Read Speed or IOPS
on December 14, 2015
Posted by: Darin1
from Houston, TX, USA
Expertise:Expert
Although I have tried the M.2 slot on my X99 motherboard and three (3) different adapters in various PCIe slots, only achieving 820 MB/s sequential reads and even worse only about 12,000 IOPS resulting in very slow random reads. Write speeds are right on spec, but subpar performance in the read category.
Pros: very small form factor
Cons: not performing to spec
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Features
5
Performance
2
Design
5
Value
3
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
4
Not what I thought
on February 21, 2016
Posted by: Tatyrose
from Tampa, FL, USA
Expertise:Expert
I read several reviews before buying and not getting the speeds, Magician software doesn't do much, after speed test, it tells you to make sure your system is configured properly by consulting the OS optimization, you can't because it's greyed out and can't click it, then says to run performance optimization, there it says not supported by Windows 8 or higher, it's a hassle to return or I would, should've gone with my gut and purchased the 850 Pro.
Pros: tiny
Cons: Did not meet expectations, need adapter
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Features
4
Performance
3
Design
4
Value
1
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US
Customer Rating
5
Fastest Drive I have ever seen.
on February 3, 2016
Posted by: NYC111
from NYC
Expertise:Expert
After I purchased an internal 4x PCIe adapter this is the fastest Storage Device I have ever owned.
Pros: wickedly fast
Cons: a little pricey
I would recommend this to a friend!
Features
5
Performance
5
Design
5
Value
3
Written by a customer while visiting Samsung US