Samsung launches NVMe M.2 950 PRO SSD for the masses

Samsung announced its first NVMe M.2 V-NAND SSD, the 950 Pro, at the 2015 Samsung SSD Global Summit.

Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) SSDs, such as the Intel SSD 750, are a new type of solid-state storage with connectors capable of providing far greater speeds than traditional SATA SSDs.

Until
now, consumer NVMe and M.2 SSDs have been pricey – Intel’s offering
costs around £450/$450 for the 400GB version, rising to twice that for
the 1.2TB one.

The Samsung 950 Pro SSD costs just $200 for the
256GB version and $350 for the 512GB on. This makes Samsung’s offering an affordable,
enterprise-quality storage option for consumers wanting high performance in
slim, portable PCs – it measures just 80mm x 22mm.

Un-Soo Kim, senior vice president of Branded Memory, Memory Business at Samsung Electronics explains:

“Consumers
and businesses alike can experience enterprise-quality performance and
benefits such as speed, endurance and energy efficiency to support the
most demanding applications.”

With PCI-Express 3.0 x4 and NVMe support,
the 950 Pro SSD outperforms traditional SATA SSD drives by almost 400%
in some applications.

The 512GB version delivers read/write
speeds of up to 2,500MB/sec and 1,500MB/sec, with random read performance
hitting up to 300,000 IOPS and write speeds of 110,000 IOPS.

Samsung
has put security and longevity at the forefront of the 950 Pro SSD,
with AES 256-bit Full Disk Encryption to protect data and Dynamic
Thermal Guard incorporated to protect the drive at temperatures ranging
from 0 to 70 degrees Celsius.

It can also withstand physical shock of up to 1500G/0.5ms and vibrations of up to 20G.

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The
Samsung 950 Pro SSD will be available to buy from October 2015 and
comes with five-year limited warranty. A 1TB version is set to be
released next year.