Samsung announced today that it has started mass production their NVMe PCIe solid state drive (SSD) that comes in a M.2 form factor, the SM951-NVMe. Samsung has been offering an AHCI-based PCIe 3.0 version of its SM951 SSD since early January.
The new NVMe-based SM951 SSD achieves sequential data read and write performance up to 2,260 megabytes per second (MB/s) and 1,600MB/s, respectively. These beat the fastest typical SATA-based M.2 SSD which usually moves data at up to 540MB/s and 500MB/s, respectively.
The drive attains its high-speeds by using four 8 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) lanes (PCIe Gen 3.0 x4) of simultaneous data flow. This allows for a data transfer rate of 32Gbps and a maximum throughput of 4GB/s, giving the new drive an advantage over SATA-based M.2 SSDs, which can only transfer data up to 600MB/s.
When it comes to random read operations, the SM951-NVMe can process 300,000 IOPS (Input Output Per Second), which is more than twice as fast as the 130,000 IOPS rate of its AHCI-based equivalent and more than three times faster than the 97,000 IOPS of a SATA-based SSD.
Meeting all M.2 form factor requirements, the drive’s thickness does not exceed 4 millimeters, (3.73 millimeters maximum, when equipping chips on both sides of the board). This is less than the thickness of two stacked nickels. The drive also weighs less than 7 grams, which is lighter than two nickels and only a tenth the weight of a 2.5” SSD. Capacities are 512 gigabyte (GB), 256GB and 128GB.
In addition, the SM951-NVMe has adopted the L1.2 low-power standby mode (which allows all high-speed circuits to be turned off when a PC is on sleeping mode or in hibernation), as defined by PCI-SIG, the PCIe standards body. By embracing the L1.2 level of standby operation, the SM951’s power consumption is drastically reduced – to under 2mW, representing about a 97 percent decrease from the 50mW consumed using an L1 state, which is the most widely used low-power mode today.
In the future, Samsung plans to incorporate its next-generation 3D V-NAND technology into its NVMe SSD line-ups, which will enable even higher densities and performance. Samsung also will maintain a fast-to-market supply of advanced SSDs to meet increasing customer demand.
Samsung has not disclosed any price information and/or release dates. Nevertheless the 512GB model appears to have popped up at several websites at around $500.
