[daneel3001]

Is the Samsung NVME driver just marginally better than Microsoft ?
BTW I tried installing it but Windows (latest Insider build) keeps on saying that I've already got the best available driver for it.

 

[VicByrd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daneel3001

Is the Samsung NVME driver just marginally better than Microsoft ?
BTW I tried installing it but Windows (latest Insider build) keeps on saying that I've already got the best available driver for it.

Force it with device manager - use the Have Disk option.

 

[d0mini]

What would be the potential benefits in waiting for this drive to be available as a '960 pro'? Discounting Magician's feature-set as a benefit. Would the later drive get better drivers..?

 

[parsec]

Nice Nizzen, but help me out here.

What RAID are you using, Intel or Windows for the SM961s?

Is the RAID array a data or OS drive?

The capacity of the "drive" in the various benchmarks is ~1TB in some (AS SSD and Anvil), and ~2TB in Crystal. Just wondering about that.

What adapter card for the SM961s do you use?

 

[h00bi]

Also very interested in the RAID setup, but actually i'm looking for a RAID1 solution.

Do you create the array directly inside the UEFI or is this a windows based stripe

 

[Nizzen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by d0mini

What would be the potential benefits in waiting for this drive to be available as a '960 pro'? Discounting Magician's feature-set as a benefit. Would the later drive get better drivers..?

No. Same as sm951nvme vs 950pro. Almost the same performance, only 950pro was late to the party

 

[Nizzen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by parsec

Nice Nizzen, but help me out here.

What RAID are you using, Intel or Windows for the SM961s?

Is the RAID array a data or OS drive?

The capacity of the "drive" in the various benchmarks is ~1TB in some (AS SSD and Anvil), and ~2TB in Crystal. Just wondering about that.

What adapter card for the SM961s do you use?

Used 2x pci-e 4x 3.0 m.2 adapters, and used windows software raid

There is no X99 MB with 2 or more m.2 slots with enough bandwidth for sm961nvme.

Asrock "skylake" MB have 3x m.2 slots, but have shared bandwidth. One sm961nvme is maxing one pci-e x4 3.0 line.

I want an pci-e 3.0 x8 HBA with 2x m.2 slots, so it is possible to boot raid-0

 

[Digitalwolf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nizzen

Used 2x pci-e 4x 3.0 m.2 adapters, and used windows software raid

There is no X99 MB with 2 or more m.2 slots with enough bandwidth for sm961nvme.

Asrock "skylake" MB have 3x m.2 slots, but have shared bandwidth. One sm961nvme is maxing one pci-e x4 3.0 line.

I want an pci-e 3.0 x8 HBA with 2x m.2 slots, so it is possible to boot raid-0

The ASRock boards for Z170 are shared... if you mean you want to use the Intel SATA ports. Each M.2 slot when used isn't shared with anything... the problem with running 3x M.2 (I've done it with SM951 drives) is that you have to use ASMedia ports for SATA devices (I'm not a fan of the ASMedia ports).

In a Raid 0 environment you are going to hit a certain speed and not go past that.. by adding more drives. ASRock had some advertising up with 7 Intel 750's on the OC Formula (3 in the M.2 slots and 4 in the PCIe slots). You can hit those same numbers with 2 or 3 M.2 drives....

So with 961's... you will probably hit that "cap" regardless of how you set up a Raid 0... with a single drive or at most two. That would happen on Z170 or X99... its been a while since I've read into the subject as I just use my drives at this point. At the time speculation was it was a chipset limit that kept speed from scaling as you would expect.

I'm still using SM951's and 950 Pro's in Raid 0 as my boot drives... and I am likely going to use a single 961 to replace at least one of those. <- Those are my Z170 boxes.. my X99 has what was the third drive from my ASRock (sm951) and a U.2 drive.

*edited to add*

You can still see the 7x intel 750 raid 0 test on the ASRock Z170 OC Formula page...

The write speeds are good but the read speeds lose in every test to the two 961's posted in the software Raid 0... and that's against 7 drives... the SEQ and 4K reads are so much better on the 961.... it's night and day. The other two reads are "close" until you consider the fact its 7 drives versus 2...

Personally I never had 750's in Raid 0 but I know my Samsung M.2's were fairly close to those tests... Definitely want a couple 961's.

 

[Nizzen]

z170 sux

The ASRock Z170 OC Formula only managed ~6GB/s.

That is less than one x8 pci-e 3.0 or 2x4 pci-e 3.0.

I running 2x gtx 1080 gaming X + Intel P3700 + sm951nvme 512GB u.2, 2x 961nvme 1TB and 3x 850pro sata ssd r0. Fast storage is fun

 

[daneel3001]

Re using "Have Disk" tricky to install Samsung drivers.



As for performance, I'm not so sure but now it's rather slow at small transfer size.



Even my 840 EVO does better! ***

 

[VicByrd]

@daneel3001
I don't get that message however I do get a message that Windows can NOT verify the driver to which I say OK (install anyway) my writes jump from 232 to 1424 (MBs). Are you installing v1.4.7.17 from the link in my previous post? Here's my ATTO benchmark after the NVME driver install:



From what I can tell from benchmarks turning the Windows cache buffer flush option off doesn't make much difference. Anybody see more than an infinitesimal diff?

 

[daneel3001]

I am using very latest Windows 10 Insider build (14376) and I don't get any warning re driver signing. Just the screenshot I gave you earlier.
I go through the Have Disk path, browse to the x64 folder and select nvme.inf and that's where it ends.

 

[VicByrd]

Exactly the same process I went through and I'm on 14376. Is this where you are:

 

[d0mini]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nizzen

Quote:

Originally Posted by d0mini

What would be the potential benefits in waiting for this drive to be available as a '960 pro'? Discounting Magician's feature-set as a benefit. Would the later drive get better drivers..?

No. Same as sm951nvme vs 950pro. Almost the same performance, only 950pro was late to the party

I'll take your word for it because it's what I wanted to hear

Thanks for replying too.

 

[daneel3001]

Silly me, I was trying to upgrade drivers of disk!
Certainly improvements since using this driver for small transfer size.
Thanks!

 

[VicByrd]

Glad you got it. Sweet drive!

 

[fjk61011]

I have the 961 in an adapter in the PCIe slot. Windows after the UEFI screen boots up in 3 seconds. Stock drivers.

 

[VicByrd]

Clean install? windows 10? How many other drives?

 

[fjk61011]

I have the 961 in an adapter in the PCIe slot. Windows after the UEFI screen boots up in 3 seconds.
Quote:

Originally Posted by VicByrd

Clean install? windows 10? How many other drives?

Windows 10 Build 14379. The SM961. A Plextor M.2 PCIe in the M.2 slot and two HDDs 1 TB.

 

[fjk61011]

I have the 961 in an adapter in the PCIe slot. Windows after the UEFI screen boots up in 3 seconds.
Quote:

Originally Posted by VicByrd

Clean install? windows 10? How many other drives?

Windows 10 Build 14379. The SM961. A Plextor M.2 PCIe in the M.2 slot and two HDDs 1 TB.
Quote:

Originally Posted by fjk61011

I have the 961 in an adapter in the PCIe slot. Windows after the UEFI screen boots up in 3 seconds.
Windows 10 Build 14379. The SM961. A Plextor M.2 PCIe in the M.2 slot and two HDDs 1 TB.

Clean install.