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Hello everyone, first post, since I didn't know where to post i will post here, hoping it's in the right section I have a gigabyte Z170X gaming 7 motherboard, paired with a Samsung 950 PRO NVMe SSD M.2, the problem is that I can't install Windows when "Storage Boot Option Control" in UEFI mode, as when it is set as UEFI the ssd isn't recognized in the BIOS, but during the installation process I can see it, altough I cannot install Windows because the installer says that the controller is not set to be capable to install to the ssd. Instead, when the boot oprion is set to legacy I can install on the ssd no problema at all, but I don't think I will usae the performance of the ssd at its best in Legacy mode Bios version is F20, I have a 6600K, 16GB RAM Did anyone had this problem? Does anyone know how to solve it? Any type of help is appreciated!

Will a 1x to 16x riser bottleneck the nvme ssd speeds

Thinking of getting an m.2 nvme drive. 960 evo offers better performance but degradation after a buffer to slow speeds (any info on which I would be grateful for) called intelligent turbo write. 950 pro has slower speeds but no performance buffere. Both similarly priced, which should I buy?

So I'm thinking about getting a 950 pro, but I am going to be running some heavy duty games on it. I know they tend to thermal throttle so I was wondering if anybody knew where I could find a water block? If I can't find a water block I will probably just put some ram heatsinks or some artic thermal pads on it.

Built a buddy of mine a wicked gaming rig and it's about 99% dialed in, except for the Samsung 950 Pro has sequential read speeds that are about 1/3 where they should be (700-800MB/s vs 2200MB/s). This is the 3rd time I've installed a m.2 SSD on a Skylake build this year, so I thought I was ahead of this problem by disabling CSM and setting up Win10 using GPT instead of MBR. I'm on the verge of returning the 950 Pro for a standard 2.5" SSD instead, but wanted to run this by the LTT community first. Here are his specs: CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i v2 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VIII HERO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (BIOS v2202) Video Card: ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8GB ROG STRIX Graphics Card (STRIX-GTX1080-8G-GAMING) Memory: Corsair Vengeance LED 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive Storage: Western Digital Blue 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive Case: Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX ATX Mid Tower Case Power Supply: SeaSonic X Series 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply Wireless Network Adapter: Asus PCE-AC88 PCI-Express x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter What I've tried so far (no particular order): PCIe set to Gen 3 speeds. Note: Asus's manual doesn't describe how to toggle SATA or PCIe modes. BIOS update to 2202. Installed NVMe driver. Disabled CSM. Installed Win10 w/ GPT partitioning. Formatted and reinstalled Win10 w/ GPT partitioning. AS SSD Benchmark and Samsung Magician both report the sequential read is about 700-800MB/s and random read IOPS are about 80% as advertised. Oddly the sequential and random write speedsare very close to advertised speed.

Hi! I just installed a new mothermoard in my pc because the postal service dropped my pc when I was moving and my old mobo was destroyed. My problem is that my samsung 950 pro 256 gb is not currently working, i cannot find it in windows or in the uefi bios. The 950 pro was working just fine on my old motherboard, which was a MSI Z97A Gaming 7 and I could not find any new or used of the same kind so i had to get an other motherboard. I now have: Msi z97 Gaming 5 2x Gainward GTX 970 Intel I5 4690k EVGA Supernova 1000 g2 PSU Samsung 950 pro 256 GB HyperX Fury DDR3 1600MHz 4x4GB WD SE Enterprise 1TB SATA3.0 ASUS PCE-AC68 AC1900 Is it not compatible or something like that?

Hello all, i juat resently finished my watercooling build and and I am having some boot problems. How the problem arised: I installed my 950 pro and used macriam reflect to clone my original os drive (840 evo). After going into the bios I booted into windows on the 950 pro and erased all the data on the 840 evo. (This ended biteing me in the ass). After restarting I am greeted with a black screen saying that my boot config files are missing or contained errors. Yay What I have tried so far 1.) booting up useing recovery cd and selexting start up repair This caused the windows logo to apear for a few seconds saying searching for repairs then the pc just shuts off and the problem persists 2,) booted up into the recovery dvd and enderd the command prompt. Bootrec /fixmbr Operation compleated sucessfuly Then i did Bootrec /fixboot And i get this error Element not found At the time of doing this the only storage devices pluged in were the 950 pro in a 4x m.2 slot and the dvd drive. Specs incase this helps I7 6800k Asus strix x99 Gigabyte 980 ti 950 pro 512gb 840 evo 120 gb 16 gb dominator plat I would like to try anything I can before doing a full restore consitering I will lose quite a bit of data if I do so. Any help is greatly apreciated.

Hi there! So, I'm going to be in NYC starting tomorrow, and I'll be staying for only a week. I want to get a Samsung 950 Pro 512gb M.2 SSD while I'm there, but I'm having quite a few issues. B&H, the place I usually go to get stuff, doesn't have it in stock and it won't arrive until after I'm gone. Newegg is no help because I can't use different billing and shipping addresses. Amazon also doesn't have it in stock before Dec 6th. I leave NYC on the 7th so that's no good. Best Buy also, no help. It's $50 more expensive there, but they do have price match guarantee, BUT no store pickup available before Dec 7th. HELP!

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/TNLBhq Not sure about memory, motherboard and cpu cooler. Will be overclocking(duh), and I know I don't need these things but darn it I want those bragging rights! Intended for video editing, streaming, photo editing, gaming and occasionally schoolwork... ._. Is there a difference in performance from 2x16 and 4x8? All help greatly appreciated! -Akzelele

So i want to get another 950 pro to raid 0. My question is where do i slot in the new 950 pro with pcie adapter without effecting my gpu lane. i have 2 fury x in slot 1 and 3. (based on 4 red slot). My question is where do i put this ssd without effecting my x16 and x16 lane for my gpu. Based on my simple mind i was thinking i should have 4 lanes free out of the 40 lanes. Plugging it into the wrong slot probably will cause the 2nd gpu to x8. Btw cpu is 6850k. Probably going to do some

I am using the Asus z170-a motherboard, i5 6600k cpu, and a single 8GB stick of ram. My samsung 950 pro ssd is running slow. I am only getting ~560 MB/s read and ~95 MB/s write. I used the samsung magician software to test speeds. I think that the m.2 is using SATA instead of PCI-E for some reason witch would explain the ~550 MB/s read speeds, but wouldn't I still be getting ~550 MB/s write speeds too? I installed the NVMe driver and my bios is up to date. Could it be the motherboard that is causing a problem? Faulty drive? I have also reinstalled windows and followed the correct procedure for installing windows on an m.2 drive. M.2 storage (EX. Samsung M.2 950 Pro) to install OS like Win 7, 8.1 or 10) For Windows 8.1, 10 only: a. BIOS->Boot->CSM (Compatibility Support Module)->Disable b. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->OS Type->Other OS c. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->Key Management->Clear Secure Key d. F10 (save and exit) e. Install OS only with bootable UEFI media. f. Re-enter BIOS after first restart during the OS installation, it will be shown within the BIOS g. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->OS Type->Windows UEFI mode h. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->Key Management->Install Default Secure Boot Keys i. F10 (save and exit) j. It should resume the installation, if not, completely power down the system and turn it back on after 10 seconds. k. Note: do not connect any external devices to the computer during the installation and best if only the M.2 SSD is installed on the system. l. Install Samsung NVMe drivers for performance

Hi! My last build i remember doing some optimizing for my SSD´s, such as -updating firmware, -checking so that it´s not on the defrag schedule in windows, -turn off hibernation file -Shrink system protection -turn off drive indexing -turn off page file (swap file) (basically Seans win7 SSD guide) - link So...what is the word on doing this for an M.2 950 Pro with windows 10 installed on it? Thanks as always;)

Hello everyone! I'm new here, so please be patient with me. I will provide all the information that I possibly can in order to reach conclusion and hopefully happy ending. I also apologize in advance for possibly a large amount of text that will ensue. So several weeks ago I started assembling my new PC build, and there were no issues with the hardware side (at least at first, later on I found out I had wrong DDR4 RAM that mobo didn't support, so I got MEMORY_MANAGEMENT BSODs upon boot - that is solved now by purchasing some RAM sticks that mobo actually suports). Things started to take a turn for the worse with the software side. My previous computer (and the one I'm typing this from) is a W7 machine close to 5 years old now, and it still performs admirably since I put a Samsung 850 EVO and cloned my C: drive. So I wasn't quite sure what to expect when installing W10 Pro afresh on the new machine. Before going on, here's the hardware side of things: Intel i7-6700K @ 4.00 GHz HyperX Fury 64 GB DDR4 2400 MHz AsRock Z170 Extreme 4 Samsung 950 Pro 256 GB in M.2 slot 3xSamsung 850 EVO 1 TB 2xWD Black 2 TB AsRock Thunderbolt AIC card that converts DisplayPort to Thunderbolt (will be needed later) FireWire PCIe card with TI XIO2001 chipset Marvell PCIe card with 4 additional SATA ports No graphics card - I plan on using the iGPU for my dual monitors - I don't game at all, I do audio related stuff. Thermaltake Smart SE 530W PSU Onwards with software side of things. First - I had no idea what CSM is in UEFI and why is it important. So first W10 install that I did created C: drive as a MBR instead of GPT. Formatted that and then reinstalled from my W10 DVD again. All was fine, except after one big Windows update I got thrown into the "endless boot" thing. I would power up the computer, get to the blue screen with dots circling around, and they would never stop circling... Not sure why this happened, so I tried formatting YET again. It happened AGAIN after the same Windows update! This was the first W10 release, build 10260. So I threw my DVD in the bin and downloaded W10 Pro ISO from Microsoft that has the latest, November 2015 build 10586. Doing my fourth reformat and W10 reinstall, things finally started working fine - no endless boot, C: as GPT, all fine! And now we come to the crux of the issue. It seems that my NVMe SSD criminally underperforms for no apparent reason. Attached you will find the result from Samsung Magician software. I have absolutely no explanation for those ridiculously low IOPS numbers... Sad thing is, I get equally low IOPS even on my 850 EVOs (and I know they should be up around 70-80K - they are fine on my W7 machine!). Here's what Magician reports for the PCIe controller: Link Speed Cur: 8 Gbps, Max 8 Gbps Link Width Cur: x4, Max: x4 Bandwidth Cur: 32 Gbps, Max: 32 Gbps So I am pretty clueless at this point and am fishing for suggestions and solutions. I tried googling but nothing helped... Things I've tried: * Other bench suites: tried AS SSD bench which showed much higher seq speeds (1500 MB/s read, 1100 MB/s write - still not up to spec!) but random reads were as abysmal as what Magician reported, also Crystal Disk Mark. Very bad results still. * Power Options are set to High Performance and Link State Power Management is completely disabled (both in Power Options, and any related UEFI option is disabled too) * Removing ALL PCIe cards. No change at all! I thought perhaps one of the PCIe slots on my mobo kills the M.2 bandwidth, but that shouldn't be the case, since M.2 only impacts the first two SATA ports and nothing else, apparently. * Messing about with a whole bunch of UEFI options, I am not even sure what I did here, but I can tell that I have the latest UEFI version (P3.20) installed and running. SATA Mode is set to AHCI, not RAID (since I won't be using RAID - consequently I didn't install Intel Rapid Storage Technology as I didn't think it'd matter) * Installing Samsung's NVMe driver was the first thing I did after installing W10, so it's not that. * Disabling Windows Defender completely. No change at all! * Resetting UEFI to optimized defaults. Again no change! So I'm shouting out for any help you kind people can provide... I'm at the end of my wits, after more than 15 years of building my own PCs (which performed admirably always!), this is the first time I was so annoyed by a build and by how many things went wrong. And I don't consider myself a stupid or uninformed person (well, except that part with CSM, that was new to me!). Please let me know if there's any more info I can provide, I will be happy to do it. Hell, I would even appreciate if anyone can separate the time to troubleshoot in realtime via Skype... I don't have a lot of money left (not after this build) but I am willing to even pay for your time. Just want to sort this thing out. PREFERABLY without needing to reformat everything YET once again, since I've almost completed installing most of the apps I usually use on the 950 Pro... Thank you ever so much for taking the time to read this post. Greetings from Croatia!

I am using the Asus z170-a motherboard, i5 6600k cpu, and a single 8GB stick of ram. My samsung 950 pro ssd is running slow. I am only getting ~560 MB/s read and ~95 MB/s write. I used the samsung magician software to test speeds. I think that the m.2 is using SATA instead of PCI-E for some reason witch would explain the ~550 MB/s read speeds, but wouldn't I still be getting ~550 MB/s write speeds too? I installed the NVMe driver and my bios is up to date. Could it be the motherboard that is causing a problem? Faulty drive? I have also reinstalled windows and followed the correct procedure for installing windows on an m.2 drive. M.2 storage (EX. Samsung M.2 950 Pro) to install OS like Win 7, 8.1 or 10) For Windows 8.1, 10 only: a. BIOS->Boot->CSM (Compatibility Support Module)->Disable b. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->OS Type->Other OS c. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->Key Management->Clear Secure Key d. F10 (save and exit) e. Install OS only with bootable UEFI media. f. Re-enter BIOS after first restart during the OS installation, it will be shown within the BIOS g. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->OS Type->Windows UEFI mode h. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->Key Management->Install Default Secure Boot Keys i. F10 (save and exit) j. It should resume the installation, if not, completely power down the system and turn it back on after 10 seconds. k. Note: do not connect any external devices to the computer during the installation and best if only the M.2 SSD is installed on the system. l. Install Samsung NVMe drivers for performance

I am using the Asus z170-a motherboard, i5 6600k cpu, and a single 8GB stick of ram. My samsung 950 pro ssd is running slow. I am only getting ~560 MB/s read and ~95 MB/s write. I used the samsung magician software to test speeds. I think that the m.2 is using SATA instead of PCI-E for some reason witch would explain the ~550 MB/s read speeds, but wouldn't I still be getting ~550 MB/s write speeds too? I installed the NVMe driver and my bios is up to date. Could it be the motherboard that is causing a problem? Faulty drive? I have also reinstalled windows and followed the correct procedure for installing windows on an m.2 drive. M.2 storage (EX. Samsung M.2 950 Pro) to install OS like Win 7, 8.1 or 10) For Windows 8.1, 10 only: a. BIOS->Boot->CSM (Compatibility Support Module)->Disable b. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->OS Type->Other OS c. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->Key Management->Clear Secure Key d. F10 (save and exit) e. Install OS only with bootable UEFI media. f. Re-enter BIOS after first restart during the OS installation, it will be shown within the BIOS g. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->OS Type->Windows UEFI mode h. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->Key Management->Install Default Secure Boot Keys i. F10 (save and exit) j. It should resume the installation, if not, completely power down the system and turn it back on after 10 seconds. k. Note: do not connect any external devices to the computer during the installation and best if only the M.2 SSD is installed on the system. l. Install Samsung NVMe drivers for performance

Hey guys and gals! I have an interesting dilemma that I have not been able to figure out. I have a pretty interesting system with an even more interesting problem. Here is what happens: benchmarks: http://imgur.com/a/VEXVd After a clean boot I run ATTO disk benchmark or samsung magician on my samsung 950 pro 512 GB m.2 raid and get about 3 GB read and 3 GB write speeds. Great you say! Here is the problem... If i put the computer to sleep, and wake it back up then run the test I get about half of that speed at 1.5-1.6 GB read and write. Its like clockwork. Nothing to do with heat throttling because i can repeat this and it happens every time. There are also 4x 120mm fans on the side of my case lol. It seems to me that there may be some sort of power setting or sleep setting that limits throughput. I haven't found a bios setting that makes sense though. All of the power settings i can think of (besides speedstep) are disabled. Also not sure if there is a setting for the type of sleep in this bios (s3, s4, s5 or whatever they are) Here is a list of things i have done: -Disconnected all my other hard drives and CD drives leaving the raid as my only storage -disconnected my only other pci device (7.1 sound card) -disabled hybrid sleep in windows power settings (computer wont actually wake after doing this, so it just makes it worse) -updated bios to newly released 3.0 from 4/13/16. I believe i was at 2.6 or 2.8 before. -disabled write caching buffer Here are my specs Windows 10 Pro 64-bit Intel Core i7 6700k stock @ 4.00GHz 26 °C (im in a basement.. cpu has corsair h100i water cooler) RAM 32.0GB DDR4 3200 ASRock Z170 Extreme7+ 26 °C NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (Gigabyte) 25 °C 2x samsung 950 pro nvme m.2 drives in intel raid 0 uefi install, csm disabled intel rst version 14.8.0.1042 1x 3 tb samsung hdd 1x 3 tb wd greed backup drive 1x blu ray 1x dvd burner asus xonar 7.1 sound card (pcie 1x) 12 total fans (4x120 side, 1x140 front, 1x120back, 1x120mm psu, 2x120mm on cpu radiator, 3 on video card) seasonic 750 watt gold psu corsair 600t white case I use the sleep mode regularly and had no problems with my old setup (i7 3770k sata raid 940 pros). any questions, comments or helpful feedback? I also take criticisms, sarcasm, and negativity! Hope you guys can help! Thanks Mike

Last night I was going about business as usual, casual gaming and light reddit browsing. I updated my graphics card drivers because something was up with my monitors (completely unrelated and fixed). I thought that to fix my computer all I had to do was restart my computer and all would be good, sadly this is where I got thrown into windows recovery, okay not the most unusual thing but I'll go with it. Skip all the options in Windows recovery and go straight into windows, nothing. So then I hop over to the BIOS to find that my C: drive (950 pro) isn't even being detected. So I tried restarting and reinserting my SSD and nothing. My current solution is to use a spare SSD my brother had lying around to create a new install of windows just to see what's going on with the original 950 pro. It showed up in File Explorer but I was unable to access it. Formatting it hasn't done anything to other than clear the space, looking it up in disk management says that the drive is classified as "RAW" file system instead of the usual NTFS, I tried to format it again through disk management but It wouldn't let me. So this is where I need your guys' help, Is there anything I could do or am I just shit out of $350.

I'm trying to enable the Intel RAID on my motherboard (ASUS Z170i) to RAID my 2 2TB HDDs. But every time I enable it my 950 Pro in the boards M.2 slot disappears completely from my systems UEFI. I have no idea what's going on. Any ideas how to fix this?

Working on a build and can't seem to figure out why this won't work. MB: Asus Z170 Deluxe (Firmware updated v 17.02) M.2 Drive: Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVME When the drive is plugged directly into the on board M.2 slot it is not recognized in the UEFI at all. The board posts but the BOOT DEVICE LED remains lit. I have checked the settings in bios to indicate that it is using M.2 but the device does not show up. To determine if the drive was bad I then put it into the "Hyper M.2 X4 Mini PCIE Card" and installed that card into the PCIE slot below my graphics card. System posts correctly and identifies the drive. According to the manual, the on board M.2 Port supports both PCIE and SATA Modes. However, as I have just explained, When set to either M.2 or PCIE the drive fails to be recognized. Does anyone out there have the 950 PRO M.2 working in the onboard M.2 port of a Z170 Deluxe board? I'd really like to not install the extra card in a PCIE slot if I don't have to.

Hello guys what should i choose and what will be the best in my case scenario? Option N1: Samsung 850EVO 500GB/250GB ----> • Read: 540MB • Write: 520MB/ ---> 85€ 250GB / 145€ 500GB Option N2: Samsung SSD 950Pro 256GB ----> • Read: 2200MB • Write: 900MB ----> 185€ I want something real fast, but not sure if its worth the cost. For example i want to achieve boot speed of Windows 10 or 8.1 for like 3/4/5 seconds etc. etc. And at all i will be using the SSD for everyday usage..... If you choose 'X' thing explain why please. Best of luck! -Redjo

Heey guys, I am going to upgrade may be to Skylake, not sure yet. I have a couple of questions. This is my current setup: Mobo: MSI Gaming 5 Z97 SSD: Samsung Pro 950 SSD CPU: i5 4690K GPU: MSI Gtx 970 RAM: 8GB Kingston DDR3 Why I want to upgrade? - 950 SSD doesn't reach full potential on this setup. Not even close. http://imgur.com/Io7kWbm - Friend wants to buy my i5 4690K for a decent price (190 euro) - Another friends wants to buy my current RAM (40 euro) Upgrading to Skylake wont be a huge cost (may be 75 / 100 euro). I can still bring this current mobo back, because I just upgraded from Z87 to Z97, but my main questions are: - Does Z170 motherboards / Skylake supports full speed for my SSD? More information here about speeds: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/ssd950pro/overview.html - Do you think its worth the cost to upgrade to Skylake? If yes, what motherboard do you guys recommend for my SSD. I was thinking about the MSI Z170A Pro - A PCI adapater for my current motherboard is also an option (costs around 25/30 euro). But does it even reach full speed with it on my motherboard? Hope you guys can help me out .

Don't read this if you don't want to So my cousin has this 5 year old 4gb usb 2.0 usb that's made out of happy meal plastic and it's his birthday in a couple weeks and i thought about getting him a better usb that's smaller faster and more capacity. I figured that buying a random usb on amazon that would best fit my cuz then i came across this K'1 PKParis thingy http://www.pkparis.com/en/prods/k1/ and i thought i would be an amazing gift but it was a little suspicious,128gb usb 3.0 on that silvery peanut size thing? hmm so what do you guys think My questions are: Is this a legit usb? http://www.pkparis.com/en/prods/k1/ Can you run RAID 0 on samsung 950 pro ssd? Thanks

Hi there, Took me quite a while to get started up here, validating my email address, as I had issues with the Microsoft mail servers. I'm a Mathematics student and will soon be receiving a scholarship from my university, and plan on using it to upgrade my current Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (Mid 2013), to the new Dell XPS 15 9550. After a long decision process I have decided against getting the 4K touch version as I will not be using the XPS for heavy graphics/illustration workloads or video editing, and more for mathematical analysis and some light mathematical programming with 3D plot outputs and cryptography applications. So I believe the 1080p version should be fine for me, and am currently using a 1080p touch panel with my Inspiron 15. My question is this; would it be possible to install the Samsung 850 Evo Pro together with the Samsung 950 Pro in the XPS 15 with no issues? As I would like super-high read and write speeds for the OS and programs on the M.2 drive, and then some storage for files and such on the 850 Pro. Furthermore, I would also be looking to invest in Kingston's HyperX Impact DDR4 16GB RAM package, as I will most likely be getting the base model of the XPS with only 8GB of RAM. Thanks,

Will a samsung 950 PRO m.2 512GB SSD go on my Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 7 motherboard? I have never used m.2 so I don't know anything about it and I just wanted to know if there is a compatibility thing between m.2 and whatever other m.2. Thanks

Computer specs: Asus z170-a, i5 6600k, 8gb ddr4, Samsung 950 pro Problem: I am only getting 650 MB/s read speeds and 130 MB/s write speeds. I formatted the 950 pro, installed windows 10, downloaded the NVMe driver from samsung and the samsung magician software, and restarted the computer. When the computer booted into windows I tested the speed. I am only getting ~650 MB/s read speeds and 130 MB/s write speeds. I have been trying to figure it out for a couple of days now. I hope someone can help.