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Hello all, preemptive apology for wall of text. I've been working and fighting with an issue for the last couple days, and I've gotten nowhere. I recently bought an Asus ROG GL502 vm (the 1060 variant). I wanted to upgrade the storage as the 7200 rpm drive felt sluggish compared to my tower's ssd boot drive. I bought and have installed a Samsung 950 pro 256gb ssd for the included M.2 slot on the laptop's motherboard. This is where the fun begins. I initially had intended to clone the existing HDD to the ssd for simple drive swap, then I was gonna format the included HDD and use it as a mass storage drive for backups and games that didn't need a lot of speed to keep loading times down. I installed the Samsung nVME driver, ran the Samsung cloning utility and all went fine, the drive was detected by the utility (though not the system, which I didn't worry about as I hadn't initiallized the drive yet). I boot back into bios and there was no option for my SSD. Just the existing HDD, and windows boot manager. I set the generic boot manager first in the load order followed by the existing drive, as I had read that cloned drives could show up as Windows boot manager. It still booted from the HDD. After more time searching and troubleshooting via google magic, I realized the drive was actually offline because its signature collided with the existing drive. I brought the drive online, and attempted to boot again, pulling from the new drive. It got to the login screen and began flashing the screen and not accepting input. Following this, assuming it was a conflict between the two drives, I uninstalled the hdd and tried again. Windows boot manager was still present in the load order and it booted. Though this time it went to a black screen with a mouse cursor. Nothing else. I have since formatted the ssd, and ran a clean installation of windows 10, along with the necessary drivers. Now here is where it gets confusing. The windows installer picked up and installed to the ssd with no issue, and windows explorer is showing both drives as active and working normally. However, both drives have existing windows installations and asks me to choose one before booting. The ssd is the one I've chosen when asked which installation I would like to boot from by default. This is from the windows selection and repair screen. I want to be able to format the previous drive to avoid the windows installation options, and be able to boot straight into windows, but I don't believe I can and here's why: The bios (American Megatrends Aptio Setup Utility Bios Version 202) ONLY registers the old drive now. No windows boot manager. I even verified this by once again uninstalling the old drive and trying to set load order. When doing that I can't even get out of the bios. It goes straight to bios from the ROG splash screen, and there is no option I have been able to find to get it to recognize the drive. I have tried enabling and disabling: Fast boot, CSM, Secure Boot, etc. Under Sata Options, there is only an option for AHCI, although the drive is active and working within windows, is set as the booting os drive C:\\ (by system default and no intervention of my own), and is indeed getting the speeds advertised (benchmarked with crystal disk to confirm). At this point I'm at a loss of what to do. I worry if I wipe the hdd I won't be able to boot into windows at all, and for now have resigned myself to running a dual boot until I can figure it out. I've contacted Asus support about this issue but haven't recieved any response yet. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Issue: I just built a new system with the specs below. But I am now having an issue with the new Samsung 950 Pro M.2 drive that I have. It is not recognized by the bios (which I have read to be somewhat normal) but mainly it is not recognized when I try to install Windows 10 onto it. What I have tried: I have tried most of the troubleshooting technique from youtube which includes disabling CSM. None of those tips worked for me though. Another thing that I tried was I installed windows 10 onto an old HDD to see if in Windows the device was recognized. Even after downloading the NVME and Samsung Magician software from Samsung the M.2 SSD still couldn't be recognized in device manager. I have also tried reseeding the M.2 SSD but that hasn't changed anything. Specs: CPU: Intel 6800k RAM: 32 GB DDR4 Corsair GPU: AMD R9 390 MB: ASRock Fatal1ty X99 Professional Gaming i7 -> Running most recent Bios!! --> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157718 SSD: Samsung 950 Pro M.2 ---> Plugged into top most Ultra M.2 Slot OS: NOT INSTALLED; Will be Windows 10 64 Bit PSU: EVGA 850W G3 Let me know if you have any ideas of how I can get the M.2 drive to be recognized by the bios and/or Windows (Upon a fresh OS install) Thanks!

I am new to custom cooling and i want to know which pumps, reservoir, tubes, fittings to opt. I want to liquid cool my cpu, gpu, samsung 950 pro 512gb(if possible). My specs are : msi x99 godlike gaming, 6950x, titan x, two samsung 950 pro ssds(each 512gb), corsair ax1500i, 4tb seagte hdd, 6tb wd re+ server hdd, dell p2415q 4k monitor. i havent gone for case yet because i am confused between corsair 780t and thermaltake core p5. I want best as possible in cooling and suggestion on cases are welcome too as i havent purched one yet. I do have nzxt hue+ which means i am look specific. Also which rgb fans i should go for radiators which lifts the appearance of my system. any suggestions please...that would be of great help guys. All i want is best looking liquid cooling with greatest performance.

Hey, guys. I'm looking at buying an SSD for my boot drive. I'm really interested in the OCZ RD400 M.2. My only concern is that I've heard about compatibility issues with certain Z97 motherboards, like not being able to utilize all four PCI-E lanes. I have an MSI Z97 Gaming 5 (MS-7917) (Screenshot attached.) I've looked around, but I can't seem to find anything that confirms or denies that I'll be able to use this M.2 SSD without bottleneck from the PCI-E bus. In fact, I've just gotten really confused. Could anyone help me out and tell me if I'll be able to use this SSD to its full potential, or should I just buy a regular SATA 3 SSD? Thanks!

Hey guys, So I was just curios if I used this adapter on amazon, if I would get the full performance of the Samsung 950 Pro SSD using this converter. BTW I am using an Asus Z-97A motherboard which I know will not natively support the max speed of this drive. Thanks so much! http://www.amazon.com/Lycom-DT-120-PCIe-Adapter-Support/dp/B00MYCQP38/ref=pd_sim_147_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=41ui-dV0KoL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR294%2C320_&refRID=1ZJWBBDJA1CG8V0AC87Z

So I bought this bad boy: It is so tiny! On pictures I thought it was a lot bigger lol So then it was time to install it: On the formula you have to remove that bottom right plastic panel in order to reveal the M.2 slot: And it's in: So then ran a few benchmarks and compared the results I found online, and damn silicone lottery seems good with this one: Anyone also have one to compare scores?

I'm thinking of buying a 950 pro to use as a boot drive however my system is a couple of years old now. Specs; i7 4770K Asus Z87-A I think they are the only important specs for this question. Motherboard PCIe support is 2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8) (-1 for GPU)1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x2 mode) 2 x PCIe 2.0 x1 2 x PCI

So I'm upgrading my computer from its Transcend 256gb M.2 drive to a NVME drive. These 2 seem to be really similar. Is there any point in paying extra? Samsung 950 PRO nvme £137.99 and Samsung SM951 nvme £107.99 Thank you.

So I was looking at Samsung Magician and noticed my 256GB Samsung 950 pro was only running at 2x pcie. That's what I get for trying to save $$ on a 2011-3 mainboard. I found a few people out there with a similar issue, mostly from earlier in the year. I ended up buying a PCIe 3.0 x4 Host Adaptor for M.2 NGFF PCIe SSDs. It's solved the problem at a level I'm ok with. I'm sure the numbers would be better on a board with a native 4x m.2 slot.

Hello all, quick question - I am going to build a little SSD beast for compositing large HD+ sequences. Here is my spec: Samsung 950 Pro 256GB M.2 SSD for the OS and Apps 2 x Intel 750 PCI-Express 400GB SSD in RAID 0 for data/cache Intel Core i7 6700K proc EVGA GeForce GTX 980 ACX 2.0 4GB gpu ASRock Z170M Extreme4 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 my question: am I going to "max out" or lose any PCIe functionality with this build? Am i gonna run out of lanes guys? All slots (including M.2) will be used.... -Yard

Hi there, I have recently bought the Samsung 950 PRO 256 GB because I wanted my computer to boot faster. As I have been using an HDD before I expected some major improvements but to my surprise my it changed absolutely nothing. Now I am wondering if any of you could help my out. Here are my System Specs: Motherboard: Asus Z170-A CPU: Intel i7 6700K Cooler: Corsair h100i GTX Memory: Hyper X Fury DDR4 16 GB 2133 MHz GPU: Asus Strix 980 Ti PSU: Corsair RM 650W Boot Device: Samsung 950 Pro Other: Western Digital 1 TB HDD I haven't done any overclocking so far. I installed the Driver for the SSD from the Samsung from here: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html where it can be found under "Samsung NVMe Driver Installer" Other Drivers I installed: Graphic Card Driver from Nvidia(as well as Geforce experience) Driver for the Cooler USB connection Corsair Utility Engine Corsair Gaming Headset Control Panel My BIOS version is 1602 I changed the PCI-EX16_3 Bandwidth to X4 Mode Other than that no changes were made. I do not have anything else installed. I have already tried to reinstall Windows as well as all the drivers to make sure I didn't have a faulty Windows installation. BTW what boot times should I expect. Currently i have about 30 seconds.

Built and installed design workstations in marketing department last week. OS and Adobe Creative Cloud applications are installed on the new Samsung 950 Pro (256Gb). Boot times are great, application launch is instantanious and working with gigabit+ PSD files never shows signs of waiting. Designers can't stop raving about the speeds. Two questions: Samsung says they support using Rapid Mode with Win10 but inside the Magican Application (v4.8), I am unable to turn on the feature. Any suggestions? Over Provisioning - Is it needed and if so what percentage should be applied? Systems/Builds: Asus X-99 A, Intel i7-5820k, Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 DRAM 2666MHz, Samsung 950 Pro 256Gb, WD 2TB Black, NVIDIA Quadro K2000, Cooler Master Hyper 212, SeaSonic SS-400FL2 400W 80 Plus Platinum, Fractial Design R5 case, OS Windows 10 - overclocked both systems to 4.2 using Asus OC application.

What to choose between Intel 750 400GB and Samsung 950 PRO 512GB for 4k video editing and lightroom.The rest of the system right now runs on two Intel 730 240GB RAID 0 I see that the 950 PRO has higher Sequential read/write speed and the Intel 750 has higher Random read/write performance. Powerloss vs no powerloss protection? Will the boot time be influenced only if the windows is on the Intel 750, or if the card is in the motherboard slot regardless of the windows installation location ? I will probably change the drive sooner than the TBW limit.

Hi guys its my first time posting on this forum and I just read the review on the new Samsung 950 series ssd on Anandtech. I was wondering if this ssd would be compatible with my Asus Z97 MPLUS motherboard. My board does have a m.2 slot but I'm not sure it supports PCIe 3.0 x4 gen mode supported by the ssd. On the Asus support website it just says "1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M Key, type 2260/2280 storage devices support (both SATA & PCIE mode)*1 6 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s)". If I cannot use the m.2 slot, I still have one pci e slot free which isn't being used by my graphics card, is there an adapter I could use to fit the ssd in the pcie slot. Thank you in advance!

Hey bro's, I'm building my first video editing rig and trying to decide between a single larger SSD (Samsung 950 Pro) or a smaller 950 with separate scratch disk (Samsung 850 Pro). Here's the break down: 512GB Samsung 950 Pro (OS & Apps/Scratch) 6TB HDD (Media) vs 256GB Samsung 950 Pro (OS & Apps) 256GB Samsung 850 Pro (Scratch) 6TB HDD (Media) What would you do? The 512GB 950 Pro is about the same cost of the 256GB 950 Pro and 256GB 850 Pro. Will having the separate drive really help video editing performance that much? Thx Bro's!

Should I go with the Intel 750 despite the fact that it is lower in performance but has powerloss and a heatsink or should I but with the 950 PRO with a M.2 PCIE adapter ? The 127 to 400 TBW will not be visible for a daily user I think and 127 will be more than enough for the average user.I am concerned about the heating up problem of the Samsung 950 PRO and the fact that even though the heat will not affect the SSD itself, a lot of heat will be spread to the video card and the rest of the components around. How many of you guys use encryption on the drive ? -> because Samsung has it and Intel has no encryption. Write down witch one would you choose and if the speed difference are only seen in synthetic benchmarks.

Hi there I just bought myself a Macbook Pro, and the ssd is already filling up quite fast. Also i do intend to install windows simultaneously with OS X, later on. After browsing the net for some time, i discovered the epic Samsung 950 Pro 512 Gb SSD, and the Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB SSD (m.2 ofc). I don't know whether either of them will actually fit in the Macbook. In case they both fit, would i even notice a difference in speed from the original SSD? The original SSD read/write speed is approximately 1100mb/s read and 600mb/s write. Q's 1. Do they fit the Macbook Pro Early 2015? 2. Would i notice a difference in speed? 950 making it far faster, or 850 half the read speed? 3. Which would you recommend assuming that i only use it for school, light gaming and occasionally music mixing? Thanks in advance! -Niemann