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Well, we are back from this year’s Flash Memory Summit and thought we would get back into gear with a new SSD of the Week. As you all know, the Samsung SM951 is one of the best things since sliced bread in an M.2 form factor. The only issues with it is that it is an OEM only product and it is a bit on the pricey side. What if we told you that you could get it for quite a bit cheaper? Would you believe us? You should! Because for today’s SSD of the Week we are directing you towards the Eluktro Pro-X Performance, a Samsung SM951 in disguise!
The Eluktro Pro-X Performance simply is an SM951 with Eluktronic’s sticker on it. This is not only to brand it as their own product, but to help avoid confusing customers if they end up having to RMA the drive due to a failure. Unlike most SSDs on the market, this OEM drive’s warranty is handled by the reseller only. So, if you need to RMA, you have to contact Eluktronics directly within its 3-year warranty period.
Currently Eluktronics is only offering the AHCI model with no plans on selling the NVMe version yet as they are holding off until their Eluktro Pro brand motherboards support that feature in the Skylake chipset.
If you don’t already know much about the SM951, you can check out our reviews of it where we focused on single drive performance as well as RAID 0 performance. For a quick recap, it is a M.2 2280 form factor PCIe SSD. This drive’s sequential speeds are rated for up to 2150MB/s read and 1500MB/s write. 4K random IOPS are rated at 90K/70K read/write. Capacities of 128GB ($99.95), 256GB ($184.95), and 512GB ($364.95) are available.
Now, let’s look at the prices of the Samsung SM951, they are 128GB ($126.99), 256GB ($207.99), and 512GB ($376.99). As you can see the Eluktro Pro-X Performance is quite a bit cheaper per capacity making it a much better buy now than ever before. So, if you are in the market for one of these bad boys, we would advise you to check out the Eluktro Pro-X Performance rather than a regular Samsung branded one. You get the same product and get to save some money. Oh, and if you are weary of the brand, there is no need to be. Eluktronics is an American company that we have worked with in the past and after looking up their product reviews on Amazon, it should reinforce your confidence in them.
With just a bit of simple research one can discover that Samsung SM961’s are available for much less than the prices quoted via those Amazon referral links.
Even at lower prices elsewhere, the other sellers still list the SM951 for more than this Eluktronics branded one.