Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD Review (250GB/1TB)

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 4.0.3 X64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. Performance is virtually identical, regardless of data sample so we have included only that using random data samples.

250GB

1TB

Crystal Disk Mark gives some good results. The 250GB model achieved 3.2GB/s read and 1.6GB/s write while the 1TB model got a bit lower than rated performance in the sequential category with 3.1GB/s read and 1.7GB/s write. Looking at 4K read speeds, they look to be good. They are in line with SATA 850 EVO scores, if anything, a bit better. 4K write performance is also very good with scores around the 250MB/s range. The 250GB model seems to have a bit better performance in this test overall due to the double mount of DRAM to NAND ratio.

AS SSD BENCHMARK VER 1.8

The toughest benchmark available for solid state drives is AS SSD as it relies solely on incompressible data samples when testing performance. For the most part, AS SSD tests can be considered the ‘worst case scenario’ in obtaining data transfer speeds and many enthusiasts like AS SSD for their needs. Transfer speeds are displayed on the left with IOPS results on the right.

250GB

1TB

Overall, in AS SSD, the 250GB 960 EVO reached 3825 points while the 1TB model reached 4305 points. 2.8GB/s reads were achieved by both models and both were also able to achieve their rated write specs: 1.6GB/s and 1.9GB/s. 4K read and write are similar to CDM’s results, only AS SSD’s write is a bit lower. Here we can also see that the 250GB model hit 320K/280K IOPS read/write and the 1TB model reached 370K/320K. In the Copy test, both delivered similar results with the ISO result being the fastest at nearly 2GB/s speed for both models.

ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL

Anvil’s Storage Utilities (ASU) are the most complete test bed available for the solid state drive today. The benchmark displays test results for, not only throughput but also, IOPS and Disk Access Times. Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and use in our benchmark testing.

250GB

1TB

In Anvil Storage Utilities, the 960 EVOs did very well for themselves. The 250GB model reached 13.3K points and the 1TB model reached 14K, although, this is nearly 2K shy of the 960 Pro’s score of nearly 16K we got last month. Sequential read speeds are lower than the rated values, but write speeds are on point. 4K speeds are in line with the other tests as well. Let’s move on to our trace based benchmark tests to see how these 960 EVOs perform in a real-world use case.