Samsung 950 PRO SSD at $350 for 512GB

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced the 950 PRO SSD, designed to meet the demands of high-performance consumer and business laptops and PCs.

The drive’s M.2 form factor means that users with ultra-slim notebook PCs and workstations can benefit from leading storage endurance, reliability and energy efficiency.

The 950 PRO SSD is Samsung’s first consumer-ready NVMe* M.2 form factor SSD with vertical NAND (V-NAND) technology; supporting the PCIe 3.0 interface. With the introduction of NVMe, the first protocol optimized for SSDs, users of the 950 PRO will benefit from improved performance and power saving which can help increase battery life and potentially reduce operating costs. The drive is for professionals who want cutting-edge performance, higher bandwidth and lower latency from their high-end PCs and workstations, for projects such as computer-aided design, data analysis and engineering simulation. The compact M.2 2280 form factor ensures compatibility with next-generation desktop and mobile platforms that support the M.2 PCIe slot and interface.

“With the introduction of the 950 PRO using NVMe and PCIe, Samsung is able to provide our customers with the memory needed to handle the increased storage demands of tomorrow’s computing systems,” said Un-Soo Kim, SVP of branded memory, memory business, Samsung Electronics. “Consumers and businesses alike can experience enterprise-quality performance and benefits such as speed, endurance and energy efficiency to support the most demanding applications. The 950 PRO is yet another example of a branded memory solution that continues to elevate our portfolio of products and reflects Samsung’s continued leadership in the memory industry.”

Featuring the PCIe Gen.3 x4 interface and supporting the NVMe protocol, the 950 PRO offers improved random and sequential performance over SATA interface drives utilizing the legacy Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) protocol. Users of applications that benefit from high IO/s will experience up to four times faster performance than with traditional SATA SSDs.

The 950 PRO will be available in 512GB and 256GB storage capacities. The 512GB version delivers sequential R/W speeds of up to 2,500 MB/s and 1,500 MB/s. Random read performance is up to 300,000 IO/s, with write speeds of up to 110,000 IO/s. It features Samsung’s second generation MLC V-NAND 32-layer 128Gb die with UBX controller and magician software.

The drive was built to last, with AES 256-bit Full Disk Encryption to protect data and Dynamic Thermal Guard, which can protect the device and data in inclement weather from 0 to 70°C. It can also withstand physical shock of up to 1,500G/0.5ms and vibrations up to 20G.

Both capacities come with a 5-year limited warranty up to 200TB written (TBW) for the 256GB and 400TBW for the 512GB.

The 950 PRO will be available beginning in October 2015, with an MSRP of $199.99 for the 256GB capacity and $349.99 for the 512GB capacity.

* Often shortened as NVMe, NVM Express (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is an optimized, high performance, scalable host controller interface with a streamlined register interface and command set designed for enterprise and client systems that use PCIe SSDs.