Productinformatie The Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD of 250GB capacity features NVMe -interface w ith a larger bandwidth, a new controller and Samsung's Intelligent TurboWrite technology. The 960 EVO achieves sequential read and write speeds up to 3200/1900 MB/s and random speeds up to 380/360K IOPS. Writing is also accelerated by Intelligent TurboWrite technology. Dynamic Thermal Guard prevents overheating, protects data and ensures optimal response times. The product comes with advanced maintenance software Magician and checks for new firmware for the SSD. Magician automatically updates the firmware to the latest version, so the performance of the drive remains up to date.
Productinformatie The Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD of 250GB capacity features NVMe -interface w ith a larger bandwidth, a new controller and Samsung's Intelligent TurboWrite technology. The 960 EVO achieves sequential read and write speeds up to 3200/1900 MB/s and random speeds up to 380/360K IOPS. Writing is also accelerated by Intelligent TurboWrite technology. Dynamic Thermal Guard prevents overheating, protects data and ensures optimal response times. The product comes with advanced maintenance software Magician and checks for new firmware for the SSD. Magician automatically updates the firmware to the latest version, so the performance of the drive remains up to date.
in 2 offers
The lowest price for Samsung 960 Evo NVMe M.2 250GB SSD right now is $185.00 at eBay.com.au, compared across 2 retailers.
The all-time low was $85.33 on 20 Feb 2025 — today's price is 117% above the lowest ever. It has been notably cheaper before — worth setting a price alert.
Prices last updated 13 May 2026.
Samsung 960 Evo NVMe M.2 250GB SSD
Productinformatie The Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD of 250GB capacity features NVMe -interface w ith a larger bandwidth, a new controller and Samsung's Intelligent TurboWrite technology. The 960 EVO achieves sequential read and write speeds up to 3200/1900 MB/s and random speeds up to 380/360K IOPS. Writing is also accelerated by Intelligent TurboWrite technology. Dynamic Thermal Guard prevents overheating, protects data and ensures optimal response times. The product comes with advanced maintenance software Magician and checks for new firmware for the SSD. Magician automatically updates the firmware to the latest version, so the performance of the drive remains up to date.
Productinformatie The Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD of 250GB capacity features NVMe -interface w ith a larger bandwidth, a new controller and Samsung's Intelligent TurboWrite technology. The 960 EVO achieves sequential read and write speeds up to 3200/1900 MB/s and random speeds up to 380/360K IOPS. Writing is also accelerated by Intelligent TurboWrite technology. Dynamic Thermal Guard prevents overheating, protects data and ensures optimal response times. The product comes with advanced maintenance software Magician and checks for new firmware for the SSD. Magician automatically updates the firmware to the latest version, so the performance of the drive remains up to date.
Last updated at 13/05/2026 03:20:34
Samsung 960 Evo Ssd M.2 250 Gb Pci Express 3.0 V-nand Nvme
Free delivery
Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a small commission for purchases made through this link at no extra cost to you. This helps support our site. Thank you!
Samsung SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2 250GB
Delivery between 19–22 May $15.52
originally posted on neweggbusiness.com
- I recently built a new system and decided to go with the 500gb NVMe as my main OS drive. - The OS boots about the same speed as a regular SSD, maybe a second or two fast but it's not terribly noticeable (I also have 2x RAID array's in my setup so the POST process takes a couple seconds longer anyways). - In my setup I have this NVMe as my OS drive, a 850 2.5" as a High I/O game drive and 2x WD 1TB in RAID 0 as a Low I/O game drive. I put a few games on the NVMe drive but only the ones I play a lot while I prioritize everything else on the other 2 volumes. Even though this is a EVO drive, it loads games insanely fast. I had some games (Stellaris, HOI4, EFT) that were heavily modded and they load in seconds, literally seconds. I used to run them on a 4x WD 1TB Raid ... More- I recently built a new system and decided to go with the 500gb NVMe as my main OS drive. - The OS boots about the same speed as a regular SSD, maybe a second or two fast but it's not terribly noticeable (I also have 2x RAID array's in my setup so the POST process takes a couple seconds longer anyways). - In my setup I have this NVMe as my OS drive, a 850 2.5" as a High I/O game drive and 2x WD 1TB in RAID 0 as a Low I/O game drive. I put a few games on the NVMe drive but only the ones I play a lot while I prioritize everything else on the other 2 volumes. Even though this is a EVO drive, it loads games insanely fast. I had some games (Stellaris, HOI4, EFT) that were heavily modded and they load in seconds, literally seconds. I used to run them on a 4x WD 1TB Raid 0 (SSD like speeds but with HDD). And there is just no comparison to even the EVO NVMe. - Build: - MSI Z270 Pro Carbon Gaming - Intel i7-7700K - Corsair Hydro Series H115i - G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB (16gb x2) @ 3200mhz - ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti AMP Extreme Core 11GB GDDR5X 352-bit - Samsung 960 EVO M.2 500GB NVMe (OS Drive, Win 10 x64) - HGST DeskStar 0S04005 4TB 7200RPM 128mb x3 in RAID 5 (primary data drive) - SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 500GB SATA III 3D NAND (High I/O games drive) - WD Black Series WD1003FZEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB x2 in RAID 0 (Low I/O games drive) - LG 34UC79G-B 34" Ultrawide 2560 x 1080 @ 144hz - Toshiba 32L2400U 32" 1920 x 1080 @ 60hz
originally posted on scan.co.uk
Using this and a Samsung SM961 1TB. This as boot drive and the SM as game/work drive. The SM is similarly priced, and a better performing drive (not a fair comparison, a 1TB drive should be faster than a 250GB one). But the EVO is slightly cheaper when comparing same-sized drives, and so overkill for a boot drive, that it's not worth spending more. The SM drive flexes its muscle for server workloads or any super high I/O / low file size use like running a large SQL DB. For day-to-day use the EVO is magnificently fast, has much better out-the-box compatibility (the SMs aren't fully supported on some AM4 boards and default to 2x PCIe) and the SMs are an OEM drive and getting fully optimised drivers is a trawl and there's no Samsung magician compatibility. I'm using ... MoreUsing this and a Samsung SM961 1TB. This as boot drive and the SM as game/work drive. The SM is similarly priced, and a better performing drive (not a fair comparison, a 1TB drive should be faster than a 250GB one). But the EVO is slightly cheaper when comparing same-sized drives, and so overkill for a boot drive, that it's not worth spending more. The SM drive flexes its muscle for server workloads or any super high I/O / low file size use like running a large SQL DB. For day-to-day use the EVO is magnificently fast, has much better out-the-box compatibility (the SMs aren't fully supported on some AM4 boards and default to 2x PCIe) and the SMs are an OEM drive and getting fully optimised drivers is a trawl and there's no Samsung magician compatibility. I'm using the SM as a yardstick as it's the only cost-comparable drive that performs as well. Corsair nVME drives are very well regarded but all the ones I've seen have been 20% more expensive per capacity. While Samsung's Pro drives, although pimp, are much dearer. Nothing else can hang with the EVO at this price. It's superb.The bigger question is whether you would take one over a SATA SSD? Well, the EVO is massively faster. Although in real terms it feels *maybe* 50% faster, not the 6x faster that is can deliver. It certainly isn't anything like the jump from a mechanical disk to an SSD. For me, I have a small-ish PC and the fact that nvme drives don't take up drive bays is a bonus (neat-freak nerd, niche market, sorry). If your budget means you are trying to balance capacity vs speed then go SATA SSD. If you're comfy spending a premium for the fastest system drive get nvme. Personally, I'd have a 1TB SATA SSD like a Crucial MX500 instead of a 250GB nvme and a 1TB HDD (if that makes sense to you - i.e. I'd rather have more solid-state storage than a faster solid state boot drive and a mechanical). But YMMV. Either way, for the money the drive is a very sweet price/performance proposition.
originally posted on newegg.com
If you want to mount this drive in your M.2 slot, ensure that: 1) You have your own mounting screw already since no screw comes with the SSD. 2) That your M.2 slot is properly wired for PCIe 3.0 X4. Dell XPS 8900 isn't. Magician software will tell you how many channels of PCIe are connected. I had to add a Lycom DT-120 M.2 to PCIe 3.0 X4 plug-in card for $18 because Dell screws up. But still a great deal. DO NOT use your SSD as your Windows swap device. You could eat it alive if you do a lot of swapping. Leave a rotating hard drive in your system for that. Or install enough RAM and eschew swapping altogether. Nobody tells you that when you clone your existing Windows 10 drive to your new SSD with the Samsung utility (and likely others as well) that it copies an ... MoreIf you want to mount this drive in your M.2 slot, ensure that: 1) You have your own mounting screw already since no screw comes with the SSD. 2) That your M.2 slot is properly wired for PCIe 3.0 X4. Dell XPS 8900 isn't. Magician software will tell you how many channels of PCIe are connected. I had to add a Lycom DT-120 M.2 to PCIe 3.0 X4 plug-in card for $18 because Dell screws up. But still a great deal. DO NOT use your SSD as your Windows swap device. You could eat it alive if you do a lot of swapping. Leave a rotating hard drive in your system for that. Or install enough RAM and eschew swapping altogether. Nobody tells you that when you clone your existing Windows 10 drive to your new SSD with the Samsung utility (and likely others as well) that it copies an internal serial number to the SSD and when you boot with your new SSD and your old hard drive both in the system (because you want to use that hard drive for swapping and backup), that Windows will only recognize one of them -- likely the old drive. You only find this out by going to Windows Disk Management afterwards to find the error message on why both disks aren't mounted. Installing Windows 10 fresh on your SSD will give it a new identifier, but do you really want to do that? DO NOT tell Disk Management to force mount the other disk because it creates a new serial number in the process and renders that disk unbootable for Windows 10. If you want to keep both your new SSD and your original bootable Windows hard drive in the event of a future issue -- or it's your only copy of Windows 10 -- I recommend just buying a new hard drive for swapping and backup from the SSD, as well as big slow additional storage for when you have more than the SSD holds and access speeds aren't an issue, and put the original hard drive on the shelf. This way your system has a shiny new hard drive along with your new SSD and both should be good to go for years of service.
| Performance | |
| Mean time between failures (MTBF) | 1500000 h |
| Hardware encryption | Y |
| TRIM support | Y |
| S.M.A.R.T. support | Y |
Samsung 960 Evo Ssd M.2 250 Gb Pci Express 3.0 V-nand Nvme
Free delivery
Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a small commission for purchases made through this link at no extra cost to you. This helps support our site. Thank you!
Samsung SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2 250GB
Delivery between 19–22 May $15.52
- I recently built a new system and decided to go with the 500gb NVMe as my main OS drive. - The OS boots about the same speed as a regular SSD, maybe a second or two fast but it's not terribly noticeable (I also have 2x RAID array's in my setup so the POST process takes a couple seconds longer anyways). - In my setup I have this NVMe as my OS drive, a 850 2.5" as a High I/O game drive and 2x WD 1TB in RAID 0 as a Low I/O game drive. I put a few games on the NVMe drive but only the ones I play a lot while I prioritize everything else on the other 2 volumes. Even though this is a EVO drive, it loads games insanely fast. I had some games (Stellaris, HOI4, EFT) that were heavily modded and they load in seconds, literally seconds. I used to run them on a 4x WD 1TB Raid ... More- I recently built a new system and decided to go with the 500gb NVMe as my main OS drive. - The OS boots about the same speed as a regular SSD, maybe a second or two fast but it's not terribly noticeable (I also have 2x RAID array's in my setup so the POST process takes a couple seconds longer anyways). - In my setup I have this NVMe as my OS drive, a 850 2.5" as a High I/O game drive and 2x WD 1TB in RAID 0 as a Low I/O game drive. I put a few games on the NVMe drive but only the ones I play a lot while I prioritize everything else on the other 2 volumes. Even though this is a EVO drive, it loads games insanely fast. I had some games (Stellaris, HOI4, EFT) that were heavily modded and they load in seconds, literally seconds. I used to run them on a 4x WD 1TB Raid 0 (SSD like speeds but with HDD). And there is just no comparison to even the EVO NVMe. - Build: - MSI Z270 Pro Carbon Gaming - Intel i7-7700K - Corsair Hydro Series H115i - G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB (16gb x2) @ 3200mhz - ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti AMP Extreme Core 11GB GDDR5X 352-bit - Samsung 960 EVO M.2 500GB NVMe (OS Drive, Win 10 x64) - HGST DeskStar 0S04005 4TB 7200RPM 128mb x3 in RAID 5 (primary data drive) - SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 500GB SATA III 3D NAND (High I/O games drive) - WD Black Series WD1003FZEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB x2 in RAID 0 (Low I/O games drive) - LG 34UC79G-B 34" Ultrawide 2560 x 1080 @ 144hz - Toshiba 32L2400U 32" 1920 x 1080 @ 60hz
Using this and a Samsung SM961 1TB. This as boot drive and the SM as game/work drive. The SM is similarly priced, and a better performing drive (not a fair comparison, a 1TB drive should be faster than a 250GB one). But the EVO is slightly cheaper when comparing same-sized drives, and so overkill for a boot drive, that it's not worth spending more. The SM drive flexes its muscle for server workloads or any super high I/O / low file size use like running a large SQL DB. For day-to-day use the EVO is magnificently fast, has much better out-the-box compatibility (the SMs aren't fully supported on some AM4 boards and default to 2x PCIe) and the SMs are an OEM drive and getting fully optimised drivers is a trawl and there's no Samsung magician compatibility. I'm using ... MoreUsing this and a Samsung SM961 1TB. This as boot drive and the SM as game/work drive. The SM is similarly priced, and a better performing drive (not a fair comparison, a 1TB drive should be faster than a 250GB one). But the EVO is slightly cheaper when comparing same-sized drives, and so overkill for a boot drive, that it's not worth spending more. The SM drive flexes its muscle for server workloads or any super high I/O / low file size use like running a large SQL DB. For day-to-day use the EVO is magnificently fast, has much better out-the-box compatibility (the SMs aren't fully supported on some AM4 boards and default to 2x PCIe) and the SMs are an OEM drive and getting fully optimised drivers is a trawl and there's no Samsung magician compatibility. I'm using the SM as a yardstick as it's the only cost-comparable drive that performs as well. Corsair nVME drives are very well regarded but all the ones I've seen have been 20% more expensive per capacity. While Samsung's Pro drives, although pimp, are much dearer. Nothing else can hang with the EVO at this price. It's superb.The bigger question is whether you would take one over a SATA SSD? Well, the EVO is massively faster. Although in real terms it feels *maybe* 50% faster, not the 6x faster that is can deliver. It certainly isn't anything like the jump from a mechanical disk to an SSD. For me, I have a small-ish PC and the fact that nvme drives don't take up drive bays is a bonus (neat-freak nerd, niche market, sorry). If your budget means you are trying to balance capacity vs speed then go SATA SSD. If you're comfy spending a premium for the fastest system drive get nvme. Personally, I'd have a 1TB SATA SSD like a Crucial MX500 instead of a 250GB nvme and a 1TB HDD (if that makes sense to you - i.e. I'd rather have more solid-state storage than a faster solid state boot drive and a mechanical). But YMMV. Either way, for the money the drive is a very sweet price/performance proposition.
If you want to mount this drive in your M.2 slot, ensure that: 1) You have your own mounting screw already since no screw comes with the SSD. 2) That your M.2 slot is properly wired for PCIe 3.0 X4. Dell XPS 8900 isn't. Magician software will tell you how many channels of PCIe are connected. I had to add a Lycom DT-120 M.2 to PCIe 3.0 X4 plug-in card for $18 because Dell screws up. But still a great deal. DO NOT use your SSD as your Windows swap device. You could eat it alive if you do a lot of swapping. Leave a rotating hard drive in your system for that. Or install enough RAM and eschew swapping altogether. Nobody tells you that when you clone your existing Windows 10 drive to your new SSD with the Samsung utility (and likely others as well) that it copies an ... MoreIf you want to mount this drive in your M.2 slot, ensure that: 1) You have your own mounting screw already since no screw comes with the SSD. 2) That your M.2 slot is properly wired for PCIe 3.0 X4. Dell XPS 8900 isn't. Magician software will tell you how many channels of PCIe are connected. I had to add a Lycom DT-120 M.2 to PCIe 3.0 X4 plug-in card for $18 because Dell screws up. But still a great deal. DO NOT use your SSD as your Windows swap device. You could eat it alive if you do a lot of swapping. Leave a rotating hard drive in your system for that. Or install enough RAM and eschew swapping altogether. Nobody tells you that when you clone your existing Windows 10 drive to your new SSD with the Samsung utility (and likely others as well) that it copies an internal serial number to the SSD and when you boot with your new SSD and your old hard drive both in the system (because you want to use that hard drive for swapping and backup), that Windows will only recognize one of them -- likely the old drive. You only find this out by going to Windows Disk Management afterwards to find the error message on why both disks aren't mounted. Installing Windows 10 fresh on your SSD will give it a new identifier, but do you really want to do that? DO NOT tell Disk Management to force mount the other disk because it creates a new serial number in the process and renders that disk unbootable for Windows 10. If you want to keep both your new SSD and your original bootable Windows hard drive in the event of a future issue -- or it's your only copy of Windows 10 -- I recommend just buying a new hard drive for swapping and backup from the SSD, as well as big slow additional storage for when you have more than the SSD holds and access speeds aren't an issue, and put the original hard drive on the shelf. This way your system has a shiny new hard drive along with your new SSD and both should be good to go for years of service.
250GB Samsung 960 Evo, 3D V-NAND, M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.1, 3200MB/s Read, 1500MB/s Write, 330K/300K IOPSI have just carried out an upgrade on my ATX based PC I have enough hard disk space for my needs but something faster was needed for the Windows 10 operating system. My new motherboard an Asus a Z270-P has two M.2 slots which will accept Samsung 960 Evo or Pro so this device enables much faster read and write speeds than a traditional hard disk. Windows now opens in seconds. But the benefits don’t end there since Windows employs a Pagefile to assist with speed of operations that is usually placed on the Boot drive so Windows operates in a much quicker and smoother way generally. The drive its self consists of a circuit board approximately 80mm x 20mm Full ... More250GB Samsung 960 Evo, 3D V-NAND, M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.1, 3200MB/s Read, 1500MB/s Write, 330K/300K IOPSI have just carried out an upgrade on my ATX based PC I have enough hard disk space for my needs but something faster was needed for the Windows 10 operating system. My new motherboard an Asus a Z270-P has two M.2 slots which will accept Samsung 960 Evo or Pro so this device enables much faster read and write speeds than a traditional hard disk. Windows now opens in seconds. But the benefits don’t end there since Windows employs a Pagefile to assist with speed of operations that is usually placed on the Boot drive so Windows operates in a much quicker and smoother way generally. The drive its self consists of a circuit board approximately 80mm x 20mm Full instructions are provided but essentially take ESD precautions to prevent damage to the drive and other components when handling, plug the drive connector in at an angle then lower the other end carefully and secure with the small screw to the motherboard or card.There are at least two ways to set this as the Boot device, Samsung provide free to download drive cloning software and a driver. Windows 10 also provides a driver that works with the device to so if you are adding this to a functional PC this is an easy way to set this up. I preferred to make a new installation of Windows 10 on my new device, however depending on the Bios of your motherboard I would advise reading up about UEFI bios Windows 10 and GPT partition table format since Windows may need the drive formatting prior to installation.Samsung also provides an SSD maintenance software tool (Samsung Magician) which employs Trim to keep the drive in tip top condition.Finally I have read that M.2 drives can run hot I haven’t noticed this with the 960 Evo particularly but I have added my own thermostatic cooling system for the drive as a precaution, it is possibly the higher spec Pro version that others have commented on as running hot.
OMG I love these guys. I ORDERED Samsung 960 RAM. But they delivered BETTER. They gave me 970 Samsung. Faster better. Wow. It was a great deal before... and it got better. Nice.
I replaced a 256 Samsung 950 Pro with this. It does everything it is rated to do and more. Can't see any reason to pay the premium for the 960 Pro unless you have it in an environment that it is under constant write use and you need the added service life that the 960 Pro offers. Even though the 950 Pro is a really fast PCIe SSD my graphics station boots faster and Adobe Premier Pro and Photoshop load quicker.I installed the 950 Pro that the 960 EVO replaced into a PCIe slot using an adapter. As long as the adapter is inserted in a 4 lane or 8 lane slot the SSD runs the same speed as it did on the built in 4 lane M.2 slot on the motherboard. You can also run it on a mother board that only has a two lane slot. On a two lane slot the read speed will be cut in two, ... MoreI replaced a 256 Samsung 950 Pro with this. It does everything it is rated to do and more. Can't see any reason to pay the premium for the 960 Pro unless you have it in an environment that it is under constant write use and you need the added service life that the 960 Pro offers. Even though the 950 Pro is a really fast PCIe SSD my graphics station boots faster and Adobe Premier Pro and Photoshop load quicker.I installed the 950 Pro that the 960 EVO replaced into a PCIe slot using an adapter. As long as the adapter is inserted in a 4 lane or 8 lane slot the SSD runs the same speed as it did on the built in 4 lane M.2 slot on the motherboard. You can also run it on a mother board that only has a two lane slot. On a two lane slot the read speed will be cut in two, but the write speed will only suffer about 30 percent. Obviously even these new fast drives still don't have the write capacity to fully saturate the bus.If your BIOS has support to boot from the PCIe slot you can boot from there also. The advantage to that is that the M.2 will most likely run cooler as it has airflow around it although this 960 EVO runs at about 29 degrees at idle and about 41-43 degrees C under load on the motherboard slot.These Samsung PCIe M.2 960 EVO SSDs remove the Video and Photo processing bottleneck that is present even with SATA SSD drives on high end editing machines.By using these fast PCIe drives to load from and save and render to, my computer with its i7 on a Z170 board and much processing being handed off to an Nvidia GTX 1070 will now take whatever I throw at it and never flinch. May the RAID0 rest in peace as they are no longer relevant. Progress has made them obsolete and useless. Hail the new king in fast consumer affordable storage and OS drives.
First and foremost, this drive is fast with near-advertised speeds (see story below for more details). The response time and consistency has been exceptional, and my cold boot time on Windows 10 after enabling several MSI boot optimizations is now 2 seconds flat. Still amazes me several weeks later.Truthfully, I went through many hoops to get this SSD working with my motherboard (MSI Z97-GD65). However, this was due to my motherboard not having an m.2 port (it has mSata which is significantly different) and was my fault for not verifying this before my purchase. MSI was very gracious however, as about a year or so prior they released an update to their BIOS which added support for m.2 drives - perfect! I ordered an m.2 -> PCI-E x4 adapter, updated the BIOS using a ... MoreFirst and foremost, this drive is fast with near-advertised speeds (see story below for more details). The response time and consistency has been exceptional, and my cold boot time on Windows 10 after enabling several MSI boot optimizations is now 2 seconds flat. Still amazes me several weeks later.Truthfully, I went through many hoops to get this SSD working with my motherboard (MSI Z97-GD65). However, this was due to my motherboard not having an m.2 port (it has mSata which is significantly different) and was my fault for not verifying this before my purchase. MSI was very gracious however, as about a year or so prior they released an update to their BIOS which added support for m.2 drives - perfect! I ordered an m.2 -> PCI-E x4 adapter, updated the BIOS using a spare USB drive, and installed my new hardware. Initially, the drive was successfully detected by Windows 10 (I had to right-click on the start menu and then initialize the drive via Disk Management). My goal however was to migrate Windows over to this SSD to get off my 1TB HDD RAID setup. I went to a free faithful tool of mine - Clonezilla. After installing the latest stable to a USB stick and booting off the stick, I eventually reached an unrecognized error during the process. Disappointed but not discouraged, I read on a forum post that the dev builds of Clonezilla were on a newer version of Linux with better drive technology support. So I gave it a shot and they were right! Migration took about an hour for 500GBs of written data, and I've been a happy camper since. The m.2 adapter causes a slight loss in performance yielding 85% of advertised read (~2700MB/s), yet still 100% of advertised write (~1800MB/s).I bought this drive for the performance, endurance and future-proofing. I expect this SSD to remain my main drive after building a new desktop a few years down the road. The performance is insane, taking my rapid loads from a dedicated SATA3 SSD for games to an entirely new level. For anyone still reading, my recommendations are to ensure your computer is compatible with m.2 (at PCI-E x4 speeds), that you are okay with your main GPU lane dropping to PCI-E x8 (MAYBE dropped 1-2 fps for me with my GTX 1080 and dual monitors), and that there's plenty of ventilation around the SSD to ensure that top speeds are consistent during huge data transfers.
I moved from a Crucial/Micron 1TB SATA6 M500 SSD that was getting full (lots of games). I upgraded to this NVMe and honestly it doesn't really feel any faster than the old SSD. I wish I spent a bit more and got the 960 Pro NVMe since maybe it would feel faster. Installing it was a big pain since I didn't have the screw and had to hunt around for replacement screws to hold the NVMe drive in since obviously I lost the screw from the original motherboard as the PC was built over a year previously. I ended up finding a laptop screw that worked but I had to make a small custom washer for my rig. Typically the NVMe screw is M2 with a big wide head (looks like a tack). I wish a few came with every motherboard purchased. The Samsung data migration software worked great to ... MoreI moved from a Crucial/Micron 1TB SATA6 M500 SSD that was getting full (lots of games). I upgraded to this NVMe and honestly it doesn't really feel any faster than the old SSD. I wish I spent a bit more and got the 960 Pro NVMe since maybe it would feel faster. Installing it was a big pain since I didn't have the screw and had to hunt around for replacement screws to hold the NVMe drive in since obviously I lost the screw from the original motherboard as the PC was built over a year previously. I ended up finding a laptop screw that worked but I had to make a small custom washer for my rig. Typically the NVMe screw is M2 with a big wide head (looks like a tack). I wish a few came with every motherboard purchased. The Samsung data migration software worked great to copy my m500 data to NVMe. I like the latest 4.x Magician software but hate the new v5.0 I upgraded to. Basically 5.0 seems like it does very little other than run a performance test and doesn't show much useful data (like firmware version) or allow you to optimize windows settings (or see them). It's like they removed all the nerd knobs that PC enthusiasts like and made the software look pretty for someone like my mom who is not technical. Basically Magician 5 sucks so avoid upgrading to it if you can. Also on Magician - it doesn't work with Samsung Enterprise drives and the tiny 1.3MB DL for Enterprise SSD management doesn't work or do anything so rather than figure out Samsung's software shortcomings I found it easier to stop buying Samsung SSDs server server builds and only use Intel drives in server builds because Intel's software doesn't cause me headaches. Maybe Samsung wanted to design Magician 5 similar to its Enterprise SSD management software (so useless). Overall Samsung SSDs are great but I wish they put some thought into Magician since clearly someone went brain dead on the software team.
I recently built a new PC using state of the art components. It features an Intel i9 Processor, 2 NVidia GTX 1080s, 64GB of DDR4 RAM, liquid cooling, 2 Samsung Evo SSD's, and last but definitely not least, the Samsung 960 EVO 250GB Internal M.2 PCI Express, capable of speeds up to 3200MB/sec!! It blows away the traditional SSD speed of 600MB/sec!! I can turn on my computer, and it boots into Windows 10 in less than 6 seconds! I can literally play any game at maximum graphics settings, and with my new Samsung 960 EVO M.2 SSD, it runs faster than any computer I've ever used before. If you're looking for a MAJOR speed boost, and your motherboard is capable of supporting M.2 SSD drives, don't hesitate to buy this M.2 SSD. The speed boost you get is absolutely amazing! ... MoreI recently built a new PC using state of the art components. It features an Intel i9 Processor, 2 NVidia GTX 1080s, 64GB of DDR4 RAM, liquid cooling, 2 Samsung Evo SSD's, and last but definitely not least, the Samsung 960 EVO 250GB Internal M.2 PCI Express, capable of speeds up to 3200MB/sec!! It blows away the traditional SSD speed of 600MB/sec!! I can turn on my computer, and it boots into Windows 10 in less than 6 seconds! I can literally play any game at maximum graphics settings, and with my new Samsung 960 EVO M.2 SSD, it runs faster than any computer I've ever used before. If you're looking for a MAJOR speed boost, and your motherboard is capable of supporting M.2 SSD drives, don't hesitate to buy this M.2 SSD. The speed boost you get is absolutely amazing! The M.2 SSD is about half the size of a DDR4 desktop memory module. If you're going to build a computer, build a BEAST! Get the Samsung 960 M.2 SSD drive. Traditional non-solid state drives are completely obsolete now. If you want a computer that will crush the competition (my computer ranked higher than 99.7% of the 10,000,000 computers that it was compared to. Do it, get the Evo 960 M.2 SSD!!
My windows 10 steps (upgrading from a Crucial M4 SSD) are as follows:1. Install Samsung 960 Evo 1TB2. Install NVMe driver and reboot (necessary to get the full speed/benefit) (Download from Samsung's website)3. Install Samsung Magician and run the program to make sure the latest firmware is installed. (you can download it from samsung's website).4. Install Samsung Data Migration Software and run the program to clone the main C drive. (again you can download from samsung's website)5. Remove main boot drive.6. Change bios setting to boot the Samsung 960 Evo (if you are using a UEFI bios and installed windows in uefi mode it should say Windows Bootloader: Samsung 960 etc.)7. Run Samsung Magician to make sure AHCI and Trim is enabled. If not google how to ... MoreMy windows 10 steps (upgrading from a Crucial M4 SSD) are as follows:1. Install Samsung 960 Evo 1TB2. Install NVMe driver and reboot (necessary to get the full speed/benefit) (Download from Samsung's website)3. Install Samsung Magician and run the program to make sure the latest firmware is installed. (you can download it from samsung's website).4. Install Samsung Data Migration Software and run the program to clone the main C drive. (again you can download from samsung's website)5. Remove main boot drive.6. Change bios setting to boot the Samsung 960 Evo (if you are using a UEFI bios and installed windows in uefi mode it should say Windows Bootloader: Samsung 960 etc.)7. Run Samsung Magician to make sure AHCI and Trim is enabled. If not google how to enable.8. Wipe old SSD and give to a friendAlso, note that Windows was installed in UEFI mode. You can tell windows was installed in UEFI mode since my boot order lists “Windows bootloader: Samsung 960 EVO” rather than “Samsung 960 EVO”. If your Windows 10 install is not in UEFI mode, I would do a clean install and install using UEFI mode making sure GPT is used rather than MBR. The easiest way to do this is to use a windows install usb drive and boot to it in uefi mode.As far as my review of this drive. It’s insanely fast (see screenshot to see how it does on an x99 Taichi with i7-6850k). I had to switch some of my hdd sata connectors on my motherboard since some of my sata connectors shares lanes with the m.2 (moving it unlocked the screenshot you see). Read your manual to see if this applies to you! Unfortunately, if you are already using a SSD with a 500MB read speed, you will see little benefits for the increased cost. For new builds, this should be on your build list and makes more sense than upgrading. Also note the higher in capacity, the faster the 960 should be (theoretically). Also, using a tpm 2.0 module and bitlocker on the 960 evo 1tb brought the read speed down to 1700 and not affecting the write speed. So even with bitlocker this drive is SUPER FREAKING FAST!Other thoughts: The watchdogs 2 promotion was an absolute farce and most folks that backordered/purchased this item (including myself) never received the code. Also, make sure you have adequate airflow in your case because this thing can get hot see my screenshot for temps while benchmarking (the temps are current on the left, min in the middle, and max on the right using hwmonitor)FOR THOSE HAVING ISSUES: I have found that read speeds are affected by two big reasons.1. The motherboard shares the m.2 with a sata port. FIX: Read your manual and switch which sata ports you are using to a port that isn't shared.2. TPM modules. FIX: Don't use bitlocker if it bothers you that your read speed goes down.
| Performance | |
| Mean time between failures (MTBF) | 1500000 h |
| Hardware encryption | Y |
| TRIM support | Y |
| S.M.A.R.T. support | Y |
