Samsung SSD 960 Pro NVMe M.2 Review: Blazing Fast, Solid State Storage

Name: Samsung SSD 960 Pro
Brand: Samsung

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, October 18, 2016, 10:00 AM EDT

We really like PCMark 7's Secondary Storage benchmark module for its pseudo real-world application measurement approach to testing. PCMark 7 offers a trace-based measurement of system response times under various scripted workloads of traditional client / desktop system operation. From simple application start-up performance, to data streaming from a drive in a game engine, and video editing with Windows Movie Maker, we feel more comfortable that these tests reasonably illustrate the performance profile of SSDs in an end-user / consumer PC usage model, more so than a purely synthetic transfer test.

Futuremark's PCMark Secondary Storage

http://www.futuremark.com

pcm2

pcm1

Once again, we see the Samsung SSD 960 Pro 1TB drive lead the pack across the board. The SSD 960 Pro posted the best overall score of the bunch in the PCMark Secondary Storage Benchmark, besting the previous-gen Samsung NVMe drive -- the SSD 950 Pro -- by a few percentage points. If you look at the individual scores, you'll also see that it wasn't just one area where the Samsung SSD 960 Pro pulled ahead, it led across the board, but especially in the Starting Applications test.

Tags: Samsung, SSD, Storage, nvme

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com