B01M20VBU7

This drive is the best I have ever purchased and I am now spoiled on nvme drives. Installation was a breeze and no cables to cram in behind my case either.

Make sure you read in your motherboard manual the speed at which this drive can run with certain pcie lanes being used. If I had used pcie4 on my motherboard it would be running at x2 which is half the speed this drive can utilize.

Also, to another review posted about the lanes on your CPU; Yes the 6700k has 16 lanes for use of pcie 3.0 which is used for your graphics card most of the time. HOWEVER, the reviewer failed to say that the z170 chipset hives you an additional 20 lanes. Which means your GPU can use all those lanes on your CPU and your nvme will function at its best using the chipset lanes. Intel has stated this so please please do not go out and buy a $1000 processor because you feel as if you need more lanes because you don’t. Thank you for taking the time to read my review this is honestly a very very good SSD.

Windows 7 came out a long time ago and does not have built-in support/drivers for NVMe drives in general (not a samsung issue, but a windows 7 issue). If you are using windows 8/10, you will not experience the driver issues.

My windows 10 steps (upgrading from a Crucial M4 SSD) are as follows:
1. Install Samsung 960 Evo 1TB
2. 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 friend

Also, 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.

This is a review of the Samsung 960 EVO 250GB M.2 SSD Drive.

Summary – I did purchase else where due to earlier availability and a few dollar savings, however, this is a BEAST! I am using this with Lycom DT-120 M.2 PCIe to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter (Support M.2 PCIe 2280, 2260, 2242) which was very cheap.

I did a lot of research and this card was my answer to finding a way to add the Evo 960 ssd drive to my pc in a way that actually permits the SSD drive to operate full speed.

AS long as your motherboard supports booting from PCI Express or has a full speed M2 Slot, you can be up and running in little to no time.

Here is the quick list of all I needed to do. Be mindful that I was expecting to have problems, boot issues, bios adjustments and possible windows 10 reload but did not at all. Total swap time less than 30 minutes.

Swap Procedure
Install SSD onto the new Lycom card. (Just slides into the slot and tightens down with the included screw.)
Install Lycom card into available PCI Express x 16 lane inside your pc. (You can use a x4, x8 or x16 available pci express slot. Not all pins will be used of course.)
Ran Samsung Data Migration Software (free via google) to clone my current EVO 850 to the new drive. (Literally took only 20 minutes.)
Then once it was done the cloned, I shut down, pulled the old SSD sata drive out and rebooted.

My pc booted right away. I expected Windows 10 to give an activation issue and all, but nothing.

This is truly plug and play and has been rock solid so far. I even did a bench of speeds and got maximum speeds!! (A few lower but that could be due to other hardware in my pc.)

Out of the maximum actual speeds of 3200mb/s read and 1900mb/s write, I was able to obtain 2993 mb/s read and 1348 mb/s write.

Very well priced SSD and works amazing. Highly recommend. Wish all the pc hardware I bought installed this smooth.

I’m not sure what to do anymore. My usual gaming ritual of booting up Doom or The Witcher 3 and going to get something to drink while the level loads seems so unnecessary now. It just loads almost instantly so I never have to leave my chair. My pee is dark brown now. Thanks, Samsung.