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Samsung 960 EVO 250GB NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD $109 + Delivery or Free Brisbane Pickup @ Computer Alliance

1390

Was $189, now $109.

NVMe M.2 Form Factor
V-nand
Quoted 3,200MB/s Seq. Read
Quoted 1,500MB/s Seq. Write

UserBenchmarks.com real test: 2200 MB/s read and 1110 MB/s write.

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Computer Alliance
Computer Alliance

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  • +2

    Snagged one

  • good deal if pickup

  • Thanks for the heads up, they've got great prices here for storage picked up, 3TB WD Elements for $99 seems really good!

  • Only daily usage how much faster is felt comparing to a sata3 ssd?

    • +5

      It isn't, if you time it you'll see the difference, you just won't feel it. I still want one though as who wants to wait that additional 1 second during boot up?

      Got one in my laptop, it boots ridicously quick. My PC has a standard SSD, it is only marginally slower on boot, probably a second in it at best.

      • who wants to wait that additional 1 second during boot

        It almost halves even Windows 10 boot time compared to SATA 3. Well the 512GB does, I think the 250GB is a bit slower.

        • +1

          Problem with NVME M.2 is that the technology has to be initialised during start up, so the time saved by Windows 10 booting quicker is that your pre-windows boot sequence is slower. So You don't actually save much time.

          Here is an example, saving 1 second in boot time:
          https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EdF_aerWcW8#

          The only real benefit comes from sustained usuage, such as data transfer and video editing.

        • +3

          @FabMan: I like how you guys are talking about 1 second here

        • @Basimx: That's nice

        • @FabMan:

          Are they actually faster for sustained usage? I thought all SSDs heated up and slowed down. Last time i tried, burst speeds were faster on SSDs but transferring 100GB ish was actually faster on mechanical hdds.

          The NVME hdd in the laptop will bench at stupidly fast speeds but for sustained transfer it will eventually show down to 30MB/s. The previous non NVME hdd will drop to about 8MB/s after a while.

          Still a great buy.

        • @grrrr:

          I think you are correct in the context of laptop and the NVMe HDD throttling (and the 960 Evo are notorious for being hot).

          But if you ensure adequate cooling then you can sustain the peek performance…. except that that is not practical in some desktop situations.

          Personally I used this cooling solution:
          - two small aluminium heatsink (20x20x6mm)
          - a gum stick size 0.5mm thick thermal pad
          - string and tiny rubber band to tie down the heatsink so they don't accidentally fall off.

          It's managed to prevent the 960 Evo from throttling.

        • @grrrr: I've not experienced such a slow down myself but I'm not surprised. Had a look, when the GPU is under load is when you'll experience the largest slow downs, bit it does happen just under load. Good thing to be aware of.

        • +1

          @FabMan: It isn't all about boot speed if your PC time is not spent starting and stopping so much. An OS other than Windows doesn't have to reboot so much, so the benefit comes at a one-time cost of 1 or 2s.

          For many systems, reboot is really only necessary to do kernel upgrades, unplug or do hardware maintenance- so you can go years between shutdowns.

      • +7

        In saying that, having an NVME drive inside your Desktop is also nice as it rids you of the need for cables. No power or Sata cable to the mobo, just a drive attached directly to the slot. Makes the inside of your case much much nicer.

    • +4

      Yes as I have two of these in raid 0 :)

      Using this normally however you won’t really notice the difference unless you had them both side by side. It’s not like going from HDD to SDD.

      • Serious question, why do you have these in RAID0 when they're already ridiculously fast?

        Seems like a bit of a risk. I've had SSDs die (and when they die they die completely, HDDs at least have a chance at recovery!)

        • Friend, rendering, photoediting, etc all need speeds as fast as possible

        • +3

          There is a risk of one of them failing however given the computer is backed up on a server this is a non issue.

          When I built the computer it was cheaper to get two 250gb than one 500gb. I realised I could raid the two together to get even more speed.

          And I can be the first to select a hero in overwatch…

        • @kathmandu-jeff: How the the motherboard allocate the PCIe lanes for the two M.2 slots? Do you get 8 lanes direct to the CPU, or do you have 4 direct and 4 multiplexed?

        • @alvian: I'm not 100% certain but given the sequential read speed is still around 3200 MBps I'm assuming its sharing the 4x PCIe lanes from the chipset.

    • Daily usage, none.

      Benchmarks, considerably.

      Basically the difference to you will be milisecond waits turning into nanosecond waits.

  • Is there much point to one of these for a boot drive if I was ok with boot times and such as my 500gb 850evo?

    • No, though if you play games that have long load times, it could marginally reduce them.

      • Next to no difference in most cases, maybe less stutter in exceptional circumstances where streaming is heavily relied on.

        • I agree, a second or two in games with long loading times isn't a good enough reason. Those games without long load times would be barely perceptible.

    • These are slightly faster, but it's like 11 seconds becomes 10 seconds - barely noticeable. Where it is noticeable is installing large programs/games. Installing windows took a few minutes less with a 960 evo over other SSDs I've used, though all were under ~10 minutes - it's not any kind of realistic benefit, just cool to have.

      They are really neat when copying files from old drives - I was maxing out a Kingston Hyper x (~1.5GB/s) + external SSD (~350MB/s) while copying over to my 960 evo. Saved some time there.

  • -1

    Iforgotmysocks will be happy!

  • So can these be used on a normal pcie lane?

  • I sooo wish my mobo could use one of these.

    • Just use an 850 evo, the speed difference isn't noticeable in actual use for the majority of cases.

      • +2

        Well I mean the speed difference in driving a fast car versus a slow one isn't noticeable on the road but that doesn't stop me wanting the fast one cause it's fast.

        I got an 860 EVO Sata3, it will have to do :)

    • +1

      You can get a $20 PCIe carrier card from eBay and plug that into your mobo.

  • Has anyone used one of these in a Macbook Pro with an adapter..?
    Specifically a Late 2013 MP.

    • +2

      Pretty sure you can’t as this is an NVMe SSD and the older MacBooks only supported SATA.

      Adapters do exist however they only adapt to a PCIe slot.

      • I thought that was a software limitation which was resolved in High Sierra..?

        • +1

          Given the 2013 MacBook Pro only has sata connectors I’m pretty sure this would be a hardware limitation.

    • 1% CC/PayPal surcharge
    • $15 delivery
    • +1

      $15 delivery for something so tiny.

      • +2

        its a decent flat charge considering they'll ship a computer case or monitor box for $15 too

  • anyone know if I can use this in a dell optiplex 960 desktop? Bought from a previous deal here.

  • This is a brilliant price!

  • +1

    Amazing deal. Gets hot as hell though.
    Hot a maximus vii formula and sometimes I can't turn on the PC due to a motherboard heat issue because of this ssd

    • +1

      I highly doubt the SSD is causing the heat, I would be looking at your motherboard or other components.

    • how hot? Ive got a crosshair 7 hero and a b350 f before that and i think its within a very reasonable range but could be my setup as i have my 1080ti cooled with an x62 in the front and my 1600x/2700x cooled by a top mounted x62

      on the b350f it was sitting at 40ish deg when benchmarking with 2x raspberry pi 20x20mm aluminum heat sinks stuck on it.

      when i moved it over to the crosshair 7, i removed the rasp pi heat sinks and used the crosshair's heat sink and it sits at 45ish deg under aida64 (cpu fpu and gpu) and crystal mark stress testing. Im thinking about removing the crappy crosshair cosmetic heat sink and putting the rasp pi ones back on.

      the temps im referring to are also for the memory controller so the actual memory itself is lower, mobo sits at about 30-35ish under load. I think the key is airflow and heat shielding.

  • -1

    $15 delivery kills the deal- can be had in MSY for $135 (South East Melbourne)

    • +7

      That makes it $124. If you were in the market for one, and you could get it delivered to your doorstep for $11 cheaper than MSY, wouldn't that still be a good deal?

  • +1

    I have a sata3 ssd in my laptop. I dont know whether or not my laptop has the slot for m2. Is it possible to replace that "slow" ssd with this nvme?

    • you'd need a sata to m2 adaptor and even then, you wont be utilizing the benefits of the pcie offerings of this particular ssd. youre better off just getting an 850/860 evo

  • Can I use this on the macbook pro, now that I realise 128G is not enough?

    • With an adapter?
      Depends on the model and how many bugs you are willing to live with…
      Looks it up. Macbook NVME

      • +1

        Short answer: Perhaps

        Long answer: Don't.

  • +2

    Dunno if this is the right place for this - but does anybody know if random read speed or sequential read speed is more important for reading data from a database? Using mongodb

    • Dunno if I am the right person to respond as I haven't used mongodb, however I would imagine that most data in a DB would not be sorted and a query would grab data from different places, then the random read speed would be more important…

      • Thanks for your help, I think that's what my research ended up telling me also.

  • Can this be used in a Macbook Air 13?

    • Yes as long as you buy a conversion kit

  • Damn recently bought an ssd

  • bugger bought it for $139 last week from computer alliance itself, incredibly fast though. I tested it and got 3120 read and 1430 write speed.

  • Great price, shame about the $16 shipping to sYD which offsets 50% of the savings =(

  • Normally it is $129 in the Computer Alliance store so their website is misleading and $189 is incorrect.

  • $124 delivered? next-gen 250GB Samsung Evo 970 is going for $155.

    • next-gen 250GB Samsung Evo 970 is going for $155

      You mean available for ~$166 delivered, and there's probably only $30-40 worth of difference between the two generations anyway.

  • I bought one of these for $135 delivered two weeks ago. It's the first M.2 drive I've seen in the flesh and I was impressed. Extremely easy to install and great performance.

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