Samsung NVMe WHQL drivers 2.3 released!

[Carfax83]

For all those with Samsung NVMe SSDs, Samsung has updated their driver revision to 2.3 as of a few days ago.

 

[Edrick]

Any idea what changed?

 

[Carfax83]

Any idea what changed?

According to Tech Spot, improved interoperability with Virtual Machine Software (e.g. Microsoft Hyper-V).

 

[DaveSimmons]

I might be using a Samsung NVMe boot drive for my upcoming Coffee Lake build. A couple of n00b questions:

Will Windows 10 install without needing to add the driver to the install media (probably a USB stick)? That is, does Win10 have its own drivers?

If Win10 has built-in drivers, does the Samsung driver offer better performance, or more features, or what?

 

[XavierMace]

Yes, Windows 10 has built in NVMe drivers. Performance difference between Samsung and Microsofts driver seems hit or miss. Generally they benchmark fairly close either way. Close enough that benchmarks are the only time you'd notice the difference.

 

[Carfax83]

I might be using a Samsung NVMe boot drive for my upcoming Coffee Lake build. A couple of n00b questions:

Will Windows 10 install without needing to add the driver to the install media (probably a USB stick)? That is, does Win10 have its own drivers?

If Win10 has built-in drivers, does the Samsung driver offer better performance, or more features, or what?

Yes Windows 10 has built in drivers, but Samsung's drivers are always better to use as they give the SSD better performance and more features. For example, if you ever want to use Secure Erase or upgrade the firmware through Samsung Magician, the following implies you will need the Samsung driver installed.

From a personal perspective, I've always noticed better performance from Samsung's driver compared to the standard driver from Microsoft. And for what it's worth, I've noticed a bit of extra snap from the 2.3 drivers compared to the 2.2 drivers that I had before. I'm sure Samsung has optimized the drivers in addition to just adding new features and support.

"Samsung NVMe drivers are Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) tested and in compliance with all the mandatory features and commands of NVMev1.1 specification and NVMe: SCSI Translation Reference v1.4.

In addition, the Samsung NVMe driver supports optional commands, which support the following features:
• Upgrade the device firmware using Firmware Activate and Firmware Image Download commands
• Change the logical block addressing (LBA) data size and/or metadata size using the Format NVM command
• Erase all user content present in the NVM subsystem so that the data is not recoverable using the Format NVM command
• Erase all user contents present in the NVM subsystem by deleting the encryption key with which the user data was previously encrypted using the Format NVM command
• Mark a logical block as invalid using the Write Uncorrectable command
• Set a range of logical blocks to zero using the Write Zeros command
• Read the command from the medium and compare the data read to a comparison data buffer transferred as part of the command using the Compare command.
• Exercise the SSD TRIM feature using Dataset Management - De-allocate command. This is equivalent to the ATA TRIM command and the SCSI UNMAP command.

Besides the above specification compliant features, the Samsung NVMe driver also provides support for disk end of life, wherein the user data in the NVM disk can still be read even when the disk exhausts the P/E cycles and becomes read only. Samsung recommends using the Samsung NVMe driver to get optimal sustainable performance and feature rich capabilities."

 

[DaveSimmons]

Thanks to both of you. I'm still on the fence between best-performance NVMe and still-pretty-great performance SATA at a much lower price.

 

[XavierMace]

Yes Windows 10 has built in drivers, but Samsung's drivers are always better to use as they give the SSD better performance and more features. For example, if you ever want to use Secure Erase or upgrade the firmware through Samsung Magician, the following implies you will need the Samsung driver installed.

From a personal perspective, I've always noticed better performance from Samsung's driver compared to the standard driver from Microsoft. And for what it's worth, I've noticed a bit of extra snap from the 2.3 drivers compared to the 2.2 drivers that I had before. I'm sure Samsung has optimized the drivers in addition to just adding new features and support.

Personally my benchmarks on my 960 Pro have shown very little difference performance wise between the two drives. The sequential speeds were actually a bit higher with the MS driver. But, that said, there's no real reason to not install the Samsung driver.

 

[jkauff]

Thanks to both of you. I'm still on the fence between best-performance NVMe and still-pretty-great performance SATA at a much lower price.

That depends entirely on what software you're going to use. If you're not using anything that can benefit from the higher speeds (which most people aren't), go with the SATA.

 

[CakeMonster]

For example, if you ever want to use Secure Erase or upgrade the firmware through Samsung Magician, the following implies you will need the Samsung driver installed.

I updated the firmware for my 960 EVO at least once without ever having used the Samsung driver.

From a personal perspective, I've always noticed better performance from Samsung's driver compared to the standard driver from Microsoft. And for what it's worth, I've noticed a bit of extra snap from the 2.3 drivers compared to the 2.2 drivers that I had before. I'm sure Samsung has optimized the drivers in addition to just adding new features and support.

Couldn't this just be placebo if the benchmarks have yet to show any difference? I mean, I don't know if I would even notice a 10 or 20% difference.

 

[Ratman6161]

Thanks to both of you. I'm still on the fence between best-performance NVMe and still-pretty-great performance SATA at a much lower price.

I went from a 256GB 850 EVO to a 512GB 960 EVO. There definitely is a difference in bench marks. But in perceived performance I.e. How the system feels overall, it's disappointing. I guess if in was doing anything that really taxed the storage it might be different. But as far as system boot times, program loads etc, I don't notice much difference,

 

[DaveSimmons]

I went from a 256GB 850 EVO to a 512GB 960 EVO. There definitely is a difference in bench marks. But in perceived performance I.e. How the system feels overall, it's disappointing. I guess if in was doing anything that really taxed the storage it might be different. But as far as system boot times, program loads etc, I don't notice much difference,

... and if you compare the price difference between 1 TB NVMe ($435) vs SATA ($300), spending an extra $135 to win at benchmarks seems wasteful.

 

[pcslookout]

I went from a 256GB 850 EVO to a 512GB 960 EVO. There definitely is a difference in bench marks. But in perceived performance I.e. How the system feels overall, it's disappointing. I guess if in was doing anything that really taxed the storage it might be different. But as far as system boot times, program loads etc, I don't notice much difference,

I notice the same thing but from my Samsung 500 GB 850 Pro to a Intel Optane 900P