[TimMeade]

Interesting. Are these meant to be consumer only? I didn't really see anything about data center applications? We run 24 850 pros in raid configuration as base SAN. I wonder what these would spec out in a configuration like that. Is there a PCIe card that can hold several?

[erdewit]

Keep in mind that these 950 SSDs get very hot when continuously reading or writing since there is around 6W of heat dissipation on a tiny uncooled board. What happens then is that the thermal throttling will kick in and degrade the performance.

[walshemj]

the Idea seems is you boot off the 4x m.2 and have both a ssd and then one or more big sata 2-4 TB drives

[ruraljuror]

Have you already checked out the Intel 750 series? They are more expensive (the 1.2TB is $0.87 per GB vs $0.69 for the 512GB of the 950 PRO), but I think suitable for an application such as yours.

Here are some benchmarks: http://techreport.com/review/29221/samsung-950-pro-512gb-ssd...

[TimMeade]

Yes we looked at them, but just too expensive for the large arrays we build. The 850's have been working well, but ever in the search for better.

[scurvy]

Are you running 24 drives for capacity reasons or speed? I can't think of many RAID controllers that could push that many SSD's at full speed, so it must be for capacity. Have you thought of using fewer, higher capacity drives instead?

[TimMeade]

I little of both depending on the end use. Most of the times we use 3 PCIe raid controllers. Some cases 1 24 port controller works great. Also, we keep at least 2 or 3 in the hot swap mode for reliability.

[walshemj]

This is the consumer spin on the existing enterprise product is how I saw this.