Samsung's ludicrously fast PCIe SSD uses almost no power in standby mode

From PC World: If you think laptops packing solid state drives (SSDs) are fast now, just wait until you see a notebook rocking Samsung's new SM951 MLC flash SSD introduced during CES. Samsung's latest SSD ditches SATA for the PCIe (M.2) interface, similar to other SSDs we saw hit store shelves in 2014.

The advantage with PCIe (the same interface that graphics cards use) is it promises much faster read/write speeds. With the SM951, Samsung says sequential read/write speeds can hit 1,600MB/s and 1,350MB/s, respectively, over PCIe 2.0. Bump that up to a PCIe 3.0 interface, and you'll get jaw-dropping max read speeds of up to 2,150MB/s and write speeds around 1,550MB/s.

To put those numbers in perspective, the PCIe 3.0 read speeds are roughly four times faster than the fastest SATA-based SSDs found in most PCs. Four. Times.

Samsung is also aiming to make the SM951 a big winner when it comes to power consumption. When in standby mode the drive requires a scant 2 milliwatts of power. That's basically nothing. Samsung claims the drive is the first SSD to adopt the PCI-SIG standards group's L1.2 low power standby mode, which turns off high-speed circuits when your PC drops into sleep or hibernation.

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