I found a cheap SSD 'MS950' equipped with YMTC's NAND that is compatible with PCIe Gen 4 but costs 17,980 yen for 2TB, so I actually bought it and checked the transfer speed and chip installed.
The free storage space on the desktop PC used by the GIGAZINE editorial department was running low, so we were looking for a large-capacity SSD, and found that it was compatible with PCIe Gen 4 and had a maximum read speed of 7400MB/s, but had good cost performance at 17,980 yen including tax. I discovered the amazing SSD ' MS950 '. The low price and specs were very attractive, so I actually bought it to find out the type of chip installed and ran some benchmark tests.
MS950 Series | M.2 2280 PCIe® Gen4 ×4 NVMe SSD - Monster Storage
·table of contents
◆1: SSD selection conditions
◆2: A close-up of the opening ceremony and the installed chip
◆3: Check hardware information
◆4: Measure transfer speed with various benchmarks
◆5: Ubuntu shutdown failure occurs.
◆1: SSD selection conditions
A desktop PC that ran out of storage capacity was used for purposes such as ``movie editing'' and ``game reviews,'' so it was necessary to purchase an additional SSD with a large capacity and fast transfer speed. So, when I searched for ``PCIe Gen 4 compatible and 2TB capacity'', I found an SSD called ``MS950'' by a manufacturer called Monster Storage on Amazon.co.jp for 17,980 yen including tax. Discovered. Although it is not a well-known manufacturer, the low price compared to its performance was very attractive, so I decided to try it out.
Amazon.co.jp: Monster Storage 2TB NVMe SSD PCIe Gen 4×4 Maximum read: 7,400MB/s Maximum write: 6,600MB/s PS5 confirmed M.2 Type 2280 Built-in SSD 3D TLC 5-year manufacturer's warranty MS950G75PCIe4-02TB: Computer peripherals
◆2: A close-up of the opening ceremony and the installed chip
MS950 arrived the day after I ordered it. The package looks like this.
On the back it says 'Made in China'.
The package contained the SSD itself, mounting screws, screwdriver, and instruction manual.
An adhesive sticker is affixed to the surface of the MS950.
On the back side, the model name and various authentication information were listed.
The adhesive sticker on the surface doesn't seem to have any function such as a thermal pad, so I removed it before using it.
Four NAND flash memories are installed. It seems that DRAM for cache is not installed.
A close-up of NAND flash memory looks like this.
The controller was made by Maxio.
◆3: Check hardware information
First, I checked the supported transfer modes on
Since the MS950 is equipped with a Maxio controller, you can check the hardware information using the hardware information display tool 'maxio_nvme_fid' for SSDs equipped with Maxio controllers. 'maxio_nvme_fid' is distributed at the link below.
SSD utils
When you access the distribution page, click 'Maxio nvme flash id' to start downloading the RAR file.
Once the download of 'maxio_nvme_fid.rar' is complete, extract it using compatible software.
You can check the SSD hardware information by running 'maxio_nvme_fid.exe' that exists in the extraction destination.
The hardware information for MS950 is as follows. In addition, there is information that the MS950 is equipped with 232-layer NAND flash memory made by YMTC, depending on the individual , and on the Internet, ``YMTC plans to supply 232-layer NAND flash memory to manufacturers such as Apple. However, there are rumors that the plan was halted due to the embargo, and that 232-layer NAND flash memory is now being used in personal SSDs.
v0.34a
OS: 10.0 build 22631
Drive: 2(NVME)
Sciss: 6
Driver: W10
Model: MS950G75PCIe4 2048G
Fw: HS13125
HMB: 40960 - 40960KB (Enabled, 40M)
Size: 1953514 MB [2048.4 GB]
LBA Size: 512
AdminCmd: 0x00 0x01 0x02 0x04 0x05 0x06 0x08 0x09 0x0A 0x0C 0x10 0x11 0x14 0x80 0x81 0x82 0x84 0xC1 0xC2
I/O Cmd: 0x00 0x01 0x02 0x04 0x05 0x08 0x09
Firmware id string[0C0] : MKSSD_100000000131243100,Jun 30 2023,21:06:25,MAP1602,1R8HBB5C
Project id string[080] : r:/Code/1602/DVT/X3-9060/SVN13124_4Tie
Controller: MAP1602
NAND string: CYAxxTE1B1xC3B
List may not be complete
Ch0CE0: 0x9b,0xc5,0x29,0x49,0x30,0x0,0x0 - YMTC 3dv4 TLC 16k 1024Gb/CE 512Gb/die 4Plane/die
Ch1CE0: 0x9b,0xc5,0x29,0x49,0x30,0x0,0x0 - YMTC 3dv4 TLC 16k 1024Gb/CE 512Gb/die 4Plane/die
Ch2CE0: 0x9b,0xc5,0x29,0x49,0x30,0x0,0x0 - YMTC 3dv4 TLC 16k 1024Gb/CE 512Gb/die 4Plane/die
Ch3CE0: 0x9b,0xc5,0x29,0x49,0x30,0x0,0x0 - YMTC 3dv4 TLC 16k 1024Gb/CE 512Gb/die 4Plane/die
◆4: Measure transfer speed with various benchmarks
The 2TB version of MS950 has a nominal maximum read speed of 7400MB/s and a nominal maximum write speed of 6600MB/s. When we measured the transfer speed with CrystalDiskMark , we confirmed that the performance was close to the nominal value of 7237.99MB/s for sequential read and 6524.89MB/s for sequential write. Random reads and writes are also quite fast.
The measurement results with
The benchmark results of
As a result of measuring the loading speed with HD Tune Pro , the average speed was 2260.7MB/s.
The write speed was 2352.0MB/s. With an SSD equipped with SLC cache, the graph shows that ``up to a certain capacity, writing can be done at super high speed, but once the cache is full, the speed suddenly decreases'', but with MS950, an unusual graph appeared where the graph was always jagged. .
Below are the results of measuring random access performance during reading. For a block size of 4KB, the average access time was 0.206ms and the average read speed was 18.897MB/s.
The results of measuring random access performance during writing are as follows. For a block size of 4KB, the average access time was 0.020ms and the average write speed was 192.549MB/s.
Below is a graph showing the transition of read speed (blue) and write speed (orange) when transferring 1900 GB of random data. It can be seen that neither the read speed nor the write speed has changed significantly.
Below are the results of using AS SSD Benchmark's 'Function to measure read speed and write speed while changing the compression ratio (ratio of data 0 and 1)'. The green line shows the read speed, and the red line shows the write speed.
No matter how many times I run this test on the same SSD, the same graph will appear, but with the MS950, a completely different graph appeared every time I ran it.
◆5: Ubuntu shutdown failure occurs.
When I booted Ubuntu 22.04 from a storage other than MS950 on a PC with MS950 installed, the following screen was displayed during shutdown and the shutdown was not completed. The motherboard uses ASRock's '
At the time of article creation, the 2TB version of MS950 is available at Amazon.co.jp for 17,980 yen including tax.
Amazon.co.jp: Monster Storage 2TB NVMe SSD PCIe Gen 4×4 Maximum read: 7,400MB/s Maximum write: 6,600MB/s PS5 confirmed M.2 Type 2280 Built-in SSD 3D TLC 5-year manufacturer's warranty MS950G75PCIe4-02TB: Computer peripherals
◆Forum now open
A forum related to this article has been set up on the GIGAZINE official Discord server . Anyone can write freely, so please feel free to comment! If you do not have a Discord account, please create one by referring to the article explaining how to create an account!
• Discord | 'What are the specifications of the SSD you are using? Please tell me the capacity, compatible standards, manufacturer, model name, etc.' | GIGAZINE
https://discord.com/channels/1037961069903216680/1197839961316147200
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