How does copying over 200GB from one Samsung 950 PRO NVMe SSD to another in under 3 minutes sound? (42 copies of a 4.4GB Linux distro)

First, you got your Samsung 950 PRO NVMe M.2 drive, 512GB size, specs here. Next you got another identical 950 PRO (borrowed), installed in the same PCIe 3.0x4 equipped Supermicro SuperServer SYS-5028D-TN4T, using a simple $20 PCI adapter.

Finally, you got yourself a fresh build of Windows 10. Now you ask yourself, how long does it take to copy 42 copies of this 4.4GB openSUSE-12.3-DVD-x86_64.iso take?

But first, why was that file, and 205GB data total, chosen? Hint hint, it's a tribute to the fun thermal test video over here. His same-drive copy wound up taking about 6 minutes, but his hardware was different. This gave me some basis of comparison, to see how I was doing. Apparently very well.

Watch the video to find out exactly how long this copy took, along with how well the system temperatures behaved during that entire copy, using Supermicro SuperDoctor® 5. I also cover what happens when you copy that same 205GB in total, but this time, back to the same drive. That's more like 5 minutes, likely because you're beating the snot out of the drive for an extended period of time, reading and writing. That's as fast as it can go. I'm not complaining. It's pretty awesome.

Even a fun test with a ginormous fan nearby didn't matter, same speeds. I didn't have a spot cooling fan, or spot temperature recording device, handy, and those speeds really do drop in those first few seconds, likely the write back cache buffer filling, then stay quite consistent, all the while barely touching the CPU, another benefit to NVMe versus SATA.

I talk more about Dynamic Thermal Throttling Protection that is not likely to be at play here, in this benchmarking article.

Next torture test? Abuse of that 10GbE connection to the loaner Supermicro SuperServer right next to this one...

Source: Intel

Nov 18 2015 Update

I have added comments about the Write Back buffer above, thanks to pcuser80's for his related YouTube comment. More references added below as well.

See also at TinkerTry

• World's fastest consumer SSD - Samsung 950 PRO M.2 NVMe benchmark results
  Nov 05 2015

• How to install Samsung 950 PRO M.2 SSD in a PCIe slot - tested with Supermicro 5028D-TN4T & Lycom DT-120 M.2 to PCIe adapter
  Nov 05 2015

• Superguide: Supermicro SuperServer 5028D-TN4T - THE Ultimate Home Virtualization Lab
  Nov 01 2015

• Supermicro Superserver 5028D-TN4T UEFI BIOS 1.0.b and IPMI 02.14 released - improves boot from M.2 or NVMe support
  Sep 23 2015

See also

• Problems with using SSDs for write caching and how to avoid them
  Jul 23 2013 by Marc Staimer at TechTarget - SoldState Storage

• Flash Write-Back Caching Limitations
  Sep 26 2013 by Howard Marks at InformationWeek Network Computing