OEM SAMSUNG PM9B1 256GB M.2 PCI-e GEN 4X4 NVME SSD Internal Solid State Drive 80mm 2280 Form Factor M Key

Functional drive in my Satechi Mac Mini hub adding additional storage without breaking the bank. Since it was going in the Satechi I really didn’t need the fastest SSD due to the interface limitations. This drive is perfect for that purpose and didn’t break the bank doing it!

Works great

This is an OEM SAMSUNG PM9B1 256GB M.2 PCI-e GEN4. Since this is an OEM part, its firmware cannot be updated through Samsung Magician. I received an HP OEM PM9B1, HP part N16683-001. Out of the box it came with firmware HPS3NHAV. As mentioned before, since this is an OEM part, you cannot update its firmware with Magician. Nevertheless, HP did released a newer firmware. You will need to look for and download HP SOFTPAQ NUMBER sp149650 (HP SOFTPAQ FILE NAME: sp149650.exe). This HP softpaq will upgrade its firmware to: HPS4NHAV According HP own documentation, this firmware "Enhances SSD stability" per HP release notes. This SSD will be used on a minipc with pfSense CE (FreeBSD 15). Since I'll use ZFS file system, it should have TRIM enabled by default. I selected this SDD as it should run cooler than the WD SN740 I was planning to use originally. Since firmware was upgraded, I do not expect this drive to suddenly become read only. I'm a happy camper.

If I had known this thing would cost as much today vs. when I bought it. I would have bought more. This is a great little Drive. I have it in my NAS and it works fine. Holds up and never get's too hot.

Might not work with some NVME to USB adapter's. It's OEM but still a Samsung - a trusted name for reliability. And it does have a volatile write cache according to CrystalDiskInfo. However it presented a problem I haven't encountered before (reason for only 4 star). I put it in a NVME to USB adapter (it supports other gen4x4's) and it didn't show up, so I went to manage, then storage (Win11) to assign a drive letter. The computer recognized it but said it wasn't initialized. When I tried to initialize it I got an error (for both GTP and MBR). Then I went to diskpart and cleaned it. Still unable to initialize and not even seen by 3rd party software. I didn't give up though, I've never had a Samsung fail and I like a challenge. So I reluctantly put it on the second NVME port (speed is only NVME 3 x 2) on my motherboard for 1 last try. It was recognized and I was able to initialize it. Oddly it was still GPT partitioned (it should have been erased from before when diskpart reported successfully cleaned) but unformatted. Set to NTSF easily. I didn't try to clean it again to change to MBR and put it back in the adapter, I've always been successful using GTP formats in it and I'll going to put it in another PC with a NVME PCIe adapter. I did speed test it and it was still better that a SSD, but really not a relevant speed test with the 2nd slot speed available. Must be something with the firmware it uses. Info does show it's used (probably had HP OS on it being OEM) with very low hours but smart info can be overwritten with the right software to do it - somewhat unlikely for the price they're charging. Overall a good value if the size is enough for your needs. Update EDIT- It did work in my NVME to USB adapter after it was initialized and formatted on the MB, for some reason it just couldn't be done from the adapter I use. Update to 5 star... I've purchased several more. Most are coming initialized now, just unformatted. I got 1 bad one (It happens). Sent a new one out same day and I was able to print out the return label - no charge. Very good seller.

Works well with Maco Mini PC

The stickers on the drive are questionable, and mine didn't even say "samsung" anywhere. As many others have noticed, samsung magician does not recognize it as original. Anyways, it did work at first, as any other good ssd. I cannot say if it was faster or not than other drives I use (I have other REAL samsung ones) because I mainly used it for a custom project on a raspi pi 5. While I was coding the project, it required me to flash the drive, test, find bugs, fix them, reflash and so on. It was working alright but then, I reflashed it and it got stuck on the initial raspi pi os update. I thought it was just an os bug, so I turned it off and on. It started ok and got stuck on the same spot. Perhaps a bad flash I thought, so I took the drive and reflashed again. Tested and got stuck at the very same stage. thought it could be, even if unlikely, a faulty raspi pi board. So I switched the drive with a real samsung one freshly flashed and it worked correctly. I tried using it as an external drive for windows os too but nope, nothing; it does appear in the device manager but it fails, like if I connected and disconnected it several times. TLDR: works for a few months, then fails and becomes trash.

Works great in my mini PC. Depending on the BIOS you may need to change some setting if you are trading out SSDs but this is true of all SSDs. Fit and function is perfect as expected with Samsung drives.

Great little drive. I've installed it in a raspberry pi 5 and as it only reserves 1 pcie lane to access it any benchmark would be unfair. Subjectively it is much faster than the sd card it replaced and copying the OS from the card to the drive was performed by the Pi OS drive copy tool which recognised the drive and copied everything over. Very happy.

Tut was er soll.

No revisé si era nuevo por que me gano la emoción y lo instale de una como unidad principal de mi máquina Algo que si podria mejorar es el empaque, porque venía en uno de plástico de esos que se pueden doblar como los empaque se cepillos de diente, que a su vez venia en un sobre

しっかり早い

Works perfectly - good value for money