950 pro Vs Hyper X Vs 850 PRO

850 PRO with Rapid Mode...512GB

A quick FYI:

Anyone running the 950 Pro on anything but a device with a PCIe 3 M.2 interface is wasting their money.  SATA 3 maxes out at 600MB/s, which means you'll theoretically only gain ~60MB/s with the 950 Pro over that of the 850 Evo/Pro series.

You're registering speeds above that only due to RAPID mode, which utilizes the 1.5GB/s+ speeds of RAM to speed up transfers

That's why I said rapid mode....

I know you did... my point wasn't to discount your post, but to point out the fact you would get the exact same [better in my case below] performance out of an 850 Evo/Pro since the 950 Pro can only offer a maximum of 60MB/s over both of those drives if not connected to a PCIe 3 M.2 interface.

RAPID mode is offered on the 850 series (and I assume earlier series as well), and also only affects one SSD, regardless of how many additional ones you have installed.  You can still get the same effect for additional SSDs, as well as HDDs, by creating a virtual RAM drive and performing file transfers exclusively through the drive via initiating specific arguments in RoboCopy.  It's recommended to not utilize a virtual RAM drive unless you have 16GB or more of RAM installed, since all files copied to it deduct from available RAM until they're transferred to the accompanying SSD or HDD

Okay, so your just stating the obvious. Screen shots showed everything you need to know. Now, you seem to know a lot about storage, do you know specifically why we can't boot with NVMe (BIOS wise) on the area 51 R2 ? This post was in conjunction with a couple of post with the Area 51 R2 and the 950 Pro. I didn't just decide to create this post, people requested this comparison as I to was looking to upgrade Dell's pathetic  hard drive.

I have no experience with NVMe, and only know about the 950 Pro from what I've read in Samsung's press releases and a few articles written about it.  

The 950 Pro is a phenomenal piece of engineering, however unless an end user is planning on upgrading to a MB with a PCIe 3 M.2 interface, it's literally a massive waste of money.  For the same price as the 512GB model, which has a mind blowing R/W speed of 2.5GB/1.5GB on a PCIe 3 M.2 interface only, you can buy a 1TB 850 Evo.  It's like buying a USB 3 drive when you only have USB 2 ports, or buying a Bugatti engine and sticking it in a Smart Fortwo (you'll immediately recognize the car when you google it lol)

I understand the appeal of the 950 Pro, however users without a PCIe 3 M.2 interface who choose to buy it remind me of the misinformed/uninformed customers who occasionally frequent a buddy's custom car shop.

• For example, one customer recently wanted to buy 2 1000w JL amps to run 2 13w7's and a 500w 4 channel for their civic, but had no plans to upgrade to a high output alternator and battery.  
  • Basic physics [Ohm's Law]:
    • For every 1000w, you need an extra 80a of current @ 12.5v (idle), or ~70a @ 14.4v (charging voltage), so an additional 200a of current, on top of the vehicle's normal usage of ~80a - 120a would be required - a minimum of 320a. Take into account the OEM alternator only outputs ~125a @ 6k RPM, and the conundrum is now apparent. 

Just an FYI: Samsung had a technological breakthrough this year which allows them to double the capacity of all current 850 series drives.  They will begin rolling out the new drives in the Q1 2016, so I would recommend any user thinking about buying one to wait a few months.  The understanding I got from the press releases and articles is the following:

• The following sizes:
  • 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB sizes
• Will be replaced by these sizes:
  • 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB
• Samsung will be offering them at roughly the same price as their previous smaller size iterations.

So while ~$340 can get you a 1TB 850 EVO over the holidays, roughly the same amount should be able to get you a 2TB come early 2016.

The only thing I could think of for the reason it may not be bootable would the interface difference.  The 950 Pro wasn't designed to run on a SATA interface.  While most are familiar with SATA 3, it's quite old and has now become a hinderance for manufacturers and users.  Have you tried it on a different SATA port, other than the one it's currently connected to (preferably the main port for HDD 0)?

• This is going to get complex quite fast and is going to require you do to some research.  I would recommend emailing or calling Samsung's Tech Support dept. for the 950 Pro and seeing if they can provide an answer without you have to delve into some complex reading.
• If they're not able to provide some guidance, you'll probably need to find out how the area 51 R2 uses SATA to boot and compare that to how PCIe 3 boots.  This involves looking at the schematics for both interfaces to determine how information is routed.
  • This is how it was determined what you could and could not use the mini-pcie slot for on the M18x R1.  Once the controller schematics were viewed, it showed the slot could not be utilized to run an mSATA drive, but could be used to run a mini pcie to USB card.
• It could also be something as simple as a chipset/firmware issue with the M.2 to SATA adapter.

I returned all the m.2 SSD's. Not worth it at all. I ended up picking up the 850 pro because it was on sale, free game, and 10 year warranty (impressive).  The 850 Evo is on sale right now at newegg for 25% off plus assassins creed for free. Will keep an eye out next year for the new sizes that your stating will happen in the first quarter.

As far as the NVMe boot. The area 51 does boot to AHCI with a PCIe adapter(confirmed, BIOS update A03), other people have used adapters and have gotten their computers to boot with NVMe (not area 51's),  Need dell to issue a BIOS update, I believe, for the Area 51's. I don't think they will as the motherboard doesn't even have a usable m.2 slot available. But it would be nice to use my empty PCIe slots for cool stuff like the 950 pro later down the road when the price-to-storage is better.

Yeah the 850 Pro line is amazing not just due to the top of the line speeds, but because of that 10 year/150TB warranty.  When I buy the 2TB or 4TB model early next year, I'll be buying the Pro series since I'll use it as my main data drive.  The 850 Evo also carries a 150TB warranty, but only for 5 years, and is still quite impressive when compared to other manufacturers; only SanDisk's top SSD model carries a similar warranty.

It is very possible its due to the BIOS... I didn't even consider that. Do you have UEFI firmware, or a BIOS?  I'm assuming it's UEFI since it's only a little over a year old, however, if it's a BIOS, you could look into whether or not an unlocked BIOS is available on TechInferno.  UEFI firmware on devices manufactured after Windows 8 are not unlockable due to the digitally signed certificate that protects the user from flashing firmware with malicious code added.  Microsoft required all manufacturers it issued Windows 8 OEM contracts to provide digitally signed firmware; this wasn't done with the intent to prevent users from gaining better access to their devices, but to protect the user from malicious code.  For example, if a user was flash firmware injected with malicious code, the entire system is compromised and there's nothing an end user could do about it since the code is running prior to the firmware handing off to the Windows Bootloader.  If you're interested in understanding the hows and whys, there's a great writeup on Techinferno by a dev who explains each step of the UEFI firmware update process (from the machine's perspective).

A quick note on the 850's (and any SSD really):

• If you're going to run multiple partitions, ensure the last partition on the disk has extra space equivalent to 10% of the drive size for Over-Provisioning 
  • For example, I wanted the last partition on my 1TB Evo to be 363GB in size, so I created a partition 456.5GB in size.
    • While it's common knowledge to not fill any partition to more than 90% capacity, it's even more important not to do so with a SSD since doing so will severely affect the lifetime of the drive.  In order to provide balanced wear-leveling, the drive must have enough free space to move around data as it sees fit on the backend.  
  • Once you create the last partition, in Samsung Magician got to Over-Provisioning under System Management, and select Set OP.  This must be done for every SSD (there's a drop down menu under Over-Provisioning)

As far as the NVMe boot. The area 51 does boot to AHCI with a PCIe adapter(confirmed, BIOS update A03), other people have used adapters and have gotten their computers to boot with NVMe (not area 51's),  Need dell to issue a BIOS update, I believe, for the Area 51's.

Researching something else I came across a possible reason... did you install the NVMe drivers?  It was a few days back, however IIRC the article mentioned having to press F6 to install the drivers for NVMe during Windows Setup before an NVMe drive could be recognized and booted from at POST.  I know you mentioned exchanging the 950 pro for the 850 pro, but since I came across this during cross referencing, I figured it may be useful to someone in the future.

Boy JW0914, I hope it wasn't that easy to fix this problem.

Yes all drivers installed....950 worked great until time to boot with it.