The Samsung SM961 M.2 NVMe SSD is one of the cheapest SSDs for the most value. If you can find an SM961 for less than $35 which has a capacity of 512GB or higher, then you're getting yourself a good deal. It offers high read/write speeds for just a bit of money, and even though it isn't AS FAST as other SSDs such as the 960 EVO or 860 EVO, it's still quite fast to the point where you won't notice a major difference between a higher r/w drive. Another great thing about the SM961 is that it's one of the more cheaper SSDs which also happens to be compatible with MacBooks as long as you have the required NVMe M.2 adapter. If you're using a more newer MacBook which allows for changing the SSD such as the 2017 MBA or 2015 MBA, you can just put in the adapter and SSD then install macOS or Windows as normal. No hibernation issues, temperature issues, sleep issues, or anything. It all just works as it should. All in all, the SM961 is a drive which offers the best value for the money. It offers high read/write speeds and high capacity drivers for quite a cheap price, and that is why I would recommend getting the SM961 if you need a cheap drive.

The Samsung PRO 950/960/970 series are the fastest of all of the affordable consumer NVMe drives. The series SM951/SM961 are the OEM versions that Samsung sells to manufacturers (Dell, Lenovo, etc.). These are not quite as "hopped up" as the PRO series, and the PRO series comes with a few more perks (Samsung Magician and Data Migration) but they still benchmark plenty fast (most folks couldn't tell the difference) and they are generally a little cheaper (maybe by $30-$40 or so). All of the above mentioned drives use MLC Flash rather than the slower TLC Flash (Note: if you're looking at one of the 951/961 series MAKE CERTAIN that the model number is preceded by SM, and NOT PM. The PM series uses TLC Flash. The SM series also has approximately DOUBLE the live expectancy with regard to how many Terabytes of data that can be written to them). So when PROs are available on eBay at a good price, I buy them; and when not, I buy the SM951/SM961 series. These are all very good drives. ______________ Note: Although the earlier/older (2015) Samsung PRO 950 and SM951s are not quite as fast as the PRO 960/970 and SM961 series, they can exhibit considerably longer battery life in a Laptop (in some cases, as much as 30 minutes more). So I still use these older models in Laptops.

Yes you can install Windows 7 64 Ultimate on this in a Ryzen AsRock AB350M Pro4 board but there is a techneque to it. Install Windows 7 on a SATA drive then clone it to the M.2 drive. Here's how I did it. I downloaded Windows 7 64 Enterprise ISO for Ryzen from a well known Swedish P2P site. I then used the AsRock Windows ISO Patch Tool from the drivers CD that came with the motherboard. By this stage I've crammed as many drivers as I can into the ISO but it won't be the ones for the Samsung M.2 nore the AMD RAID. It's enough to make the Windows 7 install work OK though. Then using a USB ISO writing tool, any will do, I make my bootable USB stick. I do the usual Windows 7 install to a normal SATA hard drive. It works OK due to all the AsRock and Ryzen drivers I crammed into the ISO. Once Windows is running (I'm using Audit Mode because I have some other things planned) I use the Device Manager and add legacy hardware to give it the newest Samsung SM961 drivers for this drive. In Control Panel, Administrative, Storage Management I can see the unformatted M.2 NVMe drive. The free cloning tool to use is not Clonezilla as this can't handle the M.2 drive. It's Macrium Reflect. Install this in Windows and it's easy to clone the HDD to the M.2 SSD. This tool works beautifully andit's free. Shutdown and remove the HDD and it will boot up again off the M.2 drive. You can get the AMD RAID drivers into Windows using the Driver Manager Legacy install and press Have Disk. I had a few blue screens on this as you need the BIOS SATA set to RAID mode and RAID your two hard drives. I have my system with the M.2 drive as C: with Windows and Programs on it and my 1TB mirrored HDD array as D: with Users on it. That means I get away with a small SSD. What I will say is these drives are twice as expensive as a SATA SSD and many times harder to set up on Windows 7. I'm pleased I did this but I would advise anyone wanting an easy time just to spend the same money on a SATA SSD and get twice the capacity, total ease of use and almost the same Windows performance. Yeah I know NVMe is 5 times faster than SATA but you would not know it by simply using one. Get building!!!

M.2 NVMe drives are miles faster than any sata drive out there. That being said, these models have a shorter life presumably than the newer drives out there. However, I have one that's now almost 3 years old, runs almost daily for hours at a time with no hint of failure. I'm not locked into Samsung but currently they are the fastest...however ANY M.2 NVMe/PCIe drive is such a step up that all are worth considering. This works just fine, is very quick and arrived as described/pictured. For the price it's a great value. Performance-wise, it's older and slower than the newer models BUT... I'll bet you'd never notice, except on paper. We'll see how long it lasts, but I'm not concerned based on previous experience with these.