Here is a spreadsheet collected using ezFIO of Samsung 256 Gb M.2 950 Pro NVME installed successfully by me into the Lenovo ThinkPak P70 mobile workstation. The performance results spreadsheet is attached to this blog post.
Recently I attempted to install two Samsung 256 Gb M.2 950 Pro NVME storage SSD chips in my Lenovo ThinkPad P70 mobile workstation. I say "attempted" because this turned out not to be a gimme. Initially, although the P70 recognized the new storage, it would not boot the legacy harddrive with the NVME installed. I fiddled with BIOS settings but did not initially have any success with that either.
So I tried calling Lenovo tech support since the P70 was a new purchase and supposedly came with 3 years support. In a nutshell, the Lenovo support experience goes on record as arguably the worst tech support experience I have ever had and certainly wins the prize for "most pathetic". So I called Lenovo tech support at 855-253-6686 and took options #3 and #1 and spoke to "M*****" at the Lenovo Atlanta L1 support who issued support ticket #31112111. I explained that I was looking for help getting the laptop to boot with the NVME installed. They dodged the issue by invoking the usual "Well, you removed Windows and installed a custom OS (Centos 7 Linux desktop) so that means that we may not be able to help you..." or something like that. So they transferred me to "Premium Support" which is an IBM outsourced service where I spoke to C***** who asked lots of questions but provided no answers or help really but she opened a "premium support ticket" #1608S111236. C**** dodged and routed me to IBM server support where a high muckey-muck L3 support engineer said "Well, we only do servers here but it sounds like it's not finding the boot sector of the hard drive..." (Ya think?) to which I diplomatically responded "yup". So the chap at IBM Server support bounced me "back" to "Premium Support" where I talked with J**** who just provided the same dodgy routine, and then he transferred me (drum roll) back to Atlanta L1 support where I had started about 1 hour earlier, where K***** was particularly aggressive and dare I say rude-ish lecturing me about the dangers of replacing the godly Windows OS and how that meant they could not possibly help or solve this problem. K**** then transferred me to "Premium Support" again where I spoke with an equally unhelpful and dismal voice that told me I would not be getting any real help at all, at which point I politely said thank you but it's clear there is no point in talking with anyone at Lenovo or outsourced IBM support services about this because it seems that no-one in this entire L1, L2, L3 chain has any tech documents or ability to pull up some helpful hints on solving this.
So I decided to return the NVME to Amazon although I still believed that it should just be a simple BIOS adjustment to get the laptop to boot from the SSD while the NVME were still installed. But delays and work kept the NVME in the Amazon box in my office and not at UPS and so today for a variety of reason I had a go at the BIOS again. Previously, I had moved the SSD up to be ahead of the NVME in the boot order, but this time I put the SSD at the top of the list, ahead of everything - DVD, USB HDD/DVD, etc. and voila! the NVME moved out of the way and the SSD booted beautifully with no issues, and once booted, there in /dev were my NVME located as shown below.
[oracle@stlns01 Desktop]$ ls -l /dev/nvm*
crw-------. 1 root root 246, 0 Aug 19 00:24 /dev/nvme0
brw-rw----. 1 root disk 259, 1 Aug 19 03:02 /dev/nvme0n1
crw-------. 1 root root 246, 1 Aug 19 00:24 /dev/nvme1
brw-rw----. 1 root disk 259, 0 Aug 19 00:24 /dev/nvme1n1
[oracle@stlns01 Desktop]$
So in summary, among all of 2 resources at Lenovo Atlanta L1, and 1 resource at Lenovo IBM Server L3 Support, and 2 resources at Lenovo IBM Premium L2 Support, none of them simply said "try moving the SSD to the top of the boot list in BIOS". In fact none of them had any ideas at all except to transfer me somewhere else. Wow. Sad. And the fix was so simple, so predictable that most 5 year old computer geeklings would know it. BIOS, dummy! It's always the BIOS!
Therefore, as stated, Lenovo ThinkPad support wins my 2016 Most Pathetic support prize. The sure make a great Lenovo P70 Mobile Workstation though. Kinda like Blackberry Ltd: great hardware products, terrible CRM.