Samsung is finally getting into the high performance PCIe 5.0 storage game, two years after the first PCIe 5.0 SSDs arrived. The Korean phone and storage maker unveiled its first "true" PCIe 5.0 SSD, the 9100 Pro, which delivers full PCIe 5.0 speeds. Samsung's new M.2 NVMe SSD is capable of read speeds of up to 14.8 GB/s. Pricing will start at $199.99, and the drive comes with a 5-year warranty.
The new drive is built on a revised version of Samsung's TLC V8 V-NAND flash and utilizes the company's homebrewed "Presto" SSD controller. The main selling point of the drive is its full PCIe 5.0 interface, packing four lanes and sporting the NVMe 2.0 protocol. Samsung's previous 990 EVO and 990 EVO Plus drives could operate in either PCIe 4.0 x4 mode, or PCIe 5.0 x2 mode, so they're only half as fast in terms of maximum bandwidth as "true" 5.0 x4 drives.
Samsung offers the 9100 Pro in four configurations: a 1TB variant with 1GB of cache, a 2TB model with 2GB of cache, a 4TB model with 4GB of cache, and an 8TB model with 8GB of cache. The 1TB and 2TB variants are rated at sequential read speeds of up to 14,700 MB/s (14.7 GB/s) and sequential write speeds of 13,300 MB/s, though the 2TB gets a 100MB/s upgrade to 13,400 MB/s. The 4TB and 8TB models are the fastest, sporting sequential read speeds of up to 14,800 MB/s and write speeds of up to 13,400 MB/s.
Random read speeds on the 1TB and 2TB models are rated at 1,850K IOPS and 2,600K IOPS on random write speeds. The 4TB and 8TB models get a boost to 2,200K and 2,600K IOPS on the random read and write speed performance, respectively. Here's the full specifications rundown.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | 1TB | 2TB | 4TB | 8TB |
Cache | 1GB LPPDR4X | 2GB LPPDR4X | 4GB LPPDR4X | 8GB LPPDR4X |
Sequential Read/Write | 14,700 / 13,300 MB/s | 14,700 / 13,400 MB/s | 14,800 / 13,400 MB/s | 14,800 / 13,400 MB/s |
Random Read/Write | 1,850K / 2,600K IOPS, QD32 | 1,850K / 2,600K IOPS, QD32 | 2,200K / 2,600K IOPS, QD32 | 2,200K / 2,600K IOPS, QD32 |
Power (Read/Write) | 7.6W / 7.2W | 8.1W / 7.9W | 9.0W / 8.2W | TBD |
Device Sleep (L1.2) | 4.0mW / 3.3mW | 4.8mW / 4.0mW | 6.5mW / 5.7mW | TBD |
Intelligent TurboWrite 2.0 | 114GB | 226GB | 442GB | TBD |
Total Bytes Written | 600 TBW | 1,200 TBW | 2,400 TBW | 4,800 TBW |
The 9100 Pro supports several data encryption protocols featuring Class 0 (AES 256), TCG/Opal v2.0, and MS eDrive (IEEE1667). Pricing goes up as the capacity increases, though not linearly. The 1TB model costs $199.99, the 2TB will set you back $299.99, and the 4TB is 'only' $549.99. Technically, that means the 4TB drive has the best price per TB, at $137.50 per TB, comparted to $150 per TB on the 2TB and $200 on the 1TB model. The 8TB drive and its associated pricing will be released later in the second half of 2025.
The Samsung 9100 Pro represents the company's first PCIe 5.0 SSD with speeds well beyond what the Best SSDs using PCIe 4.0 can achieve. Technically, the Samsung 990 EVO was the first PCIe 5.0 SSD the company released, but that drive was not geared toward performance. It featured four PCIe lanes, but used a switch to run just two lanes in PCIe 5.0 mode, limiting its performance to the same level as PCIe 4.0 x4 SSDs.
With speeds of 14.8GB/s, the 9100 Pro barely outperforms the world's fastest consumer-focused PCIe 5.0 SSD right now, the Crucial T705 (which features up to 14.5 GB/s of performance). You'll have to wait for our review of the drive, but the sticker box specs, at the very least, suggest the drive will take the spot of the T705 as the fastest consumer SSD in the world. How will it fare in real-world scenarios, though? That remains to be seen.
