Samsung 990 Pro PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD Review

When it comes to high-end SSDs, Samsung has long been a byword for class-leading performance. Not only do they have a history of many of the best-performing drives on the market, but they also make many of the best memory components too. That’s why many of their “rivals” actually use Samsung components in their memory and flash storage devices. With that in mind, when Samsung have a new drive coming to market, we’re always eager to check it out, as it should be something worthy of our attention.

Samsung 990 Pro

The new Samsung 990 PRO series is their latest high-performance PCIe 4.0 SSD, so you’ll be able to get the best performance from your high-end PC build or even from consoles such as the PlayStation 5. It comes with improved power efficiency and leverages all the tweaks and improvements found in the latest NAND, controller and software that Samsung products. While the drive promises outstanding random read/write speeds, it is also optimised for the DirectStorage API. The Samsung 990 PRO is available in capacities of 1TB up to 4TB to suit your needs.

Features

• MZ-V9P2T0BW (2TB)
• M.2 (2280)
• PCIe Gen 4.0 x4
• NVMe 2.0
• Samsung V-NAND 3-bit MLC
• 2GB Low Power DDR4 SDRAM
• TRIM Support
• S.M.A.R.T Support
• Auto Garbage Collection
• AES 256-bit Encryption (Class 0) TCG/Opal
• IEEE1667 (Encrypted drive)

For more information, please visit the official Samsung 990 Pro product page here.

7th-generation V-NAND

Featuring Samsung’s 7th-generation V-NAND technology and a newly enhanced Pascal controller, the 990 PRO series realizes the best possible performance in PCIe 4.0 interface. The 990 PRO series delivers sequential read and write speeds of up to 7,450 MB/s and 6,900 MB/s, respectively, while random read and write speeds come in at up to 1,400K and 1,550K IOPS, respectively. With up to a 55% improvement in random performance over the 980 PRO, the 990 PRO series is particularly well-suited for heavy gaming as well as creative and productivity tasks.

Ultimate Power Efficiency and Reliable Thermal Control

Built on a low-power architecture, Samsung’s newly designed controller dramatically improves the SSD’s power efficiency by up to 50% compared to the 980 PRO. Additionally, the 990 PRO series employs a nickel coating on the controller and a heat spreader label on the drive for reliable thermal management. Samsung’s Dynamic Thermal Guard technology further ensures that the drive’s temperature stays in the optimal range. The 990 PRO with Heatsink version offers an additional layer of thermal control while its RGB lights add more style to the drive. The 990 PRO series comes with an industry-leading 5-year limited warranty.

Samsung Magician

Unlock the full power of 990 PRO. Samsung Magician software’s user-friendly suite of optimization tools always gets you the best SSD performance. Protect valuable data, monitor drive health, and get important updates. Your personal SSD toolkit.