Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Fastest benchmarking NVMe SSD we’ve examined.
- DRAM for quick random operations
- Available in as much as 4GB capacities, and shortly 8TB
Cons
- Expensive overkill for many customers
- A hair off the tempo in Windows file transfers
Our Verdict
The quickest Consumer NVMe SSD you should purchase — but it surely ain’t low-cost.
Price When Reviewed
This worth will present the geolocated pricing textual content for product undefined
Best Pricing Today
Price When Reviewed
1TB: $200 I 2TB: $300 I 4TB: $550
Best Prices Today: Samsung 9100 Pro
$199.99
There was a time when Samsung was the long-reigning, undisputed efficiency king of the NVMe SSD market. Recently… Not a lot.
Well, the fallen are mighty as soon as extra because of the corporate’s 9100 Pro — the quickest NVMe SSD I’ve ever examined in accordance with the benchmark software program. Welcome again, Samsung!
Read on to study extra, then see our roundup of the best SSDs for comparability.
What are the 9100 Pro’s options?
The Samsung 9100 is a state-of-the-art, PCIe 5.0 x4 (four-lane) NVMe 2.0 SSD with 1GB of DRAM per terabyte of capability for major caching duties. The controller is an in-house Samsung improvement in accordance with the corporate, and the NAND is 236-layer(3D/stacked) TLC.
The SSD is obtainable within the 2280 (22mm large, 80mm lengthy) type issue and presently — 1TB via 4TB capacities. An 8TB model will likely be out there the second half of 2025.
Jon L. Jacobi / Foundry
Most customers gained’t care that the 9100 requires about half the facility of the earlier top-of-the-line 990 Pro. But it quantities to longer battery life in laptops, and fewer warmth in any gadget.
The 9100 Pro is warrantied for 5 years and rated for 600TBW (terabytes which may be written) per terabyte of capability. The time span is ok, however the TBW ranking, whereas par for the course, might be a bit extra beneficiant given the worth. Speaking of which…
How a lot does the Samsung 9100 Pro price?
As of this writing the 1TB model of the 9100 Pro is $200, the 2TB capability is $300, and the 4TB mannequin is $550. Add $20 in order for you a heatsink.
Before including the price of the latter, ensure you really need one (most customers don’t), or that your system doesn’t have already got a heatsink, and if not, can accommodate one. Our testbed’s upside-down secondary PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot forbids heatsinks — it’s a factor.
In phrases of the general SSD market, you’re positively paying extra for the premium efficiency. 4TB PCIe 4.0 host reminiscence buffer (DRAM-less) NVMe SSDs can be found for round half what the 9100 prices. But as you’ll see under, the efficiency can be premium — in case you have the software program to take benefit.
In the correct system with the correct software program, the 9100 Pro will run rings across the competitors.
How quick is the Samsung 9100 Pro?
The cat’s already out of the bag on this one. The 4TB 9100 Pro that Samsung despatched me aced all of the artificial benchmarks I threw at it by way of sequential throughput: CrystalDiskMark 8, AS SSD 2.0, and ATTO Disk all positioned it simply in first place — with a bullet. It additionally simply outstripped its PCIe 4.0 990 Pro predecessor in all methods.
On the opposite hand, real-world efficiency, whereas nicely above common, was a only a hair off the quickest I’ve seen. That noticed the drive sitting in third place amongst all of the drives I’ve examined, behind the Crucial T705 and Corsair MP700 Pro SE — each of that are additionally PCIe 5.0 DRAM designs.
Samsung performed up the 9100 Pro’s random efficiency in its press supplies, largely compared to the 990 Pro, but it surely fell a bit in need of the competitors. In truth, it was nicely down the charts with multi-queue random operations.
However, there may be not a number of software program that makes use of a number of NVMe queues presently, so the single-queue random efficiency is what you need to actually have a look at. The 9100 Pro was fairly good at that.
While the 9100 Pro reigned supreme in CrystalDiskMark 8, it lagged a hair behind its rivals in real-world transfers. Including the 48GB reads and writes proven under. That stated, the 2-second distinction is true across the margin of error for this check.
Though solely 6 seconds slower within the 450GB write, that hole price the 9100 Pro the general crown. While lagging in random operations, host reminiscence buffer drives are inclined to excel at this specific check so the 9100 really fell to 17th finest out of the 52 NVMe SSDs I’ve examined.
Of course, we’re solely speaking a few 16 second/11 p.c lag from the primary drive writing 450GB — the 8TB WD SN850X.
About our real-world switch assessments… They don’t all the time exhibit the last word capabilities of a drive, solely what you’ll see when transferring recordsdata utilizing Windows Explorer. Again, that’s largely as a result of Windows makes use of solely a single queue throughout transfers, negating a lot of NVMe’s benefit and rendering a vendor’s distinctive controller tips mainly moot.
I’m hoping for higher from Microsoft sooner or later. It can be good to lastly see real-world I/O that matches that of benchmarks.
Should you purchase the Samsung 9100 Pro?
If you have got the bucks, completely. In the correct system with the correct software program, the 9100 Pro will run rings across the competitors. On the opposite hand, most customers not loading massive language fashions or such will likely be simply high quality with an HMB design for half the worth.
How we check
Drive assessments presently make the most of Windows 11, 64-bit working on an X790 (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of reminiscence whole). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 4 are built-in to the again panel and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. The 48GB switch assessments make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk taking on 58GB of the 64GB of whole reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro which additionally runs the OS.
Each check is carried out on a newly NTFS-formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Note that in regular use, as a drive fills up, efficiency could lower because of much less NAND for secondary caching, in addition to different elements. This will be much less of an element with the present crop of SSDs with far sooner late-generation NAND.
Caveat: The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we have been shipped and to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can and can fluctuate by capability because of extra or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes throughout and the quantity of NAND out there for secondary caching. Vendors additionally sometimes swap parts. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report, by all means, tell us.