Samsung's 9100 Pro PCIe 5 SSD Is Wicked-Fast And Now Available To Buy
Towards the latter part of last month, Samsung reinserted itself into the flagship solid state drive (SSD) space with the introduction of its 9100 Pro series to supplant its still-awesome 990 Pro as its fastest consumer drive line. Now several weeks later, you can actually purchase the 9100 Pro in various capacities, and with or without an included heatsink.
To recap, the 9100 Pro takes advantage of the PCI Express 5.0 bus to offer blistering speeds. What's also impressive is that its scorching-fast sequential read and write speeds are nearly the same for all four capacities—1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB—whereas we often see steep drop-offs at lower capacities.
In this case, sequential reads are rated as high as 14,800MB/s (14.8GB/s) on the 4TB and 8TB models while the 1TB and 2TB drives are not far behind at 14,700MB/s (14.7GB/s). Meanwhile, sequential writes are rated at 13,400MB/s (13.4GB/s) for all but the 1TB model, which nips at the heels of its more capacity brethren at 13,300MB/s (13.3GB/s).
The situation is similar for 4K random reads and writes as seen in the cart above. All four capacities offer the same maximum 4K random write performance, while 4K random reads are similar. That's the kind of thing we love to see, as it means consumers aren't punished with significantly lower performance for choosing a lower (and more affordable) capacity.
That's especially important here because pricing isn't exactly cheap. The 8TB model isn't available yet, but the 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB models are all in stock, both with and without a heatsink. Here's how it shakes out...
- 1TB Samsung 9100 Pro: $199.99 (at Amazon)
- 1TB Samsung 9100 Pro w/ Heatsink: $219.99 (at Amazon)
- 2TB Samsung 9100 Pro: $299.99 (at Amazon)
- 2TB Samsung 9100 Pro w/ Heatsink: $319.99 (at Samsung)
- 4TB Samsung 9100 Pro: $549.99 (at Amazon)
- 4TB Samsung 9100 Pro w/ Heatsink: $569.99 (at Samsung)
A couple of the models are not yet available at Amazon (we imagine they will be soon), though you can purchase them direct from Samsung. In each case, you're looking at a $20 premium for the included heatsink. That in and of itself isn't bad, though pricing in general is pretty high.
It's not just Samsung, though. There are only a few SSDs in this speed tier, and they're generally expensive. That said, you can shop sales to take some of the sting out. For example, a 2TB Crucial T705 with heatsink is currently on sale for $259.99 at Amazon (save $154). The rated specs are not quite as fast as Samsung's 9100 Pro models, but they're within striking distance (see our Crucial T705 review for benchmarks and analysis).
We suspect we'll see sale pricing on the 9100 Pro series at some point too, especially with how often the storage market fluctuates. In the meantime, if you can take advantage of the ultra-speeds on tap (or just want to build a no-compromise PC), you can certainly do so.
