Samsung 9100 Pro: Return of the SSD king

Once consistently top of the leader board, but recently an also-ran, Samsung is back to form with its latest NVMe SSD.

- BY JON JACOBI

There was a time when Samsung was the long-reigning, undisputed performance king of the NVMe SSD market. Recently...not so much.

Well, the fallen are mighty once more thanks to the company's 9100 Pro—the fastest NVMe SSD I've ever tested according to the benchmark software. Welcome back, Samsung! Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best SSDs (fave.co/2Z26gQg) for comparison.

FEATURES

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 capacity for primary caching duties. The controller is an in-house Samsung development according to the company, and the NAND is 236-layer (3D/stacked) TLC.

The SSD is available in the 2280 (22mm wide, 80mm long) form factor and currently—1TB through 4TB capacities. An 8TB version will be available the second half of 2025.

Most users won't care that the 9100 requires about half the power of the previous top-of-the-line 990 Pro. But it amounts to longer battery life in laptops, and less heat in any device.

The 9100 Pro is warrantied for five years and rated for 600TBW (terabytes that may be written) per terabyte of capacity. The time span is fine, but the TBW rating, while par for the course, could be a bit more generous given the price. Speaking of which...

PRICE

As of this writing the 1TB version of the 9100 Pro is $200, the 2TB capacity is $300, and the 4TB model is $550. Add $20 if you want a heatsink.

Before adding the cost of the latter, make sure that you actually need one (most users don't), and that your system doesn't already have a heatsink, and if not, that it can accommodate one. Our testbed's upside-down secondary PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot forbids heatsinks—it's a thing.