Samsung Introduces New Flagship SSD 990 Pro - RGB Backlit, PCIe 4.0 Interface, and Speeds Up to 7450MB/s

Samsung has introduced a new flagship NVMe SSD, the Samsung SSD 990 Pro M.2 2280 format. The novelty is available in 1, 2 and 4 TB versions with support for the PCIe 4.0 interface, which comply with the NVMe 2.0 protocol specifications.

Image Source: Samsung

At the heart of the Samsung SSD 990 Pro is an unnamed controller developed by Samsung. According to the company, it is 50% more energy efficient than the controller that powers the Samsung SSD 980 Pro series drives. The new SSD series also uses Samsung V-NAND 3-bit TLC flash and LPDDR4 cache. The volume of the latter is 1, 2 and 4 GB for models of 1, 2 and 4 TB, respectively. For new products, there is support for data encryption using AES algorithms with a 256-bit key, TCG / Opal V2.0 and according to the Encrypted Drive (IEEE1667) standard.

The Samsung SSD 990 Pro provides up to 7450MB/s sequential read speeds and up to 6900MB/s sequential write speeds. For comparison, the previous flagship Samsung SSD 980 Pro was capable of reading data at speeds up to 7000 MB / s, and writing them at speeds up to 5100 MB / s. Random read and write performance of the Samsung SSD 990 Pro is up to 55% faster than its predecessors, reaching 1,400,000 IOPS and 1,500,000 IOPS, respectively. According to the manufacturer, the novelties are able to load the Forspoken open-world action role-playing game level in about one second, which is four times faster than a conventional SATA SSD and 28 times faster than a standard hard drive.

For the 1 TB SSD model, the company claims a resource of 600 TB of overwritten information, for the 2 and 4 TB versions – 1200 TB and 2400 TB, respectively. New items come with a 5-year manufacturer’s warranty.

Samsung SSD 990 Pro drives will be available in two versions. One does not have a heatsink, the second will be equipped with an aluminum heatsink with RGB lighting. The company notes that the presence of a heatsink allows you to cope with overheating of components and, as a result, protects against a drop in SSD performance during prolonged loads.

The 1TB and 2TB Samsung SSD 990 Pro drives will go on sale in October. They are priced at $179 and $309 respectively. The recommended price of the 4TB model is currently unknown. It will go on sale next year.