Samsung Files Paperwork for 990 EVO Plus and 9100 PRO M.2 NVMe SSDs

[btarunr]

Samsung Electronics just filed trademark paperwork for two unreleased client SSD models, the SSD 990 EVO Plus, and the SSD 9100 PRO. Having exhausted the three-digit model number sequence with the 990 PRO, Samsung is going with the 9000 series for the next nine generations of its flagship M.2-2280 client SSDs, beginning with the 9100 PRO, which will likely be succeeded in the future by the 9200 PRO, 9300 PRO, and so on. Nothing yet is known about the 9100 PRO, but we predict it to be Samsung's answer to the latest crop of Gen 5 drives that offer over 14 GB/s of sequential read speeds, and over 12 GB/s of sequential writes.

The Samsung 990 EVO Plus could be a whole different drive from the current 990 EVO, designed to compete with the value end of Gen 5 SSDs that are based on the new Phison E31T DRAMless Gen 5 controller with around 11 GB/s of sequential transfer speeds on tap. This is something the current 990 EVO cannot achieve, as its controller has a wacky logic that either uses Gen 4 x4 or Gen 5 x2 (it lowers the lane count upon detecting Gen 5). Samsung will probably remove this limitation with the 990 EVO Plus, allowing Gen 5 x4, and getting its performance in the league of the E31T-powered drives.



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[Bwaze]

"over 14 GB/s of sequential read speeds, and over 12 GB/s of sequential writes" bring absolutely no difference for most home user compared to PCIe 1.0, and most application, game load times aren't really that different to SATA drives...

I'd buy a reasonably priced 8 TB or bigger SSD with tenth of that speed in an instant, but that's a product companies somehow aren't interested in making.

 

[JWNoctis]

So it's to be 9x00 instead of 1xx0...Though I suppose the latter is already squatted by counterfeits. It's even over 9000.

Anyone wanna bet how soon we'd see the "correctly" numbered ones showing up?

"over 14 GB/s of sequential read speeds, and over 12 GB/s of sequential writes" bring absolutely no difference for most home user compared to PCIe 1.0, and most application, game load times aren't really that different to SATA drives...

I'd buy a reasonably priced 8 TB or bigger SSD with tenth of that speed in an instant, but that's a product companies somehow aren't interested in making.

Shame that SSD price has much less to do with speed than capacity. The last time I checked, SATA drives are actually often more expensive than M.2 ones at higher capacity ranges, for some reason.

To be fair, the latest buzzword trend, which I shall not name again ad nauseam, does require plenty of storage bandwidth to be responsive.

 

[Wirko]

The choice of name is a bit unfortunate because there exists a Micron 9100 PRO, which is an SSD too, from 2017. The generations that followed are called, you guessed it, 9200, 9300 and 9400.

 

[R0H1T]

Yes how do you go from 990 to 9100 all of a sudden, even AMD's "bold" move to one up Intel seems only slightly better

 

[wNotyarD]

Yes how do you go from 990 to 9100 all of a sudden, even AMD's "bold" move to one up Intel seems only slightly better

You can't spell performance without a 9 (or an X).

 

[Caring1]

"over 14 GB/s of sequential read speeds, and over 12 GB/s of sequential writes" bring absolutely no difference for most home user compared to PCIe 1.0, and most application, game load times aren't really that different to SATA drives...

I'd buy a reasonably priced 8 TB or bigger SSD with tenth of that speed in an instant, but that's a product companies somehow aren't interested in making.

"Reasonable" is subjective, Samsung's own 870 QVO 8TB isn't cheap in my opinion, for a 2.5" SSD that runs at average speeds for that format.

 

[Bwaze]

"Reasonable" is subjective, Samsung's own 870 QVO 8TB isn't cheap in my opinion, for a 2.5" SSD that runs at average speeds for that format.

870 QVO runs well below SATA speeds - after you fill the cache it's speed is half that of a HDD! When TechPowerUP tested it back in mid 2020 they even put in the article name:

Samsung 870 QVO 1 TB Review - Terrible, Do Not Buy

They couldn't know that 4 years later those will be basically the only line of consumer SSDs with 8 TB option...

 

[MaMoo]

I had a 990 Pro 2TB for a while. It was very fast but it kept on disconnecting from the computer. No reason and no warning. A few times I left work running and a few days later, the computer randomly rebooted to find no boot drive. It turns out that this is a known issue as there are plenty of discussion on it and reviews online. Unfortunately, no one knows the root cause and a workaround is to enable full performance all the time, which could void warranty supposedly. I eventually got in touch with Samsung and then via their support, returned the drive. My other 4TB drive does not do this and the problem only started a few months into ownership. I probably would not have found out unless I ran multiple long workloads. For me it disconnected once every week or so.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Let me guess QLC? Or better, PLC ??

 

[TheLostSwede]

They appeared on the PCI SIG Integrators List back in May.

The 990 EVO for comparison.

 

[Chaitanya]

They appeared on the PCI SIG Integrators List back in May.
View attachment 352083

The 990 EVO for comparison.
View attachment 352084

Hopefully controller isnt a hot mess like the current Phison based drives.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Hopefully controller isnt a hot mess like the current Phison based drives.

Considering Silicon Motion appears to have solved, you'd think Samsung should've managed to solve that issue as well.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

I think samsung should Reboot the "pro" label and reintroduce MLC, or better yet, and all SLC drive...something that is actually high performance

 

[ymdhis]

I think samsung should Reboot the "pro" label and reintroduce MLC, or better yet, and all SLC drive...something that is actually high performance

If they "reboot" the pro line, it'll be QLC for evo and TLC for pro models.

 

[wNotyarD]

If they "reboot" the pro line, it'll be QLC for evo and TLC for pro models.

Don't they have QVO for their QLC drives?

 

[Minus Infinity]

Don't they have QVO for their QLC drives?

That's why he said if they reboot they'll rebrand so hide their QLC rubbish. We all know the 980/990 Pro is really the 980/990 EVO with their downgrades to TLC from MLC in the 960/970 Pro. They'll probably keep going and soon use QLC for EVO and either get rid of QVO naming or use it only for ultrabudget, garbage class non NVME ssds, like the current 870 QVO.

 

[phints]

Very interested in the 9100 Pro results for my next build (Ryzen 9000 maybe). I hope Samsung pays attention to QD1 RAND performance, as they have done in the past, the 990 Pro is one of the top performers there. That way the average user will see better response too.