Samsung SSD 9100 PRO Review

The Samsung SSD 9100 PRO is an M.2 2280 PCIe 5.0 SSD, which at present isn’t common. I’ve been checking out M.2 drives for quite some time and have seen the rapid takeover from HDDs, which were far slower and more prone to breaking. Now, while the latest M.2 drives are fast, few feature the latest PCIe 5.0 interface, which enables incredibly fast transfer speeds.

In fact, the transfer speeds are so fast that they actually quadruple those of the ultra-fast Samsung 990 EVO and double the 990 PRO that I looked at last year. While that SSD was fast and, to be honest, exceptionally well priced, this new SSD is in another league.

The drive itself is available in a decent array of capacity options that include 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB, so more than enough choice for anyone looking for a fast drive for the occasional bit of 4K and 8K video editing through to high-end professional NAS solutions.

In terms of speed and capacity, Samsung has ensured that this drive is primed and ready for AI enhancements and is already optimised for use with AI games and other AI applications and workflows.

The memory itself is Samsung’s latest 3-bit MLC V-NAND and supports the NVMe 2.0 protocol—this makes it future-proof and offers decent backward compatibility for older systems if needed.

The great thing about the standardisation of computer components is that, for the most part, you know that when you buy a component it will fit. Now, while the drive is of the M.2 2280 form factor and will easily install into most PCs, you do need to take into consideration that, with the speeds and demands placed on it when video editing, the version with heatsink attached would probably be the best option.

I’m testing the 1TB capacity stick; however, for video, you’d probably want to opt for a larger capacity. When it comes to dimensions the 2 and 4TB sticks are the same dimensions as the unit I’ve tested, the 8TB version is a touch thicker at 11.25mm—something else that should be taken into consideration. Alongside the physical fit of the drive, the technology also supports secure firmware encryption and TRIM.

This is the first of these PCIe 5.0 x4, NVMe™ 2.0 M.2 SSDs that I have seen and tested, and while the technology is new, the form factor remains the same as other M.2 drives—and actually, when it came to testing, I was surprised to see that my motherboard was compatible with PCIe 5.0.

As with most M.2 2280 sticks it measures 80.15 x 22.15 x 2.38mm, with the 8TB being slightly thicker at 3.88mm. If you have the heatsink version, then you’ll need to add 6.5mm to the thickness for all but the 8TB version, which adds a little more for the additional size of the heatsink at 11.25mm. While this might not seem like a great deal, in some machines, this amount of space for the SSD could be an issue.

The big feature of the SSD is the transfer speeds, with 14,800 MB/s read and 12,400 MB/s write, which is far in excess of anything else I have tested of any drive type in the past.

The power consumption is well balanced with the drive only being slightly more power-hungry than most, up to 9W, but to be honest, in the grand scheme of things, this is pretty good. If you’re running a machine and system that needs this level of speed, I don’t think the power consumption of a single SSD is going to be too much of an issue. However, as these are usually placed in a RAID array for larger systems, that amount can quickly add up. Still, it’s in line with most other high-performance drives.

Another major feature of the hardware is the Intelligent TurboWrite 2.0 for write acceleration, which, for anyone working with files that are both being read from and written to the drive, will make a difference.

More interesting on the feature front is the fact that the drive has been optimised for AI model storage and retrieval. While at present, this has only a passing relevance for photographers and videographers, for content creators utilising a system for generative image and video creation, this drive will be an ideal choice.

So, a while back, I looked at the Samsung 990 PRO and was, at the time, impressed with the speed of that drive. To be honest, almost 18 months later, that drive still powers through everything I throw at it and remains the heart of my workstation. Now, however, Samsung has supplied something that is considerably faster.

Now, ordinarily when it comes to testing, I would pop out the storage SSD in my machine and pop in the new one to test. Easy. The problem here is that when I did that, I discovered that my spare M.2 slots were all PCIe 4.0 and not PCIe 5.0. This was an issue. I then figured—easy—I’ll swap out my main drive for the new one and install the OS-laden drive into one of the other M.2 slots, reallocate, and then it’ll be super-fast, plain sailing. However, it wasn’t, and the machine didn’t boot.

I swapped them back and, this time formatted the 9100 PRO in the NTFS file format in the PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot, then swapped the two drives back with the OS drive in the PCIe 4.0 slot and the now-formatted drive back into the PCIe 5.0 slot—booted the machine, and everything fired up and was ready to go.

The first of the real-world tests proved just how quick the drive was, not only transferring files over to the drive but, more noticeably, as I went to organise the data on the drive. 4K video files were moved quickly, with thumbnail images generated without huge waits. The speed of the transfers started to make the speed of my MacBook Pro seem even slower and more antiquated than before, and the M1 Max had, until this point, been a trusted companion. Over the few weeks of testing, this drive has time and time again proved just how fast and effective it has been, showing both speed and a relatively decent capacity.

I will say that while the transfer speeds I recorded are good, I did have to attach a heatsink to ensure reliability—more out of my nerves at having such a fast SSD working and the fear of the heat it would create. The fact is that once the heatsink was installed, the performance seemed good and solid, and the benchmark tests were consistent. It’s worth noting that there are built-in temperature controls into the hardware, which will also help with any potential heat issues.

Through both the real-world tests using Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and DaVinci Resolve, the speed of the drive was superb. Likewise, switching to the benchmark tests using the AJA System Test, the results were impressive, with the closest to the quoted amounts being reachable through CrystalDiskMark.

test results

AJA read: 10259
AJA Write: 10705
Crystal Disk Mark 14661 MB/s
Crystal Disk Mark 13360 MB/s

This was a new one for me, with the drive accelerating past the speeds of any other drive that I have tested. But then again, the 990 PRO did the same thing over a year ago, albeit slower, and while at the time I thought that speed, whilst impressive, would be a little overkill, over the year since I’ve realised just how much of an impact that additional speed of file handling has on my video edits and sorting of files on the drive.

The 9100 PRO further lifts the bar, offering speeds that are double that of the 990 PRO and again giving everything a major speed boost. While the speed increase is impressive, you do need to make sure that you have the hardware ready to support it correctly. While PCIe 5.0 is widely used and featured on almost every new motherboard, PCIe 5.0 M.2 is less so and usually only a single slot, not all. What I also realised is that it’s mostly AMD boards, although the Intel Core chipsets with their AI boost also support it.

You also need to consider cooling, but when it comes to video production, this is also nothing new. So, while there are versions with and without a heatsink, if I were to go out and purchase this drive, it would definitely be the version with, as I ended up sticking a heatsink to the drive anyway. I would also go for a capacity greater than 1TB— with 4K and 8K now being the video standard, 1TB can quickly disappear.

When it comes to the price, it is as you can imagine quite expensive, so if you’re going to go large on the performance, then go 8TB at the same time.