Samsung 9100 PRO

Announced in February 2025, the Samsung 9100 PRO is a high-end NVMe M.2 solid-state drive (SSD) manufactured by Samsung Electronics.

It is Samsung's first consumer SSD to make full use of the PCIe 5.0 interface, offering sequential read speeds up to 14,800 MB/s and write speeds up to 13,400 MB/s, making it one of the fastest consumer SSDs available at launch.

Samsung positions the 9100 PRO as a premium storage solution for demanding applications including AI computing, 8K video editing, gaming, and data analysis.

The drive comes in capacities ranging from 1TB to 8TB, with the latter being among the highest capacity consumer M.2 2280 SSDs available at the time of release.

Technical Specifications

Official datasheet

Controller

The 9100 PRO is equipped with Samsung's proprietary Presto controller (model S4LY027), built on a 5nm Samsung FinFET process. This chip features a 5-core ARM Cortex-R8 32-bit architecture operating at high frequencies to manage the PCIe 5.0 interface effectively. The controller supports 8 flash channels running at 2,400 MT/s with 4 chip enables, providing the bandwidth necessary for the drive's high-end characteristics.

NAND Flash Memory

Samsung's V-NAND V8 technology, which is also used for the mainstream 990 EVO PLUS, features 236-layer Triple-Level Cell (TLC) NAND flash memory. Each NAND die operates at 2,400 MT/s with Toggle 5.0 interface, and utilizes charge trap topology. The NAND features improved program and erase times compared to previous generations, with a page size of 16KB and organized in a 4-plane configuration per die with 2 decks per die.

Cache and Over-Provisioning

The 9100 PRO's caching system includes both DRAM cache and pseudo-SLC (pSLC) cache. The 1TB model features 1GB of LPDDR4X DRAM cache and approximately 114GB of pSLC cache (108GB dynamic + 6GB static). These numbers scale with the drive capacity to ensure consistent performance during burst write operations and sustained workloads.

Power Consumption

Despite its high performance, the 9100 PRO maintains relatively efficient power consumption compared to earlier Phison E26-based PCIe 5.0 SSDs. Peak power consumption is approximately 9W, which is significantly lower than competing PCIe 5.0 drives that may consume 12W or more.

This efficiency is attributed to Samsung's controller design and optimized NAND flash technology. It eliminates the need for active cooling solutions, but a heatsink is still necessary (included as an option).

Write Endurance

There are no changes in the write endurance ratings compared to other high-end Samsung SSDs, with the 1TB model rated at 600 TBW (Terabytes Written) over its 5-year warranty period. This translates to approximately 0.3 Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD), suitable for consumer and light professional workloads. Higher capacity models feature proportionally increased endurance ratings.

Performance

Unlike the earlier 990 EVO and 990 EVO PLUS – both of which used a hybrid interface and up to two lanes of PCIe 5.0 bandwidth – the 9100 PRO uses all four of the available M.2 PCI-Express Gen 5 lanes.

With sequential read speeds reaching up to 14,800 MB/s and sequential write speeds up to 13,400 MB/s, The 9100 PRO delivers very strong performance metrics. Random performance is equally impressive, with up to 2.2 million IOPS for 4KB random reads and 2.6 million IOPS for 4KB random writes.

These performance figures represent approximately double the theoretical sequential performance of Samsung's previous flagship, the 990 PRO.

Additional resources

Samsung M.2 NVMe SSDs