Samsung 990 PRO 2TB - PCIe Gen4 NVMe Gaming SSD

Our analysis

On paper this drive reads at half the speed of Samsung's own 9100 PRO 2TB, 7450 against 14 700 MB/s, because it is PCIe 4.0 and the 9100 PRO is PCIe 5.0. The slot decides before that gap does: on a board with only Gen4 M.2 slots, a Gen5 drive runs at Gen4 speed.

What stands out

• Up to 1.4 million random-read IOPS, per Samsung. That is the figure for reading many small files at once, which is what a game does while it loads.
• 7450 MB/s reads, 6900 MB/s writes. The write figure is the one that counts when you install or move a large game.
• A DRAM cache. Something the cheaper Samsung 990 EVO Plus does without; it uses the host's memory (HMB) instead.
• Samsung Magician. Samsung's software to check the drive's health and update its firmware.

Where it falls short

• This version is a bare M.2 2280 drive with no heatsink, and a PS5 expansion is simpler with one already fitted.
• If all you want is space, drives built for capacity, such as the Crucial P310, cost less per terabyte.

Look elsewhere if

You are expanding a PS5: the Optimus GX PRO 850X 2TB with Heatsink (formerly WD_BLACK SN850X) comes with the heatsink already fitted, so it drops into the slot with nothing else to buy. If the most capacity for the money is the priority, the Crucial P310 2TB gives you the same 2 TB in Gen4 with reads up to 7100 MB/s.

We compare it with Gen5 drives in our gaming SSD guide, and the full lineup is in our SSD storage section.