Samsung 990 Pro quick review – the FASTEST Gen 4 drive alive

Performance, Thermals, Verdict

AS SSD

The AS SSD benchmark puts decent stress on the drive, ignoring the cache, thus simulating a very strenuous workload on the drive. Compared to the fastest Gen 4 drive we’ve tested so far, the Crucial P3 Plus, 990 Pro is 36% faster in Sequential Read and 54% faster in Sequential Write. The drive is a lot faster in the Random Read and Write too, leading with 79% and 27%, respectively.

Samsung 990 Pro

Crucial P3 Plus

CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4

As for CrystalDiskMark, it’s a more forgiving benchmark, thus, you can see higher speeds. The Samsung 990 Pro is faster in all the tests that CrystalDiskMark offers, with higher Sequential Read and Write speeds in both a Queue Depth of 8 and Queue Depth of 1. The Random Read and Write speeds are in favor of the Samsung drive too, in Queue Depth of 32 and 1. The Crucial P3 Plus is faster only in the Random Write QD1 test.

Samsung 990 Pro

Crucial P3 Plus

Thermals

We tested the bare drive, and we purchased a unit without a heat sink. On the back, there’s a thermal sticker with a copper layer, which is the only thermal help that the SSD gets. Despite that, it’s the coolest drive that we’ve tested so far, with a max temperature under load of only 52°C and an average temperature of 50.70°C. If you decide to order the model with a heat sink, you can certainly expect lower temperatures.

Here’s a view of the drive both with and without it.

Verdict

The Samsung 990 Pro is known worldwide as one of the best drives that you can put in any system, being a frequent upgrade option even for consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series S and X. It’s super fast, as well as running very cool, despite having all of its speed. It’s got all the premium features that you would expect from a flagship product, including a dedicated cache chip, and a new controller that pushes the boundaries of the PCIe Gen 4 interface. It’s priced at a premium, however, the firmware and software support make it all worth it.

As for reliability, there was a scare about drive degradation expressed by Puget Systems on February 2nd of this year, who chose the 990 Pro for their customers. The problem was after a firmware update, which led to a 1% drop in endurance each week, which is scary stuff. Samsung was quick to address the issue, and by March a new patched firmware was issued, stopping the degradation problem. On the other hand, drives that have already degraded can’t be healed or restored. Still, it shows that Samsung cares and is quick to resolve problems that arise with their SSDs, as reliability is the backbone of their image in the storage space.

You can check the current price of the Samsung 990 Pro here: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)

Author: Severin Kolakov

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