The first PCIe Gen 5 SSDs from the likes of Seagate and Crucial began hitting the market nearly two years ago, but Samsung has been notably absent with its own model. That will change in March with the arrival of the Samsung 9100 Pro series, its first consumer-ready pure PCIe Gen 5 SSD built with NVMe 2.0. At launch, it will be available in 1TB (starting at $199.99), 2TB ($299.99), and 4TB ($549.99) capacities in an M.2 form factor, with or without heatsinks. An 8TB configuration, a first for Samsung NVMe SSDs, is slated for the second half of 2025.
By the numbers, the 9100 Pro’s theoretical maximum random read and write speeds — 2,200K and 2,600K input-output operations per second (IOPS) — are at least twice as fast as the last-gen Samsung 980 Pro, a PCIe Gen4 SSD. Our earliest comparison of that SSD with Seagate’s Firecuda 540 and Crucial’s T700 showed no noticeable benefits for PC gaming; however, the difference may be more evident for heavier computing workflows. If nothing else, it’d be nice to know you’re future-proofed, at least until PCIe Gen 6 arrives.
The gains might be more apparent if you’re talking about large-volume file transfers, though, which videographers or software engineers working with large datasets might appreciate. Samsung says the 9100 Pro (built on its V Nand TLC V8 with a custom controller) can reach sequential read and write speeds of up to 14.8GBps and 13.4GBps, respectively. That’s roughly double the last-gen 980 Pro, and about 2-3GBps per second faster than the earliest PCIe 5 SSDs can manage.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
