.jpg "25 Easy Ways to Make Air Travel Easier on Your Body")
Why you can trust TechRadar
We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Samsung 9100 Pro: Two-minute review
UPDATE
After this review went live, I continued to test this drive with different motherboards and processors, and I was able to acheive the promised sequential read speeds that Samsung promised. As such, I’ve updated the score for this review and updated the graphs in the performance section to reflect these new test results.
While I’m not sure why the original test setup was reducing the sequential read performance of this drive when it didn’t for the Crucial T705 (the T705 recorded roughly the same speeds on different test configurations), the problem was likely an issue with the test configuration used in the original review, and not the drive itself.
The unedited, original review continues below.
It’s very hard to say that a drive that sequentially reads nearly 12,500MB a second doesn’t live up to expectations, especially not when its performance everywhere else is better than anything else I’ve tested, but that sticker on the box of the Samsung 9100 Pro that promises up to 14,800MB/s sticks in the craw of an otherwise perfect M.2 PCIe 5.0 SSD.
Starting at $199.99 for a 1TB capacity drive (about £155/AU$315), the 9100 Pro is Samsung’s first ‘true’ PCIe 5.0 SSD after the Samsung 990 EVO and Samsung 990 EVO Plus. Both those drives are PCIe 5.0, but they only use two PCIe 5.0 lanes, which limits their practical speeds to PCIe 4.0 standards.
The 9100 Pro, meanwhile, is a full-fat PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 drive, meaning its theoretical max speed for sequential reads is upwards of roughly 15,000MB/s and 14,000MB/s for sequential writes (this number has been edging up over the past 3-5 years, so take that theoretical maximum with a grain of salt at this point).
Samsung promises that its latest drive can hit up to 14,800MB/s sequential read and 13,400MB/s sequential write, and the Samsung 9100 Pro gets there somewhat. It clocks in a max sequential write rate of 13,066MB/s in my testing, but the 9100 Pro’s maximum sequential read speed only hit 12,427MB/s. This is still incredibly fast—but, it’s not what’s promised on the box.
Could that change with BIOS or firmware updates, sure. Possibly. But it’s not like other PCIe 5.0 drives like the Crucial T705 aren’t hitting close to 14,500MB/s. The T705 hits a max sequential read speed of 14,390MB/s in CrystalDiskMark 8 on the same testbench with a Gigabyte Aorus X870E motherboard, AMD Ryzen 9 9950X processor, and 32GB Corsair Dominator DDR5 running at 6,600MT/s and integrated graphics, so there’s no interference from a graphics card.
Meanwhile, compared to its predecessor, the Samsung 990 Pro, the 9100 Pro is a much better overall drive, but there are circumstances where the 990 Pro still manages to outperform its successor such as same and secondary drive copy time and random read and write speeds.
On balance, the Samsung 9100 Pro isn’t the undisputed best SSD you can buy, and for some users (such as gamers or general-use enthusiasts), you will likely be happier with other PCIe 5.0 or even PCIe 4.0 drives on the market, many of which will be cheaper than the 9100 Pro.
That said, this is a drive for professional users and for those who need to save or otherwise write large files to disk regularly, and for that, the Samsung 9100 Pro is the best M.2 SSD on the market.
Gamers won’t find much here worth the investment, unfortunately, with even the 990 Pro outperforming the 9100 Pro in 3DMark’s SSD benchmark, which is a gaming-exclusive test. It also falls about 17% behind the Corsair MP700 Elite PCIe 5.0 SSD on this benchmark as well.
For general business users, the 9100 Pro is better than its predecessor but lags behind the Crucial T705 in PCMark 10, which tests general productivity speed and performance as well as its performance as a data drive rather than your main system drive.
Given all this, you’d think that the 9100 Pro should score lower, but it really comes in strong on sequential write performance, which is a very big deal for professional users who might need to save media projects that are many, many gigabytes large.
Nothing disrupts a workflow more than a project autosaving for up to half a minute or more, and this is where the 9100 Pro shines. Offering up to 39% faster sequential write performance than the Crucial T705, its nearest competitor in this category, the Samsung 9100 Pro really leans into its pro branding here.
The 9100 Pro unit I tested did not come with a built-in heatsink, so its thermal performance is largely a factor of the excellent PCIe 5.0 heatsink on the Gigabyte Auros X870E motherboard I used for testing (I also used the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and 32GB of Corsair Dominator DDR5 RAM at 6,600MT/s), so I can’t speak much to the heatsink’s quality in this review.
Also, I tested a 9100 Pro with a 4TB capacity, whereas every other drive I tested had a 2TB capacity. This, in itself, shouldn’t impact baseline scores too much, if at all, but it’s worth pointing out that while I still consider this an apples-to-apples comparison, it’s more of a Cosmic Crisp-to-Red Delicious comparison, so your actual experienced performance might vary slightly from mine.
All that said, the other major problem with this drive is its price. It’s an expensive drive, and for a lot of gamers and those who are more interested in faster loading times for their programs and files, the Crucial T705 is simply a better option with comparable write speeds but close-to-max read speeds for a lower price.
If you’re looking for a drive that you can use in more of a professional capacity with frequent saves of very large files like video projects or video game packages in Unreal Engine, the Samsung 9100 Pro is the best SSD you’re going to get for that purpose and it will absolutely speed up your everyday workflow considerably.
Samsung 9100 Pro: Price & availability
- How much does it cost? Starting at $199.99 (about £155/AU$315)
- When is it available? Available now
- Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia
The Samsung 9100 Pro is available in the US, UK, and Australia starting on March 18, 2025, for $199.99 (about £155/AU$315) for a 1TB drive.
Higher capacities will cost you more, with the 2TB capacity going for $299.99 (about £230/AU$470)and the 4TB capacity going for $549.99 (about £425/AU$865).
The 9100 Pro 8TB capacity drive is expected to launch in H2 2025, though its price hasn’t been released yet.
This puts the 9100 Pro roughly 30% more expensive to start over the Crucial T705 1TB, and slightly more expensive than the launch MSRP of the Samsung 990 Pro it replaces.
Samsung 9100 Pro: Specs
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
Samsung 9100 Pro |
Samsung 990 Pro |
Samsung 990 EVO |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Interface |
PCIe 5.0 x4 |
PCIe 4.0 x4 |
PCIe 5.0 x2 |
|
Heatsink? |
Optional |
Optional |
No |
|
Available capacities |
1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB |
1TB, 2TB, 4TB |
1TB, 2TB |
|
Form factor |
M.2 2280 |
M.2 2280 |
M.2 2280 |
|
Endurance rating |
600TBW – 4800TBW |
600TBW – 2400TBW |
600TBW – 1200TBW |
|
Warranty |
5-year limited warranty |
5-year limited warranty |
5-year limited warranty |
Should you buy the Samsung 9100 Pro?
|
Value |
The Samsung 9100 Pro isn’t cheap, and its price soars as its capacity gets larger, though its overall performance-for-price remains low. |
3.5 / 5 |
|
Specs |
Between PCIe 5.0 speeds, very high capacity options, and excellent warranty, this drive has much more to offer than most on the market. |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Performance |
This drive promises 14,800MB/s sequential read speeds, but I didn’t quite hit that high. While still fast overall, its best performance is in its sequential write performance, making it fantastic for professionals. |
4 / 5 |
|
Final rating |
This is a very professional-specific drive in ways that previous Samsung Pro SSDs were not. If you’re not a professional user, there are better PCIe 5.0 drives out there, but for pros, there’s none better than the 9100 Pro. |
4 / 5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Samsung 9100 Pro: Also consider
If my Samsung 9100 Pro review has you looking for other options, here are two more M.2 SSDs to consider…
How I tested the Samsung 9100 Pro
- I spent about two weeks testing this SSD
- I used it for gaming, content creation, and general storage use
- I used my standard suite of SSD benchmarks as well as daily use
To test the 9100 Pro, I ran it through our standard benchmark suite, including CrystalDiskMark 8, PassMark, PCMark 10, 3DMark, and our proprietary 25GB file copy test.
I used this drive as my main system storage (C:\) drive for over a week on my test bench, where I used it extensively for loading games for graphics card benchmarking purposes, content creation, and more. This included loading games and large batches of photos for editing in Lightroom and Photoshop for various reviews.
I’ve been testing hardware components for TechRadar for over three years now, including several major SSD reviews from Samsung, PNY, and others, so I know what the latest SSDs are best for and whether they are worth your hard-earned money.
First reviewed March 2025
link
More Stories
I tried Google’s new AI mode powered by Gemini, and it might be the end of Search as we know it
Houston travel agent allegedly stole more than $400K meant for former PetSmart CEO’s wedding
Using a smartwatch could be a game-changer for people with diabetes, new research suggests