Samsung 9100 Pro review: This gaming SSD is ludicrously fast
The fastest SSD ever
🏆 Review score: 4.5 out of 5
🏅 Editor’s Choice Award
Pros
✅ ⚡️ The fastest SSD ever
✅ 🏆 Class-leading sequential and random read/write speeds
✅ ✊ Competition-crushing performance
✅ 🎮 Incredibly fast for gaming
✅ 🫰 Reasonable pricing for the $199 1TB and $299 2TB drives
✅ 😮💨 Magician software takes the pain out of swapping boot drives and is a joy to use
✅ 🥶 Runs surprisingly cool even with Samsung’s own $20 slimline heatsink
Cons
❌ 🤑 4TB drives are $549 to start
❌ 💰 Slightly more expensive than other PCIe 5.0 SSDs
The Shortcut Review
The Samsung 9100 Pro is a screaming-fast PCIe 5.0 SSD. With the highest sequential and random read/write speeds, this drive erases loading screens and makes game saves almost instantaneous. Even with 100GB file and folder transfers, the Samsung 9100 Pro easily finished everything we threw at it in a mere minute or less. It is also incredibly fast for gaming, I’ve never had a drive that loads games faster than the Samsung 9100 Pro.
All of this speed could be yours at a fairly reasonable $199 1TB or $299 2TB drive. The Samsung 9100 Pro only gets throat-clenchingly expensive with the $549 4TB model I’ve tested in this review. Still, I think it's well worth the expense for the fastest PCIe 5.0 SSD in the world. And it’s backed by the best SSD software I’ve ever used, Samsung’s Magician Software will even make transferring your Windows install over to the 9100 Pro an absolute breeze.
Full Review
🛣️All the PCIe 5.0 lanes. The Samsung 9100 Pro technically isn’t Samsung’s first PCIe 5.0 SSD, but it is its fastest one. Last year, Samsung introduced the 990 Evo and Evo Plus, but the two drives could only utilize two PCIe 5.0 lanes, the Samsung 9100 Pro can tap into four PCIe 5.0 lanes for full-speed performance. You’ll see what a difference this makes in our benchmarks below.
🏁Ludicrous speed. Read them and weep. The Samsung 9100 Pro is the fastest SSD ever. It blows past all other PCIe 5.0 SSDs we’ve tested. The only competitor to even come close is the Crucial T705, but it still lags behind in both sequential and random transfer rates. The Samsung 9100 Pro’s five-digit sequential read and write speeds and over 2,200K IOPS for random transfers reduce the time of copying and writing 100GB files and folders to a mere minute.
🎮 Game match. The Samsung 9100 Pro is perfect for gaming. I’ve never seen Red Dead Redemption 2 load so fast, and it helps reduce Forza Horizon 5’s horrifically long first-time optimization startup, too. Writing saves in basically any game also happened almost instantaneously with the Samsung 9100 Pro.
🤓 Compatible with PS5 but an overachiever. The Samsung 9100 Pro absolutely works with the PS5 and PS5 Pro. The drive’s 14,700MB/s sequential read speed more than meets Sony’s 5,500MB/s. Even though I recorded the drive went as fast as 6,354MB/s in my PS5 Pro, it’s more than overkill for the consoles PCIe 4.0 interface, so I suggest getting the $169 Samsung 990 Pro 2TB or $129 Samsung Evo Plus 2TB instead. Either drive would be more than enough for PS5 gaming.
🤖 Faster AI. Another thing the Samsung 9100 Pro helps speed along is generative AI tasks. I played around with Adobe Photoshop, and it was able to generate images noticeably faster than on my other drives, both PCIe 4.0 and 5.0. PCIe 5.0 technology is also better suited for loading large language models (LLM), though having more and faster memory is far more important to running chatbots. For everyday AI tasks, you’ll see a noticeable speed increase with the Samsung 9100 Pro and this is the drive to go for no matter how you’re using AI.
🪄Magic software. Samsung has some of the best-developed software for its SSDs. The Magician Software looks fantastic and is intuitive to navigate. You can set power modes, perform diagnostic tests, and benchmark your SSD within the software. The best part of the software is the Data Migration Assistant, which lets you transfer your Windows install from one drive to another, saving you from the hassle of reformatting all your drives and reinstalling the OS.
🧊 Ice Ice Baby. Despite its extreme speed, the Samsung 9100 Pro is a cool performer. Even with its relatively thin optional heatsink, the Samsung 9100 Pro only hit a peak of 67° C in my testing. Samsung’s slimline cooler performed even better than the large heatsinks on my Asus ROG X870E Strix motherboard, which only kept the 9100 Pro temps from exceeding 70° C. Definitely, don’t run this drive without a heatsink, as PCIe 5.0 massive data bandwidth demands it. It’s a testament to Samsung’s engineering that its SSD runs faster and cooler than the rest of the competition.
This drive erases loading screens and makes game saves almost instantaneous
🚛 8TB capacities coming later. The Samsung 9100 Pro is available in the usual 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB sizes you’ll find most SSDs in – but Samsung says it will have a larger 8TB capacity drive coming later this year. That’s a huge truckload of storage, more than enough to hold 70 Black Ops 6-sized (over 100GB install-sized) games.
💵 Reasonable starting prices. The Samsung 9100 Pro starts off fairly reasonably, with 1TB drives for $199 and 2 TB for $299. The Samsung 9100 Pro is still one of the most expensive PCIe 5.0 SSDs, but it's not astronomically so. If you’re looking for a 2TB drive, it’s within $20-30 higher than competing drives like the $289 Sabrent Rocket 5 and $264 Corsair MP700 Pro. Also, thankfully, getting Samsung’s latest drive with a heatsink is only an additional $20
👑 King's ransom for higher capacities. However, after that, the Samsung 9100 Pro’s prices balloon up to $549 for the 4TB model I’ve tested. $549 for the 4TB drive is almost outrageous, and you should definitely wait on a deal – which we’ll highlight when they’re available. If you can’t wait, Samsung is holding an introductory promotion that gives you the chance to win a 55" Odyssey Ark 2nd Gen Curved Gaming Monitor with any purchase of a Samsung 9100 Pro on its website. Who only knows how much the 8TB version of the Samsung 9100 Pro will be, but I’d expect it to be well north of $999.
Should you buy the Samsung 9100 Pro?
Yes, if…
✅ ⚡ You need the fastest SSD possible
✅ 🥱 You want to see as few game-loading screens as possible
✅ 📈 You want to upgrade your boot drive
✅ 🆕 All your other PC components are new
✅ 🤖 You load large language models for AI
No, if…
❌ ⚙️ You don’t have the CPU or motherboard to support PCIe 5.0 (get the Samsung 990 Pro 2TB for $169 instead)
❌ 💵 You're on a budget (get the Crucial T705 2TB for $239 instead)
❌ 🎮 You’re just looking for a drive for your PS5 Pro, it’s overkill (get the Samsung 990 Pro 2TB for $169 instead)
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.
