GEAR MINI TESTS
SPECIFICATIONS
SAMSUNG 9100 PRO SSD 1TB £150/$199 samsung.com
Interface: PCIe 5.0 x4, NVMe 2.0 Form factor: M.2 (2280), M.2 (2280 with heat sink) Memory: Samsung V-NAND TLC V8 Intelligent Turbowrite 2.0: 114GB Encryption support: AES 256-bit Encryption (Class 0), TCG/Opal v2.0, MS eDrive IEEE 1667 Heat sink: 1-4TB 8.8mm heat sink. 8TB 11.25mm Sequential read/write speed: Up to 14,800/13,400MB/s Random read/write speed: 2200k/2600k IOPS Management software: Samsung Magician Capacities: 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB Of course, buying an NVMe SSD isn’t as simple as a plug-and-play external drive – it requires some computer know-how. Compatibility with your computer or drive needs checking, as not all NVMe SSDs will fit or work. To use it externally, you’ll need the right case with a fast connection and proper formatting. We’ve done this for years to achieve incredible speeds when editing video, and it works brilliantly. It’s faster and can often be more cost-effective than most external SSDs. PRO MOVIEMAKER RATING: 9/10 It’s a stunningly rapid and affordable SSD, provided you have the skills to install it Pros: Incredibly fast and silent Cons: Not plug and play
housing, which now will require the latest PCIe 5.0 connection. This is up to twice as fast as the older PCIe 4.0 interface, which itself was up to twice as fast as PCIe 3.0 SSDs. These are always backwards compatible, but unless you use the newest standard, you’ll be choking the performance of your drive. So, it’s worth digging around to find a PCIe 5.0 housing. We tested the 1TB version without a heat sink. All sizes up to 4TB are available with a heat sink, which adds 8.8mm to the unit’s depth – something to consider if you’re using an external housing. The big boy 8TB version features an even larger heat sink at 11.25mm. An integrated heat sink means the SSD won’t overheat and start to slow down, but we had no issues with our standard version. That said, we didn’t have a PCIe 5.0 connection to truly push it to its limits. The new 9100 Pro uses less power than before, thanks to an advanced 5nm controller. This is attributed to Samsung investing time and resources into developing its own spec memory and hardware rather than relying on off-the-shelf components.
You might love or loathe artificial intelligence and the effect it’s having on so many different industries, but one of the benefits is that memory manufacturers are coming up with faster, more cutting-edge SSDs to keep up with the strains on computing power. Take Samsung’s new 9100 Pro SSD, which delivers double the speed of its predecessor and is now available in up to a huge 8TB capacity. To put its speed into context, many external SSDs boast sequential read or write speeds of around 600MB/s, and standard NVMe SSDs are up to 3000MB/s. The older Samsung 980 Pro has read speeds of up to 7000MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 5100MB/s, which made it one of the fastest consumer drives on the market. The 9100 Pro is capable of up to 14,800MB/s read and 13,400MB/s write. That’s insanely quick, and a boost you can really notice. You know the gaming community will be lapping up these new Samsung drives, but with a low-profile M.2 2280 design it means it can be used to boost your laptop or PC, or even as a superfast external hard drive. To do that, you have to put it in a suitable
DRIVE TIME The Samsung 9100 Pro, which fits inside an NVMe housing, is a superfast external drive
“The 9100 Pro is capable of up to 14,800MB/s read and 13,400MB/s write. That’s insanely quick”
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