Samsung 9100 Pro 4TB SSD Review - A New Contender

TweakTown Rating: 98%

Our Verdict

Samsung's 9100 Pro is the highest performing 4TB SSD we've encountered, and stays cool under fire.

Pros

• Sequential throughput
• Single-sided design
• Real-world performance

Cons

• High MSRP

Should you buy it?

AvoidConsiderShortlistBuy

Buy at Newegg for $479.99 USD

Buy at Newegg for $769.97 CAD

Buy at PC Case Gear for $839 AUD

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Introduction & Drive Details

Over the years, Samsung has become the world's number-one purveyor of solid-state storage. Consumer, OEM, or enterprise, Samsung sells more than any other. Back in the early days of Samsung's foray into solid-state storage, the company built its reputation on being the first to deploy new technologies to the masses. Case in point, its 950 Pro was the world's first consumer M.2 NVMe SSD. These days, however, the storage giant has adopted a different strategy, a strategy of waiting for the right moment to deliver something superior to that of its competitors.

A little over two years ago, we got our first taste of next-gen PCIe Gen5 storage in its infancy. At the time, 10,000 MB/s was the speed limit, and heat was a constant battle, resulting in a very slow adoption rate by consumers that has been carried forward until recent times. What has changed over the past year or so in the PCIe Gen5 space has been the introduction of 2 and 4-lane options where thermals have been dramatically tamed, and price points have started to make sense for consumers and OEMs alike.

Now, there has always been a segment of storage enthusiasts that have been on board with PCIe Gen5 SSDs from its inception, the present company included. For those few, dealing with the inherent drawbacks of early adoption was far outweighed by the performance benefits delivered by the new interface, even in its infancy. Fast forward to today, where we are about a month into a new era of full-blown 14,0000 MB/s capable 8-channel PCIe Gen5 SSDs that don't require anything special in the way of thermal mitigation.

With all that said, we can now shift our focus to the subject of today's review - Samsung's first enthusiast-grade PCIe Gen5 SSD, the 9100 Pro. Samsung's new flagship performer is built around its own 8-channel PCIe Gen5 controller. Codenamed "Presto", this super-efficient controller is built on Samsung's own 5nm process node potentially making it the most efficient of its kind currently in circulation. The DRAM-enabled Samsung Presto controller features a 5-core ARM 32-bit Cortex-R8 architecture with 8-flash channels @ 2,400MT and four chip enables. Samsung arrays its 9100 Pro 4TB with two 2TB flash packages of its 2,400MT 1024Gbit V8 V-NAND, along with a 4GB package of its own LPDDR4X DRAM.

The 9100 Pro is exactly what we've come to expect from a retail Samsung SSD.

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The drive is, as always, a cool running, elegant single-sided design flush with cutting-edge technology. Completely vertically integrated with all major components being designed and built by Samsung themselves. The timing is right, the technology is right, so now let's dive in and see what Samsung's first retail enthusiast grade PCIe Gen5 SSD can do for you by the numbers.

Drive Details

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MSRP for what is on paper the world's fastest SSD is higher than we would like to see. However, if it follows its predecessors pricing trajectory, street pricing will be significantly lower.

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As always, when you buy a Samsung SSD, you get free supporting software that makes maintenance and system migration simple and free. Click HERE to download it.

Jon's Test System Specifications

Intel Test System

AMD Test System

Because we at TweakTown like to be first at everything whenever we can, we will present our storage performance results for the test subject on both Intel Core Ultra 200 Series and 9000 Series AMD platforms going forward for the foreseeable future. Because Intel still delivers the best real-world storage performance, our running chart will continue to be Intel-based until AMD can deliver better real-world storage performance than its rival.

Please note that we have completely retested all the 50 SSDs that comprise our comparison products using our new Intel Ultra Core 9 285K test platform. Results going forward cannot be compared with our previous 14th Gen Intel results or previous AMD results, as we've updated there as well. We believe it is important to keep our platforms current in terms of the latest hardware and operating system versions. We have also updated our OS to Windows 11 Pro 24H2. Overall, the pecking order has remained the same, just at roughly 5% lower real-world performance than before.

Best Deals: Samsung 9100 Pro 4TB SSD

	Today	7 days ago	30 days ago
	-	-	$549.99 USD	Buy
	$479.99 USD	$495.27 USD	$542.28 USD	Buy
	-	-	$769.97 CAD	Buy
	$769.97 CAD	$769.97 CAD	-	Buy
	-	-	£579.99	Buy
	-	-	$549.99 USD	Buy
	$839 AUD	$839 AUD	-	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 5/23/2025 at 12:25 am CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission from any sales.

Sony PlayStation 5 - M.2 Storage Expansion

PS5 Read Performance

With Sony's wildly popular PlayStation 5 console now enabled for M.2 NVMe SSDs to be used as fast storage expansion, we are including results for PS5-compatible SSDs we test as a part of our reviews going forward.

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For SSDs that don't have an adequately sized PS5 compatible heatsink or other SSDs where the heatsink provided doesn't fit right and can be removed, we both use and recommend Sabrent's unparalleled PS5 heatsink available HERE.

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We only chart SSDs that can deliver a minimum of 5,500 MB/s read, which is Sony's original recommendation.

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To our surprise, the 9100 Pro is apparently not well-tuned for the PS5. It easily makes the cut, but its sequential read performance is significantly lower than its PCIe Gen4 relatives.

Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM, Max IOPS, ATTO

CrystalDiskMark

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We employ CDM as our standard measurement for both sequential throughput and Q1T1 random read. In terms of sequential throughput, the drive's factory spec'd up to sequential throughput is the highest we've ever encountered. 14,800 MB/s read and 13,400 MB/s write seems a tall order to fill, but we do indeed get there with our AMD system. Our Intel system also delivers a new lab best for sequential read throughput for Z890. Incredible. Q1T1 4K random read throughput is tied for third best with its predecessor, the 990 Pro 1TB.

Max IOPS

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Max 4K random read performance for the 9100 Pro 4TB is factory specified for up to 2.2 million IOPS and that's exactly what we are getting from both our Intel and AMD test platforms. 4K random write is factory spec'd at up to 2.6 million IOPS and here we don't even come close to that. No worries though, as we don't give a rip about write performance, be it random or sequential or data transfers.

ATTO

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ATTO gives us a clear picture of what transfer sizes a particular SSD favors in terms of QD4 sequential throughput. We chart 128K transfers. At a queue depth of four, the 9100 Pro 4TB favors sequential transfers of 2MB or larger when serving data to the host (reading) and 128KB or larger when programming (writing) data. Again, we hit another lab record - this time for QD4 128K sequential read. The 9100 Pro is a whole different animal than its predecessor, the 990 Pro, in this respect - delivering almost 3x the performance of the 990 Pro in this performance metric. A small-file juggernaut, we love that.

Real-World Testing: Transfers, 3DMark SSD Gaming Test, PCM10 Storage

Transfer Rates

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Our 100GB data transfer test is not your ordinary 100GB of data, ours is a crushing mix composed of more than 62K files. Write performance random or sequential, is an infrequent operation and such, we do not consider it to be an important performance metric in the consumer space. An example being how many times a game is installed vs. how many times it's played. Exceptional performance here.

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Unlike programming (writing) data, serving data to the host (reading) is typically an important performance metric as it relates to the consumer space. Again, among the best in its class. Excellent.

3DMark SSD Gaming Test

UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. We consider it superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs on the actual game itself. This test is the same as running the actual game, just without the inconsistencies inherent to application testing. In short, we believe that this is the world's best way to test an SSDs gaming prowess and accurately compare it against competing SSDs. The 3DMark SSD Gaming Test measures and scores the following:

• Loading Battlefield V from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Call of Duty Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Overwatch from launch to the main menu.
• Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch.
• Installing The Outer Worlds from the Epic Games Launcher.
• Saving game progress in The Outer Worlds.
• Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.

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Gaming is a performance metric that matters to most DIY consumers, especially for the enthusiast crowd that TweakTown caters to. Now we've reached the point where results start to matter as they are a direct reflection of user experience.

We consider a score of 6,000 here to be a milestone achievement, and our test subject smashes right through, delivering the second-best result we've attained with our current Intel Z890 platform. With a score of 6,755, our test subject clearly demonstrates that it is the best retail-ready flash-based gaming SSD available as of today's date. Impressive.

PCM10 Storage Tests

PCMark 10 Storage Test is the most advanced and most accurate real-world consumer storage test ever made. There are four different tests you can choose from; we run two of them. The Full System Drive Benchmark and the Quick System Drive Benchmark. The Full System Drive Benchmark writes 204 GB of data over the duration of the test. These tests directly correlate with mainstream user experience.

PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark

This test writes 204GB of data and covers a broad range of common consumer tasks, including booting Windows 10, file transfers, Adobe and Office applications, and startup times for games such as Battlefield V, COD Black Ops 4, and Overwatch. Unlike synthetic numbers, this is comprehensive real-world data, which is why we use it to rank SSDs in terms of user experience.

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The most performance where it matters the most. Look at that would you; our 4TB test subject delivers by far the best moderate to heavy consumer workload performance we've ever seen from any flash-based SSD. Incredible.

PCMark 10 Quick System Drive Benchmark

The Quick System Drive Benchmark writes 23 GB of data over the duration of the test.

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Of all the benchmarks we run, it can be argued that this one offers the best reflection of a typical consumer use case scenario. This time, the performance advantage goes to its Phison E26 controlled competition. We would like to see a bit more here, but it's still plenty good enough for our liking.

Final Thoughts

As our real-world performance figures indicate, Samsung's 9100 Pro is an absolute performance powerhouse. It is, in fact, overall, the second-best performing retail-ready (Micron 4600 is OEM) flash-based SSD we've ever encountered. However, because it is power efficient, single-sided, ultra-high capacity, and delivers the most we've ever encountered from a retail-ready SSD when employed for gaming duties or moderate to heavy consumer workloads, Samsung's 9100 Pro 4TB will be our number one recommendation for storage enthusiasts as of this writing.

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We rank SSDs in terms of overall user experience (performance where it matters most) as expressed by PCMark 10 storage and 3DMark gaming storage tests. Currently, we consider a user experience score of 15K or more to verify an SSD as a TweakTown Elite performer. Intel or AMD, Samsung's 9100 Pro 4TB, is absolutely an elite performer.

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Samsung's first PCIe Gen5 SSD with onboard DRAM is, in our opinion, the best retail-ready enthusiast-grade SSD of its kind ever to cross our test benches. Editor's Choice.