Mini test: Samsung 9100 Pro SSD 1TB

Posted on Mar 19, 2025 by Pro Moviemaker

After testing Samsung’s 9100 Pro SSD, we can safely say it’s got the speed and storage to take performance up a notch

You might love or loathe AI and the effect it’s having on so many industries, but one of the benefits is that memory manufacturers are coming up with faster, cutting-edge SSD drives to keep up with the strains on computing power. Take Samsung’s new 9100 Pro SSD for example, 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/write speeds of around 600 MB/s, and standard NVMe SSDs are up to 3000 MB/s. The older Samsung 980 Pro has read speeds of up to 7000 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 5100 MB/s, which made it one of the fastest consumer drives on the market. And the 9100 Pro is capable of up to 14,800MB/s read and 13,400MB/s write. That’s insanely quick, and a performance boost you can really notice.

You know the gaming community will be lapping up these new Samsung drives but with a low-profile M2 2280 design it means it can be used to boost to your laptop or desktop PC, or even as a super-fast external hard drive. To do that, you have to put it in a suitable 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 that comes without a heatsink. All the sizes up to 4TB can be bought with a heatsink, which adds 8.8mm to the depth of the unit. This needs bearing in mind if you are buying an external housing. On the 8TB big boy version, the heatsink is even bigger at 11.25mm. An integrated heatsink means the SSD won’t overheat and start to slow down but we had no issues with our standard version. But we didn’t have a PCIe 5.0 connection to push it to its limit.

The new 9100 Pro uses less power than before, thank it an advanced 5nm controller. That’s because Samsung invests lots of time and resources into making its own spec memory and hardware instead of buying off-the-shelf components.

Of course, buying an NVMe SSD drive means it isn’t a plug-and-play, pre-formatted external SSD so you do need some computer skills. You also have to ensure it fits and works with your computer or drive, as not all are compatible. To use it as an external drive, you need to buy the right case with a fast connection and format it correctly. That’s what we have done for years to get incredible speed when editing video and it works incredibly well. It’s faster and can be made to work cheaper than most external SSD drives.

£150/ $199

samsung.com

Specifications

Interface: PCIe 5.0×4, NVMe 2.0
Form factor: M.2 (2280), M.2 (2280 with heatsink)
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 IEEE1667
Heatsink: 1-4TB 8.8mm heatsink. 8TB 11.25mm
Sequential Read/Write Speed: Up to 14,800/13,400 MB/s
Random Read/Write Speed: 2200k/2600k IOPS
Management Software: Samsung Magician
Capacities: 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB