Review Samsung 990 Pro 4TB Review: The Best Gets Bigger

[Admin]

Samsung takes one of the best SSDs we’ve ever tested and makes it even better, bringing the 990 Pro up to 4TB in a single-sided design. This is impressive technology and a welcome addition to the high-end lineup.

Samsung 990 Pro 4TB Review: The Best Gets Bigger : Read more

 

[jaquith]

Samsung 990 Pro 4TB Review: The Best Gets Bigger : Read more

Nice review but the "Con" of high MSRP retail prices is a little misleading. The Samsung 990 Pro 1TB is listed on Newegg for $69.99, the 2TB is listed for $134.99 and the 4TB isn't in stock yet anywhere. I would imagine the 4TB costing somewhere less than twice the 2TB. The real world difference between Gen 4 and Gen 5 is negligible and the Gen 4 are considerably cooler to run. Until engineers resolve the higher temperatures problem, I think the Gen 4 is a much better deal.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Nice review but the "Con" of high MSRP retail prices is a little misleading. The Samsung 990 Pro 1TB is listed on Newegg for $69.99, the 2TB is listed for $134.99 and the 4TB isn't in stock yet anywhere. I would imagine the 4TB costing somewhere less than twice the 2TB. The real world difference between Gen 4 and Gen 5 is negligible and the Gen 4 are considerably cooler to run. Until engineers resolve the higher temperatures problem, I think the Gen 4 is a much better deal.

It's not a con of "High MSRP retail prices," it's a con of "High MSRP." Also, what you said implies "High manufacturer suggested retail price retail prices," which obviously makes no sense. As the article states:

"Launch pricing is $344.99 and $354.99 for the bare and heatsinked models, respectively. This drive carries a significant premium, but it’s worth $10 more for the heatsink, and further, we expect retail sale prices to be well below these values, as we've seen with other 990 Pro models." (Emphasis added.)

In short, we don't know yet where the 4TB model will eventually settle, but we do know that the stated launch price feels very high compared to what's already available. Samsung has had some great Black Friday SSD sales in the past, and I wouldn't be surprised to see sub-$300 pricing around BF this year. But we'll just have to wait and see how things develop over time with actual retail prices, rather than the official manufacturer suggested retail price.

 

[NuSHrike]

Following from the previous https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-990-pro-ssd-review and this article, this latest 990 Pro is still not King for my needs.

I need sustained writes and 990 Pros, and Samsungs in general, still fail at it. I'm talking in Windows, Explorer (where I rarely to never see 2GB/s write speeds), and other multimedia in general.

IOMeter sustained writes, 990 Pro 4TB collapses at 75s in while others like the Rocket 4 Plus-G 4TB keeps going until 120?s in, but then drops to a still higher steady state than the 990Pro 4TB. 990Pro is like a rabbit in a rabbit/turtle race -- early speeds, but no stamina.

Crystal Disk Mark:
* random writes, bottom of the pack
* random IOPS writes only middle of the pack vs Rocket 4 Plus-G, FireCuda, A440 Pro
* slowest write latency (though talking about microseconds)
* middle of the pack in peak sequential writes (QD1)
* finally but only #2 in peak sequential write (QD8)

I think about these things when I'm making multi-GB copy of Unity files from one place to another.

Peak reads don't really matter as they're all the same on average in real-world usage where usual numbers never reach above 1GB/s, and well within the performance of all PCIe4 SSDs.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Following from the previous https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-990-pro-ssd-review and this article, this latest 990 Pro is still not King for my needs.

I need sustained writes and 990 Pros still fail at it. I'm talking in Windows, Explorer (where I rarely to never see 2GB/s write speeds), and other multimedia in general.

IOMeter sustained writes, 990 Pro 4TB collapses at 75s in while others like the Rocket 4 Plus-G 4TB keeps going until 120?s in, but then drops to a still higher steady state than the 990Pro 4TB. 990Pro is like a rabbit in a rabbit/turtle race -- early speeds, but no stamina.

Crystal Disk Mark:
* random writes, bottom of the pack
* random IOPS writes only middle of the pack vs Rocket 4 Plus-G, FireCuda, A440 Pro
* slowest write latency (though talking about microseconds)
* middle of the pack in peak sequential writes (QD1)
* finally but only #2 in peak sequential write (QD8)

I think about these things when I'm making multi-GB copy of Unity files from one place to another.

Peak reads don't really matter as they're all the same on average in real-world usage where usual numbers never reach above 1GB/s, and well within the performance of all PCIe4 SSDs.

Having used the Sabrent Rocket Plus-G 4TB for almost a year now... I'm ready to ditch it. Something has gotten screwy. The drive is only ~50% full, and read speeds have completely collapsed. I'm talking less than 100 MB/s! It's terrible.

I can temporarily get things better by making a copy of a folder (like Borderlands 3). But after a few weeks or so (not sure on the time), read speeds on those files become crap again. I'm going to try imaging the 4TB drive to a different 4TB SSD to see if that fixes things, and run that way for a while.

I don't know for sure what the problem is, so maybe it's Sabrent, maybe something else in my test PC, maybe Windows... so many possibilities! Anyway, I'm just saying that it's tough to know — really know — if any SSD will be great long-term. Also super frustrating. Like, stuff that only happens after several months would never show up in a review. Sigh.

As for the 990 Pro 4TB, we're also testing hardware BitLocker encryption. If you have Windows 11 Pro and a drive with OPAL support, it will still default to software. You have to jump through a bunch of hoops. Probably a lot of people are running Windows 11 Pro with software encryption and they don't even realize it!

 

[NuSHrike]

Having used the Sabrent Rocket Plus-G 4TB for almost a year now... I'm ready to ditch it. Something has gotten screwy. The drive is only ~50% full, and read speeds have completely collapsed. I'm talking less than 100 MB/s! It's terrible.

I can temporarily get things better by making a copy of a folder (like Borderlands 3). But after a few weeks or so (not sure on the time), read speeds on those files become crap again. I'm going to try imaging the 4TB drive to a different 4TB SSD to see if that fixes things, and run that way for a while.

As for the 990 Pro 4TB, we're also testing hardware BitLocker encryption. If you have Windows 11 Pro and a drive with OPAL support, it will still default to software. You have to jump through a bunch of hoops. Probably a lot of people are running Windows 11 Pro with software encryption and they don't even realize it!

Only a year means it falls under warranty? Thanks for the heads-up on longevity.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Only a year means it falls under warranty? Thanks for the heads-up on longevity.

Not a question of warranty. I was sent the sample for use in our GPU test PC. Thankfully, I have some alternatives available. If I image to the Lexar NM790 and the problem goes away (and stays gone!), that will be sufficient for my purposes. If it sticks around, then it's a problem with my PC somewhere (or Windows) and I get the fun job of cleaning out all the files and re-imaging the drive. Right now, I just have a bit of a sour taste now thanks to what happened with the Sabrent Plus-G 4TB. Probably need to ping them and see if they have any thoughts on what's going on.

 

[Greg7579]

It's not a con of "High MSRP retail prices," it's a con of "High MSRP." Also, what you said implies "High manufacturer suggested retail price retail prices," which obviously makes no sense. As the article states:

"Launch pricing is $344.99 and $354.99 for the bare and heatsinked models, respectively. This drive carries a significant premium, but it’s worth $10 more for the heatsink, and further, we expect retail sale prices to be well below these values, as we've seen with other 990 Pro models." (Emphasis added.)

In short, we don't know yet where the 4TB model will eventually settle, but we do know that the stated launch price feels very high compared to what's already available. Samsung has had some great Black Friday SSD sales in the past, and I wouldn't be surprised to see sub-$300 pricing around BF this year. But we'll just have to wait and see how things develop over time with actual retail prices, rather than the official manufacturer suggested retail price.

Jarred, I want 8TB M.2 PCIe Gen 4 for my single main data drive. There are 2 or 3 of those at 900 bucks but I want more of them competing out there. Why is 4TB the common ceiling? I want to fit all my image files on one drive. No array. Then I can back up the M.3 PCIe 4 drive to single Samsung SATA QVO 8TB drives that have dropped from 900 to 300 bucks in the last 2 years.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Jarred, I want 8TB M.2 PCIe Gen 4 for my single main data drive. There are 2 or 3 of those at 900 bucks but I want more of them competing out there. Why is 4TB the common ceiling? I want to fit all my image files on one drive. No array. Then I can back up the M.3 PCIe 4 drive to single Samsung SATA QVO 8TB drives that have dropped from 900 to 300 bucks in the last 2 years.

It was previously a question of NAND density. To get to 8TB basically required QLC NAND and four NAND packages. Alternatively, 4TB TLC with four NAND packages was possible. I'm not sure of the absolute maximum, but that's basically where we ended. (If you can only do 4TB with TLC, then QLC would only get you 5.3TB with QLC... or alternatively, 8TB with QLC means you should be able to do 6TB with TLC.)

The good news is that Samsung's latest NAND, used here on the 4TB 990 Pro, should allow a dual-sided configuration to hit 8TB while still being TLC. Whether that will happen any time soon is a different question. But other drives are also 4TB and single-sided, and now there are 8TB dual-sided (still not sure on TLC or QLC, though — I'd have to double check... and I did, and there are TLC 8TB now thanks to BiCS5, possibly some other NAND types as well).

I think in general the feeling among SSD manufacturers is that 8TB for a consumer drive is still very niche, and so it's not being pursued. Probably going to take a few years for 8TB to come down to reasonable pricing levels. Cheapest for now is the Teamgroup MP44 at $800. Probably in two years (maybe less) we'll see that below $400, and fast 4TB drives below $200.

 

[USAFRet]

Probably a lot of people are running Windows 11 Pro with software encryption and they don't even realize it!

I didn't know until Macrium informed me.

MS Surfaec 3 Go came with Windows S.
Promote that to WIn 11 Home, and the BitLocker remains.

I didn't know it was BL until the first time I did a full drive Image in Macrium.

"This Image is of a BitLocker encrypted Volume, but this Image is unencrypted." (or words to that effect)

wait, WHAT?

 

[farhadd]

Jarred, do you think we'll ever see Tom's Hardware reviewing Fanxiang drives? I know they might not be top end hardware but their price and performance promises are extremely tempting for a gaming storage drive etc.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Jarred, do you think we'll ever see Tom's Hardware reviewing Fanxiang drives? I know they might not be top end hardware but their price and performance promises are extremely tempting for a gaming storage drive etc.

I've never heard of them, but Shane (our SSD guy) might know. A lot of drives are probably just the same hardware as a reference design, branded with a bunch of different names. Personally, just from what I've experienced with SSDs over the years, I wouldn't want to risk a complete unknown brand. Even major brands (Samsung, Sabrent, WD, Seagate, and let's not forget OCZ, RIP) can have issues at times. Big brands will generally fix things; no-name brands, not so much.

 

[GhostGreyWolf]

When it launched, the Samsung 990 Pro benchmarked up there with the Solidigm P44 Proand WD Black SN850X, topping out at 2TB along with the P44 Pro. WD’s SN850X was the premier 4TB option, with earlier PCIe 4.0 drives becoming more affordable in response.

I’ll take “4TB SSDs you didn’t test the Samsung against” for $100, Alex.

I paid $229 for a 4TB SN850X on Prime Day; I’d really have liked to see how the Samsung measure up, as the 4TB of both are logical competitors.

 

[AkroZ]

I see no mentions of firmware where it was the major drawback of Samsung 990 some months ago.
As it seems to be a recurrent issue with Samsung drives, it is truly fixed for this drive ?

 

[NuSHrike]

I've never heard of them, but Shane (our SSD guy) might know. A lot of drives are probably just the same hardware as a reference design, branded with a bunch of different names. Personally, just from what I've experienced with SSDs over the years, I wouldn't want to risk a complete unknown brand. Even major brands (Samsung, Sabrent, WD, Seagate, and let's not forget OCZ, RIP) can have issues at times. Big brands will generally fix things; no-name brands, not so much.

Looks like Fanxiang uses YMTC’s tech? Drive seems fairly popular on Amazon for price v advertised performance.

I don't miss OCZ much. Their 1GB SD+usb card failed fairly early and stay failed, unlike the random other and SanDisk ones from approximately the same age.

 

[Bamda]

I am a big fan of Samsung SSDs as I own 4, but they were getting small compared to the competition. So, this is a nice change.

 

[petar]

In response to the recent Tom's Hardware review hailing the "The best gets bigger" and "Return of the King" my hands-on experience paints a considerably different picture of the current state of play. While the Samsung drive has been lauded, my extensive benchmarking suggests it's time to adjust the crown. I think these collection of drives are better comparison.

Sabrent is now years old drive, WD red was never king of anything, so I don't know why it's used to compare with Samsung while now we have newer and capable controllers like Rainier and TC58NCOL and Aries and somewhat old E18 . I expect refresh of controllers in next year when 8nm fabs become more available for controller market. Samsung was in good position to be the first one and make smaller and faster controller and even that wasn't a spectacular event.

1) Kingston KS3000 4TB (Phison E18, micron 176 layer) - absolute winner for me
2) WD Black 4TB (20-82-20035-B1, Kioxia 112 layer) - close to Kingston
3) Samsung 4TB (Samsung S4LV008, Samsung 176 layer) - not so much

I wish, but I can't compare these two 2TB drives, 4 channel controller will act very differently if the drive was 4TB.
-) KIOXIA XG8 Client SSD 2TB OEM KXG80ZNV2T04, M.2 (TC58NCOL, Kioxia 112 layer)
-) SK hynix Platinum P41 2TB, M2 (Aries ACNS075, SK Hynix 176 layer)

Kingston - undisputed champion. Relentless performance that stands up to the most intense workloads whole day. Workstation is fluently used, no waiting for anything. Downside is price and hard to find with normal price of 350€ now.

WD Black is nipping at the heels of Kingston, certainly great price 270€ at the moment of writting this.

Price but not the performance that set Samsung as winner. 220-280€ during introduction of the drive.

The KIOXIA and the SK hynix P41 are impressive speed monsters, Kioxia was even faster than Kingston. However, this is unfair test 2TB vs 4TB drive on 4 channel controller, so I just ignored them until I find 4 TB review. Kioxia 2TB is often a default oem drive on many notebooks, so if you get it, consider yourself lucky and don't think upgrading it to Samsung unless you need 4TB.

My test was simple - throw them into the deep end with a demanding VMware scenario: suspending three virtual machines simultaneously, each with 10GB of RAM during a full VMware shutdown. The Kingston KS3000 was the top performer, with the WD Black being satisfactory and the Samsung, unfortunately lagging behind for 6s.

As for consumer drives, Kioxia 2TB was absolutely the fastest notebook startup ever seen, I didn't do enough tests, I had to go on with regular job. If ever I get 4TB passing thru my company, I will test them on vmware load.

For those who need hard evidence, here is some. Windows 11 latest service pack at the time of writing: