While I’m guilty of overlooking it, the type and size of the system’s storage solution are just as important as your choice of CPU, GPU, and RAM. You might have the best processor on the market, the most up-to-date graphics card, and the fastest memory, but none of that matters if you don’t have the space to store your favourite games, and even then, nobody likes sitting through loading screens.

After testing several SSDs during my time with MKAU Gaming, I rarely come across something that genuinely feels like a generational leap, but that’s exactly what Samsung’s new 9100 PRO PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD does. It’s one of those rare exceptions that pushes performance boundaries and delivers staggering capacity in a single M.2 slot.

It looks like any other 2280 M.2 SSD; it’s small and lightweight, weighing 9.5g. It also uses the familiar M.2 2280 form factor, so installation is as easy as sliding it into your motherboard and securing a single screw. But beneath the minimalist exterior is some of the fastest consumer-grade storage hardware Samsung has ever released.

Powered by Samsung’s in-house PCIe 5.0 controller paired with their V-NAND TLC flash, and sporting a generous 8GB LPDDR4X DRAM cache, the Samsung 9100 PRO PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD boasts up to 14,800 MB/s sequential read speeds and 13,400 MB/s sequential writes, literally more than double what top-tier PCIe 4.0 SSDs are capable of. Even random I/O speeds are outrageous, reaching up to 2.2 million read IOPS and 2.6 million write IOPS.

In everyday use, that performance translates into instant responsiveness. Large games load almost immediately, Windows boots noticeably faster, and file transfers that once took minutes finish in seconds. With an 8TB capacity, the drive is clearly aimed at power users: creators, editors, and anyone with a sizable gaming library. It genuinely feels luxurious being able to install everything without constantly managing storage.​

The generously sized cache allows the Samsung 9100 PRO PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD to maintain its read/write speeds for longer, making it ideal for creators transferring project folders and uncompressed footage. Given the speeds at which it can do this, the power draw is surprisingly reasonable, with Samsung rating the read power draw at just 10.5W.

The drawback, however, is that it can get quite warm when doing so. Samsung doesn’t ship it with a heatsink, but most motherboards these days include heatspreaders anyway. As long as you’re installing it in a well-ventilated case or on a motherboard with spreaders, you should have no problem staying within Samsung’s 70°C recommended operating limit.

Normally found only on high-end enterprise models, security-focused users will appreciate the inclusion of AES 256-bit hardware encryption, full TCG/Opal support, and IEEE1667 encrypted drive compatibility. Samsung also offers a substantial 5-year warranty, backed by a 1.5 million-hour MTBF rating and a 4,800 TBW endurance rating. You’d have to be writing close to 2.6TB of data every day to even come close to hitting those limits.

If you’re building a high-end system capable of tackling the latest Triple-A games, dealing with massive files, or running high-level workloads, you need a storage solution that will keep up. The combination of extreme speed, enormous capacity, and strong efficiency makes the Samsung 9100 PRO PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD one of the most compelling high-end SSDs on the market.

Written by: Mathew Lindner