The Samsung 990 PRO Is Coming

You’ve Got Until October To Get Ready

The drive which many have been waiting for has been officially announced, with prices and some rough details on speed.  The Samsung 990 Pro will be a PCIe 4.0 drive that uses 3 bit TLC flash, continuing the tradition of being developed in house, paired with a new proprietary controller.  Samsung claims an performance increase of 55% on random reads and writes compared to the 980 Pro, around 1,400K and 1,550K IOPSwhich would be quite impressive to see in action.  For sequential operations, the Samsung 990 Pro is touted as offering 7,450 MB/s read and 6,900MB/s write which is also an impressive bump … if it’s completely accurate for real world operations.

In addition to the increase in bandwidth, the Samsung 990 Pro is reputed to use 50% less power compared to the previous model.  When they become available in October you should expect to pay $179 for 1TB and $309 for 2TB; the 4TB model will not arrive until next year.  There will also be models with RGB infested heatsinks; no prices on those yet but likely not too much higher.  

Ars Technica has a link to help you pre-order, if you so desire.