Samsung 990 EVO Plus SSD – PCIe 4.0/5.0 speed in 1, 2 and 4TB (storage review)

The Samsung 990 EVO Plus is a consumer-oriented, single-sided, 1, 2, and 4TB, DRAM-less, energy-efficient, M2.2280 SSD that has maximum performance in PCIe 4.0 x4 or PCIe 5.0 x2 devices.

It is interesting as it works in the latest PCIe 5.0 x2 devices yet is backwards compatible with earlier PCIe standards. It achieves near-maximum interface speeds.

Technically, it uses Samsung V-NAND236-layer V8 TLC and a Samsung 5nm Piccolo controller. In heavy load tests, it reached 60°, which is much lower than many SSDs. It did so with decent energy efficiency.

Australian Review: Samsung 990 EVO Plus SSD 4TB as tested

Website	Product Page
RRP	1TB $195 (19.5 cents per GB) 2TB $319 (16 cents) 4TB $629 (16 cents) Shop around as these for about 10% less
From	Samsung Australia and authorised PC component resellers.
Warranty	5 Years Limited Warranty (based on Terabytes written) 1TB 600 TWB 2TB 1200 TBW 4TB 2400 TBW
Made in	South Korea
	Samsung is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. Samsung Electronics (the world’s largest information technology company, consumer electronics maker and chipmaker.
More	CyberShack storage news and reviews

We use Fail (below expectations), Pass (meets expectations) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. We occasionally give a Pass(able) rating that is not as good as it should be and a Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good but does not quite make it to Exceed. You can click on most images for an enlargement.

First Impression – Pass+

Let’s face it: most standard SSDs are, well, boring, and Samsung is no different. Some use fancy stickers to imply performance benefits, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

The main benefit is 4TB on a single-sided M2.2280 with excellent low-energy requirements. It is suited to laptops and mini-PCs where SSD height, power use, and heat may be an issue.

PCIe ratings – what do they mean?

 When you look at an SSD, you need to know its PCIe rating.

PCIe Gen	Date	Gbps per lane	x2 lane	x4 lane
1	2003	.25	0.5	1
2	2007	.5	1	2
3	2010	1	2	4
4	2020	2	4	8
5	2019	4	8	16
6.0	2022	8	16	32

One Gigabyte per second (Gb/s) = 1000 Megabyte per second (MB/s). For now, no SSD uses more than 4 lanes.

Theoretically, the Samsung 990 EVO Plus is a PCIe 4.0 x4 can reach up to 8000MBps, or a PCIe 5.0 x2 can reach the same (sequential read speeds). In practice, anything over 7000MBps is a bonus.

DRAM-Less

Technically, it does not have an ultra-fast DRAM as an onboard cache to speed up reads and writes. I am tempted to say it is cache-less, but some software tricks give it a pseudo-cache.

It uses what Samsung calls Intelligent TurboWrite 2.0 with an enlarged TurboWrite region. Simply put, it borrows some of the TLC NAND and converts it into a slower hybrid pSLC virtual cache. The amount is not disclosed, but we suspect it is 1/2/4TB 108/ 216/432GB. It works well.

The Samsung Magician app also offers Standard (default) or Full Power. The latter uses the host system’s memory (Host Memory Buffer) via DMA (Direct Memory Access) of PCI Express to access some of the much faster PC DRAM as a cache.

SPEED tests

Test Rig: Intel NUC125NKi72 Kit 16GB, 2 x PCIe 4.0 x4 M2 slots, Intel Core i7-12700H

Samsung claims 7250/6300MBps sequential read/write, and our tests out-of-the-box come pretty close to that.

Crystal Disk Mark – 7070.34/6265.9 peak speed (not sustained) – Pass+

CPDT – sustained sequential read/write speeds

CPDT is all about sustained read/write speeds. These are pretty standard for a cache-less SSD.

ATTO – measures cache performance

The pseudo cache maintains read/write speeds well.

AS SSD – gives a numerical rating

Speed Summary – Pass+

Pretty well, all PCIe 4.0 x4 SSDs perform similarly with any increases in throughput due to cache or controller. For example, it’s a little faster than the 990 EVO it replaces and a little slower than the 990 Pro. All of these are well within the narrow bracket of top 10 performers.

Power efficiency – Pass+

An SSD does not use much power anyway, so while it’s nice to claim it increases ‘MB/s per Watt by 73%’, this means minutes of extra battery life – not hours. Power (claimed) Read/Write 5.5/4.8W, idle 60mW and sleep 5mW.

Samsung Magician software’s optimisation tools = Pass+

Samsung Magician Software 8.2 provides information on system and drive health, benchmarking, controlling drive features, AES 256-but encryption TCG Opal 2.0, and updating drive firmware. It also has data migration (makes a copy) when adding or upgrading a drive. Windows, macOS and Android.

Warranty – Pass+

Samsung claims the theoretical mean time between failure (MTBF) is 1.5m hours. It offers a 5-year or 1/2/4TB 600/1200/2400TBW, whichever comes first.

CyhebrShack’s view – Samsung 990 EVO Plus SSD in 4TB is a welcome addition to the lineup

There are so many brands and models that SSD buyers are getting confused. Reputable brands include Samsung, WD/Black, Corsair, Kingston, Seagate, and Crucial, which tend to cost more when first-grade memory and controllers are used.

Then, hundreds of Chinese ODMs that slap their sticker on a low-cost SSD design. These may perform well, but without a pedigree and suspect TBW warranty, it is a risk too far, especially as your precious memories may be stored there. As we found, those generics can cost as low as <$300 (4TB or 7 cents per GB).

But also, as we found, SSDs are not archival. Too many photos – deduplicate, categorise and archive for easy access and five years, even of light use, can see the cheapies breakdown.

This gets our recommendation for a premium brand for use in consumer devices.

Samsung 990 EVO Plus rating

• Features: 85 – Well made, energy efficient and Samsung Magician Software.
• Value: 75—We hate to reduce the value score, but if this is your criteria—bang for buck—this is not for you.
• Performance: 85 – In the top 10 and performs above its cache-less class.
• Ease of Use: 90—Samsung Magician makes clone to a new drive easy. Samsung Australia provides local support.
• Design: 85 – Single-sided and power efficient

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