Samsung 990 Pro SSD: Could be the First Consumer PCIe 5.0 SSD from the Korean Giant
While Samsung might not be the absolute best when it comes to making chips, they do make very good SSDs. The company last year launched its first lineup of PCIe 5.0 SSDs, dubbed PM1743. Although these were meant for enterprise servers, and not for commercial use. Thankfully, for the consumers waiting for a PCIe 5.0 SSD option from Samsung, the wait is almost over.
The new Samsung 990 Pro SSD has been spotted in a new listing on PCI-SIG. According to PCI-SIG, the 990 Pro SSD has been listed as a PCIe 5.0 x4 add-in card.
PCIe 5.0 – What’s So Special?
Samsung’s PM1743 will feature a sequential read speed of up to 13,000 megabytes per second (MB/s) and a random read speed of 2,500K input/output operations per second (IOPS), offering 1.9x and 1.7x faster speeds over the previous PCIe 4.0-based products. The company’s solution will be optimised for multitasking huge workloads, such as simultaneous 3D modelling and video editing.
PCIe 5.0 is a significant step up from the previous gen PCIe 4.0, with double the transfer speeds of 32 GT/s. This equals to a maximum of 128GB/s transfer rate in a x16 lane.
According to Samsung, their new PCIe 5.0 SSDs are also more power efficient. These improvements are as much as 608 MB/s per watt, representing a 30 percent jump from last gen.
The new Samsung 990 Pro will likely be based on Samsung’s 7th Gen V-Nand technology. These 7th Gen V-Nand cells have as many as 176 layers, with probably the smallest cell size across the industry at the moment. In fact, Samsung’s advanced packing technology is one of the biggest reasons the company is able to retain performance leadership year after year.
As for a release date for the Samsung 990 Pro SSD, rumors suggest a late 2022 release. But we will only know for sure after Samsung’s official announcement. 
