The best SSD just got better, as Samsung reveals its 990 EVO Plus

September 27

Samsung has launched its 990 EVO Plus SSD, designed for gamers, creatives, and professionals.

The 990 EVO Plus seems a worthy follow-up to its predecessor, the 990 EVO (which already has a spot in our best SSDs list). It’s more power-efficient, supports PCIe4.0, has expanded storage capacity, and is more reliable. Samsung claims it’s 50% faster than its predecessor, offering lightning-fast read speeds of up to 7,250 MB/s and write speeds of up to 6,300 MB/s.

As for power efficiency, it delivers a phenomenal 73% more efficiency than the EVO 990, a feat Samsung attributes to its 8th generation V-NAND technology, 5-nanometer controller, and nickel-coated heat shield.

In other words, the 8th gen V-NAND technology can tackle more information faster because it can store more data in a smaller space, meaning better performance and faster access to data; the hugely efficient 5nm controller uses less power and processes data faster, improving the performance of tasks like transferring files or loading games. To top it off, its nickel-coated heat shield keeps overheating to a minimum so the 990 EVO Plus can remain reliable and speedy during heavy use.

An upgrade in every way

The SSD comes in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, again topping its predecessor, whose max-capacity model offered 2TB of storage. The 4TB model offers random read speeds of 1,050K and random write speeds of 1,400K, measured in IOPS (input/output operations per second). Samsung mention that these speeds are near what you’d get in an SSD with a DRAM cache.

The 990 EVO Plus is also strapped with Samsung’s newly-improved TurboWrite 2.0. This feature was first seen back in Samsung’s 840 EVO; it speeds up writes by initially using a portion of the SSD’s more space-efficient but slower triple-level cell (TLC) memory in single-level cell (SLC) mode.

Also included is Samsung’s successful Magician Software, which contains tools to optimize and enhance the functionality of Samsung’s SSDs. It can monitor drive health, protect valuable data, and customize performance optimization.

The 990 EVO Plus will be available in 1TB at $110.00 (£106, AU$139), 2TB at $185 (£178, AU$279), and 4TB at $345 (£326 AU$579).