Alright gamers and PC enthusiasts, here’s my take on the Samsung 9100 PRO 8 TB NVMe SSD, tested on my latest rig (Ryzen 7 9800X3D, ASUS ROG STRIX X870‑E Gaming WiFi, and 64 GB RAM). Spoiler: this isn’t just a beast – it’s THE BEAST. Games load faster, copying files zip – done.
Ease of Installation & My Old Grievances
I used to dread installing hard drives. All those screws, mounting brackets, thinking about cable management, making sure SATA ports were right, worrying about vibration, heat, etc. Even SSDs in 2.5″ form felt like “one more thing to cable, to screw, to mount under something.”
Installing the 9100 PRO, being M.2, was almost trivial. Remove the M.2 cover, slide it in, screw it in, reattach cover, boot. BIOS picks it up, format, done. Five minutes. No messy cables, no awkward placements, no extra power connectors. It restores some of the joy of “this is the part I upgrade” rather than “this is a chore.”
Performance & What It Feels Like in Use
When it comes to pure speed, the 9100 PRO delivers. Samsung claims sequential read/write up to approximately 14,800 / 13,400 MB/s, and random read/write up to around 2,200K / 2,600K for the Gen‑5 lane models.
In practice, in my PC with the 9800X3D and the X870‑E, I saw game load times drop noticeably. Open‑world maps, texture streaming, switching between large zones—all much snappier. For example, in God of War: Ragnarok when warping across the map, I used to get a small hitch while textures streamed in; now it’s almost seamless. A similar impact in flight sim stuff or large mods: less stuttering, faster environment pop‑in.
I ran a few synthetic benchmarks here (not chasing charts on this one) and it performs basically as advertised. The Samsung Magic app helps run a few benchmarks, but I’m not someone who keeps that extra software bogging down space and resources. That being said, this drive can certainly support it. In everyday gaming and switching between background tasks (Discord, VPN, Firefox/Chrome, music, backups etc.) the drive never felt like it was lagging. Don’t blink when copying files – you might miss it. When loading AAA games from scratch, the initial loading screen is still there (you can’t eliminate the GPU/CPU stuff), but it’s shrunken dramatically.
Advantages of PCIe 5.0, and Why It Matters
It’s important to know exactly what you are getting with a PCIe 5.0 drive. The Samsung 9100 Pro is lightning fast, but basically, it’s at its best with 5.0. What PCIe 5.0 buys you with the 9100 PRO:
- Bandwidth and headroom. The drive is no longer pushing against PCIe 4.0 ceilings. That means higher sequential throughput and much higher random I/O performance, which helps when game engines are streaming assets, or when you’re doing multitasking (copying files, recording, etc.) while gaming.
- Lower latency / better responsiveness. The drive’s IOPS numbers are more than “nice lab specs” – they translate to better responsiveness in real scenes (e.g. interacting with menus, loading mods, etc.). You feel the difference when opening things, closing them; switching maps; when texture quality causes stutter, etc.
- Future proofing. A lot of what games and software are moving toward – direct storage, more aggressive streaming of high‑res assets, modded / open world games with huge data footprints – benefits from faster storage. Even if you aren’t using that fully right now, having the 5.0‑lane drive means fewer “ceiling” issues down the road.
All this said, the Samsung 9100 Pro easily outperforms the Kingston NV3 2280 drive Newegg sent along with my new rig. There’s a massive difference in read write speeds. No competition really. Samsung takes advantage of all of the above 5.0 benefits. It’s a beautiful sight to behold.
Downsides & Trade‑Offs
To be fair (I always try to balance the hype – it’s difficult to do here – there’s so much to love):
- The 9100 PRO runs hot, especially under sustained loads. Even with my board’s M.2 cooling, when moving large amounts of data or streaming assets over long sessions, thermals hit high. The heatsink version ought to help a lot but adds bulk. The device I was sent does not have a heatsink, but it is an option for sure. All in all, if your board doesn’t have good M.2 cooling, you’ll want to pay attention.
- Cost. Dude, you’re paying for cutting‑edge. The 8 TB version isn’t cheap. The question is whether you need that much speed right now. For many gamers, a good Gen‑4 drive is “fast enough,” unless you do lots of texture mods, big open worlds, or work in content creation.
Summing it up
I love this drive. It’s claimed several Editor’s Choice awards for a dang good reason. It’s definitely won over this Editor as well. In my 9800X3D + ASUS ROG STRIX X870‑E setup with 64 GB RAM, the 9100 PRO feels like stepping into a new tier of responsiveness. Game load times, texture streaming, just walking around huge maps – almost everything feels cleaner and faster. The installation was painless, and it makes me remember why I hated old HDD installs so much.
If you’re building a high‑end gaming rig, especially with PCIe 5.0 support, and you like to push your storage (big mods, large asset libraries, etc.), this is one of the best choices you can make. If you’re more casual, or cost sensitive, a Gen‑4 drive still does a lot for much less.