Samsung appears to have at least one new lineup of SSDs in the works, and possibly two of them. Recent trademark filings feature a device called the Samsung 990 Evo Plus, which follows Samsung’s existing SSD naming convention. The company previously releasing a 970 Evo Plus a few months after the original 970 Evo, and it featured increased performance from the Plus model.
Samsung was the undisputed king of SSDs for a good few years, but while the Samsung 980 Pro is one of the best SSDs for gaming when it comes to value, the company hasn’t yet produced a drive that uses the new super-fast 4x PCIe 5.0 interface. Could the new 990 Evo Plus be its first drive to rival the likes of the Crucial T705?
Historically, the Samsung 970 Evo Plus used the same PCIe 3.0 interface as the 970 and 970 Pro, and sat between the two drives in terms of performance. The Samsung 990 Evo was released earlier this year, but with a bafflingly high price for the performance it delivered. Also, while Samsung claimed the drive used the PCIe 5.0 interface, it only used two lanes, giving it exactly the same peak bandwidth as the older 4x PCIe 4.0 interface.
Meanwhile, the Samsung 990 Pro has been out for a few years now, and saw Samsung pushing the 4x PCIe 4.0 right to its limit. It’s possible that the new Samsung 990 Evo Plus will use the full 4x PCIe 5.0 interface and out-perform the 990 Pro, but on the basis of the branding, we predict that it will be a 4x PCIe 4.0 drive that reads at around 6,500MB/s, putting it between the performance of the 990 Evo and 990 Pro.
The trademark application was spotted by Samsung-dedicated news site SamMobile, which explored the Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information Service (KIPRIS) database, and found an entry from Samsung for a product called the 990 Evo Plus.
Not only that, but the site also discovered an intriguing trademark for a product called the Samsung 9100 Pro. Delving deeper into the trademark application, the 9100 Pro shared some of the same product categories as the 990 Evo Plus, such as “NAND flash memory” and “Solid state drives (SSD)”, but also features several additional categories related to semiconductors and memory devices.
It’s quite possible that this isn’t a new SSD, but rather a new type of flash memory, or a new in-house NAND controller for Samsung SSDs. If it’s the latter, then that could potentially mean Samsung has a more exciting SSD in the works. If the Samsung 9100 Pro is a PCIe 5.0 SSD controller, then the new 990 Evo Plus might just be the new PCIe 5.0 drive Samsung needs to compete with the likes of Corsair and Crucial right now.
Of course, none of the above has been officially announced by Samsung, so this is all just speculation right now, but Samsung has made some really competitive SSDs in the past, and more competition is always good. In the meantime, if you’re planning to upgrade your storage, we recommend the WD Black SN850X as our current overall favorite SSD, and you can also check out our guide on how to install an M.2 SSD, which takes you through the whole process.