Samsung 990 EVO Plus

The 990 EVO Plus 2TB delivers 95th percentile random IOPS and 7,250 MB/s reads, making it one of the fastest DRAM-less drives we've tested. Power efficiency is up 73% over the 990 EVO, which is great for laptops. But this refurbished unit only has a 90-day warranty, so the USD 185 to USD 580 price spread matters a lot. Buy it cheap or skip it.

The headline numbers are strong. 7,250 MB/s read and 6,300 MB/s write put this drive in the 82nd percentile for speed in our database, which means it's well above average but not quite at the very top of the PCIe 4.0 heap. The random performance is where things get interesting. 1,000K random read IOPS and 1,350K random write IOPS land in the 95th percentile, making this one of the best DRAM-less drives we've seen for random workloads. That's the kind of performance that makes everyday tasks feel instant.

Samsung claims the nickel-coated controller boosts MB/s per Watt by 73% compared to the 990 EVO, and the drive pulls 16% less power overall. For laptop users, that's a real win. The 2TB capacity sits in the 78th percentile, which is plenty for most people but not exceptional. The TurboWrite 2.0 cache is larger than the original 990 EVO, which helps sustain those big file transfers longer before performance dips.

Against the Samsung 980 PRO, the 990 EVO Plus trades blows. The 980 PRO has DRAM and slightly better sustained write performance, but the EVO Plus counters with better random IOPS and lower power draw. The Western Digital BLACK SN7100 and SanDisk WD_BLACK SN8100 are both strong competitors with similar PCIe 4.0 speeds, and they often undercut Samsung on price. The ADATA GAMMIX S70 Blade brings DRAM and a beefy heatsink, which helps with sustained workloads but hurts laptop compatibility. The Micron T710 is another solid option with enterprise DNA. For pure random performance per dollar, the EVO Plus holds its own, but the refurbished warranty situation makes the comparison murkier than it should be.

Here's where things get tricky. The 990 EVO Plus 2TB is listed anywhere from USD 185 to USD 580 across 8 US listings, which is a massive USD 395 spread. If you can find it near the USD 185 mark, this is an absolute steal for the performance you're getting. At USD 580, you're paying premium money for a refurbished drive with a 90-day warranty, and that's a hard pass. Canadian buyers face a tighter but still notable CAD 104 spread, from CAD 576 to CAD 680. The best deal in CAD appears to be at the CAD 576 end. The refurbished status complicates the value equation. A new 990 EVO Plus with Samsung's full 5-year warranty is worth a premium, but a refurb with 90 days of coverage needs to be priced aggressively to make sense.

The Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB hits 7,250 MB/s sequential reads and 6,300 MB/s writes, which puts it in the top tier of PCIe 4.0 drives we've tracked. Random read IOPS land at 1,000K and random writes at 1,350K, numbers that translate to snappy load times and smooth multitasking. For a DRAM-less drive, that's genuinely impressive. Samsung leaned hard on Intelligent TurboWrite 2.0 and HMB technology to make up for the missing DRAM cache, and in our testing, it mostly works.

Endurance sits at 1,200 TBW with a 5-year warranty and a 1.5 million hour MTBF rating. That's solid for a 2TB drive, though not class-leading. The drive also supports hardware encryption and plays nice with both PCIe 4.0 x4 and PCIe 5.0 x2 slots. One thing to note: this listing is for a Geek Squad Certified Refurbished unit with only a 90-day warranty, which changes the value math considerably.

If you're doing heavy sustained writes, like 4K video editing or large database work, the DRAM-less design will eventually show its limits. The portable score of 21.6/100 is one of the weakest in our database, so if you need an external or portable drive, look elsewhere. And if you can't find this refurbished unit near the USD 185 end of the price range, skip it. Paying USD 400 or more for a 90-day warranty on a drive that sells new with 5-year coverage is a bad trade. Content creators who hammer their drives daily should consider the ADATA GAMMIX S70 Blade or WD BLACK SN7100 instead, both of which offer better sustained write performance and full warranties.

The Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB is a genuinely fast drive with standout random performance and excellent power efficiency. The 95th percentile random IOPS are the real story here, and for laptop users, the lower power draw is a meaningful quality-of-life improvement. But the refurbished listing with a 90-day warranty changes everything. At the low end of the price range, around USD 185, this is a no-brainer. At the high end, you're better off buying a new drive with full warranty coverage. If you can snag it cheap, buy it. If not, wait for a better deal or look at the WD SN7100.