Samsung SSD

The Samsung 990 Pro 1TB is one of the fastest PCIe 4.0 drives you can buy, with top-tier random performance and a solid endurance rating. Just update the firmware immediately to avoid the health degradation issue. At USD 140 or CAD 396, it's a no-brainer. At full price, it's still great, but shop around.

This drive is a monster in sequential and random workloads. The 7,450 MB/s read and 6,900 MB/s write speeds put it in the 93rd percentile for speed, and random performance is even better at the 97th percentile. That means game loads, large file transfers, and 4K video scrubbing all feel instant. The endurance rating of 600 TBW is solid at the 86th percentile, so you won't wear it out with normal use. The only real knock is capacity. 1TB is fine for most people, but it's just average compared to the 2TB and 4TB options out there. If you're a data hoarder, this might feel cramped.

Against the WD_BLACK SN850X, the 990 Pro is slightly faster in random reads and writes, but the SN850X often undercuts it on price. The Crucial T710 is a newer drive with similar specs, but it's harder to find and usually more expensive. The Kingston KC3000 is a solid budget alternative, but it doesn't match the 990 Pro's random performance. The Corsair MP700 Elite is a Gen 5 drive, so it's faster on paper, but you need a Gen 5 motherboard to take advantage of it. For most people on Gen 4, the 990 Pro is the sweet spot between speed and availability.

Pricing is all over the place. In the US, you'll see this drive listed anywhere from USD 140 to USD 340 across 8 listings. That's a huge spread for the same product. The best deal we found is at the low end, around USD 140, which is a steal for this level of performance. In Canada, prices range from CAD 396 to CAD 613, with the best deal at CAD 396. If you pay more than USD 200 or CAD 450, you're overpaying. Shop around before you click buy.

The Samsung 990 Pro 1TB is basically the poster child for PCIe 4.0 drives. It hits 7,450 MB/s reads and 6,900 MB/s writes, which is about as close to the Gen 4 ceiling as you can get. Samsung's in-house controller and TLC NAND with DRAM cache keep things snappy, and the heatsink version means you don't have to worry about thermal throttling in a PS5 or a tight desktop build.

But it's not all sunshine. The 1TB capacity is middle of the pack, and social proof is surprisingly thin for such a big name. There was also that whole firmware saga where early drives had rapid health degradation. Samsung fixed it, but you'll want to flash the latest firmware right away. More on that below.

Skip this if you need more than 1TB of storage and don't want to pay a premium for speed. Also skip it if you're not comfortable updating firmware, because the health degradation issue is real and you don't want to deal with a dying drive. And if your motherboard has a built-in M.2 heatsink, the heatsink version might not fit, so look at the bare drive instead.

If you want one of the fastest Gen 4 drives on the market and you don't mind flashing firmware on day one, the 990 Pro is an easy pick. Gamers, content creators, and anyone who moves big files around will love it. Just make sure you get it at the low end of the price range.