Our never-ending pursuit to obtain a solid-state drive that provides the most capacity while balancing performance and efficiency is an uphill battle. While the climb is difficult, we finally have an outstanding drive with the Samsung 2TB 990 EVO Plus Internal SSD. Available in sizes up to 4TB and sporting the PCIe 5.0 M.2 interface, the 990 EVO Plus offers incredible data transfer speeds suitable for all types of environments. Whether you are a creator, gaming enthusiast, or anything between, the 990 EVO Plus truly delivers on its specifications.
I tested the 2TB variant of the 990 EVO Plus which states on paper that it can produce read and write speeds up to 7,250 and 6,300 MB/s, respectively, and it comes quite close to replicating that within my system. Currently, I am running with an AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, MSI MAG X870 TOMAHAWK WIFI motherboard, 32GB of DDR5 RAM operating at 6000 MHz, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, as well as a Samsung 2TB 970 EVO Plus as my main drive.
The AMD Ryzen 7 processor lends itself to the raw performance of the 990 EVO Plus thanks to the supported 5.0 PCI Express version which enables the drives to reach unprecedented speeds. This is due to the Ryzen 7’s 28 native PCIe lanes and the motherboard’s X870 chipset, allowing me to fully utilize the speed of the 990 EVO Plus. Samsung also utilizes a specialty in-house controller with a Host Memory Buffer cache memory and V-NAND TLC chips, all leading to better throughput and fast performance.
My specs provided might seem slightly inconsequential but this all adds up to provide the fastest speed possible for the drive, achieved lightning-fast performance with this particular setup. Which means those who would be operating with older processors and chipsets will still see improvements if they are moving from a 2.5” SSD, but maximum read and write speeds may be impacted by the lack of proper PCIe 5.0 support. That being said, it is still compatible with PCIe 4.0 performance profiles and for the price, the 990 EVO Plus is one of the best drives you can get while also future-proofing your system in event you decide to upgrade other components.
As long as you are operating on Intel and AMD platforms that support PCIe 5.0, I think the Samsung 990 EVO Plus does a great job and ensures data is properly saved and migrated when needed. On top of that, the 990 EVO Plus meets the standards for installation within Sony’s PlayStation 5 family of devices, so you can outfit your console with additional storage.
When it comes to thermal performance, the drive remains cool even under stressful conditions. Granted, this is due in part to my motherboard’s integrated heatsinks which keep the 990 EVO Plus well within optimal temperatures, preventing any sort of thermal throttling. If you are looking to throw this into a laptop, you’ll be happy to know that the drive is rated for 1.9A at 3.3V or 6W, but it pulls less than this, meaning less heat buildup within the chassis.
Putting raw performance to the test, I moved files back and forth from my main drive to the 990 EVO Plus and the results were rather impressive. It took me around three minutes to move around 250GB of data which consisted of various documents and media. When it came to gaming, the 990 EVO Plus really pulled through. Not only were my games saving quicker, but general loading times saw a boost over my 970 EVO Plus. Smaller, less demanding files also loaded up quicker, which is surprising as this drive lacks any sort of DRAM to help with allocating essential information and data migration.
Additionally, the 990 EVO Plus offers AES 256-bit full disk encryption capabilities backed by Opal V2.0, which gives a greater level of security for users who operate with sensitive data. Of course, TRIM, Garbage Collection, and S.M.A.R.T. are all supported as well with the proper OS.
Overall, I find Samsung has maintained their line of performance throughout the years. They set a mark and meet those expectations with every evolution of their storage drives. While the standard 990 EVO seemed to be a negligible jump in performance, the 990 EVO Plus delivers the true leap that we have all been waiting for.
For more information about the new SSD, including additional features, specs, and highlights, be sure to check out the detailed product page for the Samsung 2TB 990 EVO Plus PCIe 5.0 M.2 Internal SSD. Or drop us a line below, and we’ll do our best to answer all your comments and questions.
2 Comments
Hello, thanks for the excellent article. Have you tested it with encryption. Is there a significant speed degradation? Thanks
Hello!
I tested the encryption on it to see how well it worked, and like many other SSDs, it did! As for the speed degradation, I didn't witness it in my efforts. I have tried filling the drive up with as much data as possible to measure the timing, but with my rig and how it worked out, I couldn't tell much of a difference. Although, as time goes on and I constantly migrate files, it is possible that we could see some sort of fault down the line. Otherwise, it performed well under the stress tests I gave it.
Thank you again!