Up to 14 GByte/s: New Samsung SSD promises exceptional data rate and improved energy efficiency

Samsung recently announced that its Samsung PM9E1 has now gone into mass production. This is an SSD in M.2 format, which is currently the most popular format factor for flash storage, at least for end customers, and allows for a connection via PCIe. The PM9E1 utilizes PCIe 5.0 with up to eight lanes, which means that the performance capacity of the new SSD can be fully exhausted. The maximum data rate is specified as 14.5 GByte/s per second for read data operations, while data can be transferred at up to 13 GByte/s for write operations. These figures are likely to apply to sequential data transfers, as such high speeds cannot be achieved in random file operations. By comparison, the 1 TB Samsung 990 Pro is currently available for around $100 and reaches around 7,000 MByte/s.

A 5 nm memory controller and RAM are installed, so the data transfer rate should be lower for long data transfers. It remains questionable to what extent such a high speed is really relevant for end customers, which is why Samsung likely has professional users in mind with the PM9E1, especially those who require extremely fast storage for the use of AI models. The PM9E1 will be available with storage capacities of 512 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB and 4 TB, allowing for the storage of large amounts of data.

Improved energy efficiency is advertised, which is not only relevant when using a larger number of storage devices, but also when using mobile devices. Security is also said to have been further enhanced with the Security Protocol and Date Model (SPDM) v.1.2. Although mass production has started, Samsung is yet to release any concrete information on the price or release date.