Samsung 9100 Pro SSD Review: Samsung’s Capable Answer to Phison’s Storage Gauntlet

Samsung has finally given an answer to the slew of Phison E26-based high-performance PCIe 5.0 SSDs. The 9100 Pro comes in hot, promising up to 8TB of the fastest storage on the planet with the name to back it up. No more compromises with thermal throttling or massive power consumption — the market leader is here to show how it’s done.

Or at least that’s a reasonable expectation. It’s a bit late in the game, especially now that we’ve seen what Silicon Motion’s hardware can do on the Micron 4600. Clearly, Samsung has made careful plans for the 9100 Pro to make sure it would only have to land one blow to retake its position at the top, but time is working against it. In fact, it makes more sense for the 9100 Pro to have a market presence with a capable, affordable drive that avoids the early adopter pitfalls that Phison often faces. It doesn’t have to be the fastest drive around to capture the imagination of storage enthusiasts. It just has to deliver on expectations that would have been considered normal a generation or two ago.