Samsung said it is now producing a new generation of PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSDs. The Samsung PM9E1 is the company’s M.2 drive, which will eventually replace the Samsung PM9A1a generation.
Samsung PM9E1 M.2 SSD Overview
The company says that its newest drive uses a new in-house 8-channel 5nm controller, along with its 8th gen 3D V-NAND. If you ever wanted to say you have a V8 under the hood, then using one of these drives gives you V8 V-NAND. We recently covered how Samsung is using its V9 QLC NAND for its ultra-high capacity data center SSDs.
In its press release, Samsung had a head-scratching assertion: “The PM9E1 offers a range of storage options, including 512GB, 1 terabyte (TB), 2TB and the industry’s largest capacity of 4TB.” (Source: Samsung) We tested 8TB M.2 drives before, including the Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB in 2020. Perhaps that is 8TB PCIe Gen5 drives as the “industry,” but we have no idea since there are no qualifiers. 4TB drives are great for M.2 SSDs, but we have been waiting for a long time to see capacities increase.
Final Words
Earlier this week, we discussed The End of PCIe Gen3 M.2 SSDs. This is another example of how it happens. Samsung releases a new model that is faster, and that it says can have much better power efficiency. Over time, it only wants to have so many generations of SSDs and NAND in its portfolio, so it discontinues the older PCIe Gen3 drives favoring new SSDs, like the PM9E1.
Getting a new 14.5GB/s M.2 drive from Samsung is a big deal because it puts pressure on other vendors to compete. Hopefully that helps bring down prices of 4TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSDs. These days, a Crucial T705 (Amazon affiliate) might cost twice as much as a Samsung 990 Pro 4TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD (Amazon affiliate.) The NAND price dominates SSD BOM cost, so PCIe Gen5 drives have an unsustainable premium if the market is highly competitive. Hopefully, Samsung’s entry into the market will make it more competitive and drive down pricing.