Samsung adds a 4TB option to its high-speed 990 Pro SSDs

Samsung has unveiled a 4TB version of its 990 Pro NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs with an optional heatsink targeted at gamers and content creators. The new model promises the "fastest random read performance among PCIe 4.0 interface consumer SSDs on the market," Samsung claims, along with faster read/write speeds, improved power efficiency and longer life. 

The 4TB SSD 990 Pro is available with and without a heat sink, and features a slim design that can fit into an ultra-thin laptop or gaming console, according to Samsung. With the company's V-NAND chips, a PCIe 4.0 interface and an improved controller, it can hit read speeds of up to 7,450 MB/s and write speeds of 6,900 MB/s — best-in-class and the same as its 1TB and 2TB versions. 

Random speeds are also identical to the smaller versions at 1,600K and 1,550K IOPS read/write, respectively. However, endurance doubles from 1,200 TBW (terabytes written) to 2,400 TBW over the 2TB version, thanks to the higher capacity. It also has twice the cache size at 4GB.

Though not as fast as the latest PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs (which can hit 11,700 MB/s read and 9,500 MB/s write speeds), the 990 Pro is among the highest-speed PCIe 4.0 models out there. It's also 50 percent more power efficient than the previous 980 Pro, Samsung said. That makes it ideal not just for PC expansion, but also consoles like Sony's PlayStation 5 — and 4TB would be pretty sweet in a PS5, given the ever-increasing size of AAA games. 

The 990 Pro 4TB will go on sale for $345/$355 for the regular and heatsink versions, starting in October at Samsung.com and "select retailers." That's over twice as much as the 2TB version, which is normally $190 but is currently discounted to $135 on Amazon. Once it starts to hit stores in force, though, we should see discounts on the 4TB model, too.