Another confirmation of Samsung’s next-generation 990 PRO SSDs with the PCIe Gen 5.0 M.2 protocol has been made, this time by PCI-SIG.

Samsung’s Next-Gen 990 PRO PCIe Gen 5.0 M.2 SSDs Confirmed, Microsoft DirectStorage API Compliant & Pushing Storage Speeds To The Next Level

Earlier this month, the Samsung 990 PRO Gen 5 M.2 SSDs were also discovered on the Korean RRA certification list. We got to observe two SSD configurations, a 1 TB and a 2 TB variant, that would be used to power Samsung’s next-generation SSD solutions.

The prior listing disclosed two versions, the “MZ-V9P1T0” and the “MZ-V9P2T0,” however PCI-SIG just gives us the name and confirmation that they are really PCIe Gen 5.0 M.2 approved SSDs. For comparison, the “MZ-V8P1T00” designation is used to identify the current Samsung 980 Pro PCIe Gen 4.0 SSDs. The conclusion that can be drawn is that they are Samsung’s 990 Pro 1 TB & 2 TB PCIe Gen 5 SSD versions.

The PM1743 from Samsung, which boasts speeds of up to 13 GB/s (random read) and 2,500K, is the company’s first PCIe Gen 5.0 SSD for servers (IOPS). The drives have capacities of up to 15.36 TB, although one shouldn’t anticipate such absurdly large capacities from consumer systems. We know that the next PCIe Gen 5.0 SSDs will have capacities of up to 8 TB and speeds of up to 14 GB/s, so this is also what we can anticipate from the Samsung storage options.

Since the next drivers are anticipated to run hot, it remains to be seen if the vendor creates some brand-new cooling methods or thermal coating for the NAND & DRAM chips. Samsung previously created a special 980 PRO SSD with a powerful industrial heatsink for the PS5, thus the 990 PRO SSDs from the upcoming generation may also feature a similar design. These SSDs will be very fast consumer electronics that will optimize performance by using Microsoft’s DirectStorage API.

By the end of the year or at CES 2022, Samsung may introduce its next-generation 990 Pro 1 TB and 2 TB PCIe Gen 5.0 SSD products, since Gen 5 platforms from Intel and AMD would be widely accessible by then.