Compare Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB and Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB: prices, speeds, $/TB. Which to buy in July 2026? Full spec breakdown.
Both run on Gen 5 hardware but at different capacities: 2 TB for the Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB versus 4 TB for the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB. Whether the larger drive's $/TB advantage justifies the higher upfront cost depends on how much you actually need.
Hardware-wise, the Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB runs on Samsung's Presto controller — built in-house to push V-NAND to its Gen 5 ceiling. The Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB pairs Samsung's Piccolo controller — DRAM-less with PCIe 4.0/5.0 dual-mode support.
Price separates these two meaningfully. The Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB costs $146.25/TB versus $200.00/TB for the Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB — a 27% premium that needs justification in real benchmarks, not just spec-sheet bragging.
On sequential reads the Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB pulls ahead by 7,450 MB/s (14,700 MB/s versus 7,250 MB/s). That matters for moving large files but rarely shows up in game loads.
Write speeds skew toward the Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB: 13,400 MB/s sustained against 6,300 MB/s. Content creators feel this; gamers do not.
The Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB carries a dedicated DRAM chip for FTL (Flash Translation Layer) mapping; the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB relies on HMB (Host Memory Buffer), borrowing 64 MB from system RAM. The practical gap shows up only under sustained random write loads.
Endurance leans toward the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB at 2,400 TBW (versus 1,200 TBW for the Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB). For most consumers this never becomes a real concern — 600 TBW lasts a decade of normal writes — but heavy daily writers should weight it.
PS5 owners get no measurable benefit from either drive's peak speed because Sony's internal NVMe controller throttles to ~5,500 MB/s; treat Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB and Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB as interchangeable here and let price decide. Video editors will gravitate toward the Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB for its write headroom (13,400 MB/s sustained). Project saves and proxies move faster, which compounds across a workday. Heads-up — these are full-length 2280 drives. Steam Deck and most current handhelds require shorter 2230 modules, so check capacity-specific 2230 variants if that's your target platform.
Market context: the Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB ranks #7 of 11 Gen 5 2 TB drives we track by $/TB, while the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB ranks #1 of 6 Gen 5 4 TB drives. That puts at least one of them near the top of the value table — a reasonable head-to-head to be choosing from.
Pick the Samsung 9100 PRO 2TB if you value the lower retail price ($400 vs $585), meaningfully faster reads (14,700 MB/s), higher sustained writes (13,400 MB/s), and a dedicated DRAM cache chip. Samsung backs the PRO series with one of the strongest warranty experiences in consumer storage — RMAs typically process within 5 business days globally.
Pick the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB if you value better $/TB economics ($146.25/TB), and a higher TBW endurance rating (2,400 TBW). The 990 EVO Plus uniquely supports both PCIe 4.0 x4 and PCIe 5.0 x2 modes — useful flexibility if you might upgrade motherboard generations.