Samsung 990 EVO: world's first hybrid PCIe 4.0 x4 and PCIe 5.0 x2 SSD

Samsung has officially detailed its upcoming 990 EVO SSD, its new affordable alternative to the faster PRO version; check it out:

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Samsung's new 990 EVO SSD (source: Samsung)

The new Samsung V-NAND SSD 990 EVO SSD uses V-NAND TLC flash and will come in 1TB and 2TB capacities, with Samsung's new 990 EVO SSD capable of being connected through PCIe 4.0 x4 or PCIe 5.0 x2 NVMe 2.0. We're looking at up to 5GB/sec (5000MB/sec) reads and 4.2GB/sec (4200MB/sec) writes.

Samsung says that it's using its own "standard controller" inside of the 990 EVO SSD, which is capable of 700,000 IOPS read and 800,000 IOPS writes, while the controller inside is the Samsung Piccolo (S4LY022). The company is using a graphene sticker that's attached to the back of the SDS, with Samsung adding that there's a 70% increase in energy efficiency.

The new Samsung 990 EVO SSD and its use of 4 x PCIe 4.0 lanes or 2 x PCIe 5.0 lanes feature the same bandwidth, meaning the 990 EVO SSD will fall between the faster 990 PRO and the 970 EVO Plus SSDs from Samsung. Why the significance of the PCIe 5.0 lanes?

Well, there's a difference if the data connection only has two lanes; with the Samsung 990 EVO SSD on a PCIe 5.0 interface with only two lanes, a PCIe 4.0 SSD is only capable of using two lanes, which effectively slices the maximum bandwidth support in half. This means that the Samsung 990 EVO SSD can keep its bandwidth high since it operates with those two PCIe 5.0 lanes.

We should expect reviews of Samsung's new 990 EVO SSD in the coming weeks.