Samsung has a new SSD on the market, but the price tag is going to sting. The company just released the base 990 drive to expand its storage family. If you expect a budget friendly option, prepare for some serious sticker shock. this new model is actually slower than the older flagship 990 Pro but costs a lot more.
The numbers tell a grim story for PC builders. Samsung is charging $269.99 for the 1TB version and a massive $529.99 for the 2TB model. That is a massive jump. To put this in perspective, when the superior 990 Pro launched four years ago, it cost only $179 for 1TB and $309 for 2TB. The price hike is hard to swallow.
You might hope the extra cash buys you better performance, but you will be disappointed. Sequential read speeds top out at 7250 megabytes per second. That is slower than the 7450 megabytes per second of the older Pro model. Sequential writes peak at 6450 megabytes per second instead of 6900. Random read and write speeds also took a major hit, dropping to 850,000 and 1,200,000 IOPS. The older Pro drive achieved 1,400,000 and 1,550,000 IOPS. This means you are paying a 50% premium for slower technology.
The older Pro drives are not safe from the price surge either. If you try to buy the 990 Pro today, the 1TB version will cost you $320, and the 2TB version has reached $640. These costs are soaring. Industry experts blame the massive demand for artificial intelligence hardware, which is gobbling up the global supply of storage chips. Suppliers are focused on high margin corporate sales, leaving everyday PC users to deal with the leftovers.
Things are likely to get worse before they get better. Reports from flash manufacturers suggest another 20% price increase is coming to the memory market in the third quarter of this year. Brands like ADATA have echoed these predictions, warning of a tight market with rising retail costs. PC builders will simply have to get creative or pay up if they want to upgrade their systems.
