Samsung 990 EVO Plus SSD 1TB, PCIe Gen 4x4, Gen 5x2 M.2 2280, Speeds Up-to 7,250 MB/s, Upgrade Storage for PC/Laptops, HMB Technology and Intelligent Turbowrite 2.0, (MZ-V9S1T0B/AM)

Dell XPS 8950 desktop (Costco 2022 build) i7 Intel-12700, 32GB DDR5 RAM, AMD RX 6700 XT, PCIe M.2 Gen 4. Replaced the D: SATA 2.5 Storage Drive 2TB with a faster Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB by cloning with a Sabrent Model EC:SNVE USB TYPE C Tool Free Enclosure with no issues. Macrium Reflect Home X, the trail version was used. The clone time was two hours and 30 minutes (slow SATA SSD) using the Type C port (20 Gbps) on the rear of the XPS computer. Removed the old 2.5 SATA SSD drive and replaced it with the new 990 EVO Plus M.2 2280. I did nothing to the BIOS and left the original settings as Boot [UEFI] and Boot Option one as [Windows Boot Manager] and SATA/NVMe Operation as [RAID ON]. The XPS booted up and ran fine.The 990 EVO Plus was recognized by the CrystalDiskMarkInfo program and the old SATA SSD was not listed. With all the problem comments on RAID and UEFI settings in the BIOS, I was at my knowledge limits. Using the winsat disk command in the Windows Terminal Admin mode the Sequential Read was 3767 and Write was 5612. Samsung Magian Read 6804 and Write was 5685. The current Firmware Version is the only version available currently for the 990 EVO Plus.The Samsung Magian Software only allows one to clone the C: Drive or System Drive so cloning a D: Storage Drive needed another cloning software. The 990 EVO Plus is also the new DRAMless type or using HMB (Host Memory Buffer), which means random I/O speeds won’t quite match the highest-end drives (it’s cheaper). Samsung uses there Intelligent TrubWrite 2.0 which uses system RAM instead. No issues so far, it was cheap on Prime Deals, and has a 5 year warranty.What HMB Does:- Allocates system RAM: The SSD borrows a small portion of your computer’s memory (typically 16–128MB) to use as a cache.- Stores lookup tables: It keeps track of where data is stored on the NAND flash, replacing the role of DRAM in mapping logical to physical addresses.- Caches metadata and hot data: Frequently accessed data and metadata (like for wear leveling or garbage collection) are stored in HMB to speed up operations.How It Works:- Negotiation at boot: When the system starts, the SSD controller requests memory from the host via the NVMe driver.- Memory mapping: A segment of RAM is mapped for SSD use through PCIe’s DMA (Direct Memory Access).- Dynamic management: The SSD controller decides what data to store in HMB based on workload patterns.Limitations:- Latency: Accessing system RAM via PCIe is slower than onboard DRAM.- Volatility: Data in HMB is lost on power failure (no PLP like enterprise SSDs).- System dependency: Requires NVMe 1.2+ and OS support.

Samsung has it going with their drives, nearly every Samsung SSD or NVMe I've owned lasted well past it's designed life and usually keeps going until it's obsolete, this NVMe drive is fast, runs cool (usually between 30-50c, or 40-45c with heat sink), so far it seems durable & stable for the long haul (hopefully) and is backed by a 5-year warranty, I believe the write capacity is 1,200 TBW for the 2gb, which is plenty if you just write a game to it occasionally or store files that just sit there forever, but it should also have no problem handling active files and daily writes without too much impact.I was deciding this one, or the WB_Black series, but the Samsung has a bunch of features not found in many other brands, for example security features (automatic encryption (SED), TClass 0 (AES 256), TCG/Opal v2.0, MS eDrive (IEEE1667)) encryption, typically these features were in the pro models, but it was nice to see them trickle down to the plus line, all these features are important to me for data security, plus these drives are fast, support firmware updates, and can take advantage of 'over provisioning' to increase life of the drive even further.Going forward, I have recently decided to get NVMe drives now over conventional mechanical hard drives which in recent years seem to be made cheaply and have less and less warranty, where with NVMe storage size is getting comparable with 2-4 TB range, just large enough where a failure won't be too impactful (compared to a large 12-20 gig hard drive), not to mention the data speeds with NVMe is off the charts making backups a breeze, the small compact size and portable nature is also really nice as-well toss it in an enclosure and use it anywhere.Overall I highly recommend, drives are easy to install and compatible with a wide range of systems PCIe 2.0-5.0 (speed varies with PCIe generation), if your motherboard doesn't offer a built-in slot, PCI-E adapters or USB 3 enclosures are available if needed, of course if anything happens with this drive I will update my review but so far no issues.

I have many many nvmes, probably 20-25 TB worth from various projects and servers. They come and go in states of flux. Right now I am back to laptop only and just a mini pc for my server but this laptop is a lenovo 14" workstation and required a single sided nvme. I tried to shove my double sided 4TB nvme and it felt like it would seat but it didnt. The laptop really did require a singe side drive. This drive worked 100% without issue, gives me high speed and 4TB of storage for AI models and other projects. The flat side of the nvme (the back) has a copper film applied to help cool the controller on the opposite side which is a nice touch. The asic/controller runs pretty warm at 75c idle and the memory at 48-49c idle, please keep in mind this is in a 0 airflow laptop. The memory temp is fine as long as you dont sustain 75c-80c for long period and the asic/controller temp could probably hit 80c+ all day without issue as this is a micro controller and not memory. Honestly I dont really care about controller temps. The silicon will throttle down and only really will degrade at 100-115c+Temps are denoted in HwInfo64 as temp 1 and 3 for the memory and temp 2 for the controller.Running Passmark Diskmark on this drive, in a tight laptop with horrifying temps I got the following scores:Diskmark: 46306 (5% more than average for this drive)Seq Read: 6803 MB/sSeq Write: 5969 MB/sIOPS 32KQD20: 2590IOPS 4KQD1: 70During the test here were the max temps:Temp1 (memory): 58cTemp2 (Controller): 92cTemp3 (memory): 58c