Samsung's top-tier SSD discounted even during memory crisis. It boasts insane speeds and long lifespan

Just last year, this drive could be bought for 2,699 CZK. However, the memory crisis has driven SSD prices up across the entire market, and today’s reality is different. The Samsung 990 PRO 1TB now costs 4,059 CZK with code ALZADNY30 instead of 5,799 CZK – and in the current situation, it’s a price that makes sense for a drive with this performance.

👍 Buy it if you want one of the fastest PCIe 4.0 drives on the market and don’t want to skimp on a component you’ll use for years.
🤔 Hesitate if you’re just looking for storage – slower drives like the Patriot P300 can be bought for just over three thousand and are sufficient for everyday work.
💰 Price: 4,059 CZK is high compared to last year, but among top-tier drives, it’s reasonable today.

Why pay extra for the 990 PRO

The difference compared to cheaper drives isn’t just in maximum speed, although 7,450 MB/s for reading and 6,900 MB/s for writing is practically the ceiling for what PCIe 4.0 can do. More important are random operations: 1,200,000 IOPS for reading and 1,550,000 IOPS for writing – and these are what determine how quickly the system boots, a program opens, or a game loads. Cheap drives fall significantly further behind in this regard than in the marketing numbers for sequential speed.

The second argument is lifespan. 600 TBW means the drive can write 600 terabytes of data before reaching the limit of its guaranteed endurance – which, with normal use, amounts to decades. In addition, there’s a mean time between failures of 1,500,000 hours, TLC memory (not cheaper and less durable QLC), and hardware AES 256-bit encryption. On Alza, the drive maintains a rating of 4.9 out of 5 from over 1,100 customers, which is an exceptional number for components.

Who can settle for a cheaper drive

It’s fair to say that you won’t notice the difference between a top-tier and an average NVMe drive in everyday use. If you’re writing emails, watching Netflix, and have Excel open, a cheaper model will serve you practically the same, and you’ll save a thousand. The difference will become apparent when video editing, working with large files, or compiling code.

And one more practical note: this version is without a heatsink. Most modern motherboards have their own cooling plate for the M.2 slot, but if you’re putting the drive into a PlayStation 5 or a motherboard without cooling, opt for the variant with a heatsink. At 4,059 CZK, the 990 PRO is still one of the best drives you can buy – just honestly ask yourself if you’ll truly utilize its performance.

Do you buy SSDs based on speed, or mainly on price per gigabyte?