Samsung’s new 990 SSD (2TB) is 30% off for the first time

It’s a rough time for anyone who’s looking to upgrade their PC hardware. The AI-driven shortage has spiked the prices of memory and storage, doubling or even tripling in some cases. If you need better and/or more internal storage and can’t wait around for prices to fall back down (if they ever do), here’s a deal worth jumping on.

Samsung released its new baseline 990 SSD last month with an MSRP of $530. It’s currently available on Amazon for $370, a hefty 30 percent discount and $160 savings. Not bad for a powerful drive with 2TB of capacity, at least for the market conditions we find ourselves in. If you need one right now, it could be worse.

What the Samsung 990 SSD offers

The new 990 SSD comes in both 1TB and 2TB capacities, although this deal is for the 2TB option. It uses the PCIe 4.0 x4 interface and, according to Samsung, achieves read speeds up to 7,250 MB/s and write speeds up to 6,450 MB/s, plus up to 1.1 million IOPS for random write operations. That’s faster than the 990 EVO, which peaks at 5,000 MB/s for reading, 4,200 MB/s for writing, and 800K IOPS for random writes.

It’s easy to slot into any available M.2 2280 slot, and the 2TB capacity is plenty for pretty much everyone except photographers, video editors, gamers with enormous libraries, and data hoarders. The Samsung Magician software assists with firmware updates, performance optimization, data migrations, and monitoring the drive’s status.

With the SSD 990, Samsung has opted for an energy-efficient design intended to support longer battery life, particularly in laptops. The SSD is compatible with PCIe 4.0 but also works in systems with PCIe 3.0. It’s compatible with laptops, desktop PCs, and some handheld consoles.

One thing to note, though, is that this new 990 SSD uses QLC NAND instead of the TLC NAND that’s used in the 990 EVO line. That means the 990 can’t write as much data before the drive wears out, which is reflected in its 3-year warranty versus the 990 EVO’s 5-year warranty. The 990 also has worse write performance when its cache is full.

Why this deal is worth it

It hasn’t even been a month since the 990 SSD was released, so this marks its first significant price drop and the lowest it’s ever been. If you need a high-performance internal SSD and don’t want to skimp, this is a solid option that’ll serve you well for a few years—longer if you don’t abuse it with too much heavy writing to its cells.

Given its newness, it doesn’t have many user reviews to go off. It’s currently sitting at 5 stars on Amazon across 12 ratings, and buyers praise its everyday performance, its cool and energy-efficient operation, and how easy it is to install. Samsung Magician is also praised for its simple firmware updates and smooth drive management.

If there’s any criticism, it’s mainly for the 990’s lesser performance during very long, continuous write operations. It’s the kind of thing you’ll notice when transferring huge amounts of data—like for professional 4K video editing—but not when gaming or doing everyday tasks.