Samsung's 1TB 990 SSD drops to 19 cents per GB amid the memory crisis — grab it for $40 off

Getting your hands on fast NVMe storage for your PC or laptop has become extremely challenging. That said, the Samsung 990 SSD is currently available at a discounted price of $189.99, against its original list price of $229.99 on Amazon. Although the $40 saving might not seem that impressive, deals on high-performance internal SSDs are becoming harder to come by amid the ongoing NAND and DRAM crisis. If you've been holding off on a storage upgrade, this could be a good opportunity to pick up a reliable, high-speed SSD.

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The Samsung 990 is a PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD that uses Samsung's latest V9 QLC NAND flash memory and a DRAM-less controller. It was introduced earlier this year with MSRPs of $269.99 for the 1TB model and $529.99 for the 2TB model. The 1TB model offers sequential read and write speeds of up to 7,150 MB/s and 6,450 MB/s, making it an excellent option for everyday computing, gaming, and handling large files. Samsung rates the drive for up to 400TB of written data, although it offers just three years of warranty. It features a single-sided M.2 2280 design, which should make it compatible with a wide range of desktop motherboards, laptops, and even mini-PCs.

In our testing of the 2TB variant, we found that the Samsung 990 delivers reasonably good all-around performance, particularly for gaming and everyday applications. It offered similar performance to the Samsung 990 EVO Plus in some tests. However, it fell behind competing drives such as the Crucial P310 and WD Blue SN5100 in others, particularly during file transfers. One of its biggest advantages is its large write cache, which allows it to maintain speeds of nearly 6,100 MB/s for more than 57 seconds before performance drops once the cache is exhausted. Its power efficiency may not be the best, but overall it is a competent budget PCIe 4.0 SSD.

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(Image credit: Samsung)

(Image credit: Samsung)

(Image credit: Samsung)

For anyone upgrading from an older SATA SSD or a traditional hard drive, the Samsung 990 should offer a noticeable improvement in boot times, application loading, and overall system responsiveness. At its current price of $189.99, it is also a suitable option for expanding game storage without spending a fortune.