Step Aside T9: Samsung’s new P9 USB4 SSD promises 4,000MB/s for photo workflows

Samsung has announced the P9 and P7 portable SSDs at Gamescom 2026. While the company made gamers the focus of the announcement, both SSDs feature specs that will undoubtedly interest photographers and video creators, particularly since Samsung is a familiar brand among content creators. Both models are available in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB configurations. 

The P9 is the higher-performance model and is aimed at workflows where sustained throughput is a priority, such as recording video directly from cameras or rapidly offloading data from multiple memory cards. Samsung claims it can hit 4,000MB/s read and 3,800MB/s write over USB4, which is roughly twice the throughput of the the T9 model, and says it’s the world’s first 8TB USB4 portable SSD

The P7 also runs over USB4, but Samsung says it’s designed to prioritize broad compatibility, with plug-and-play support for computers, gaming consoles, smartphones and cameras. It also claims the P7 has a drop resistance of 2m (6.6′), making it a rugged option for those who need it.

Both drives promise to deliver significantly higher throughput than previous-generation USB 3.x SSDs, and Samsung positions the P-series as a generational step up from the T9, which used USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, and maxed out at a theoretical 2,000MB/s; USB 3.2 Gen 2 drives top out at around 1,000MB/s.

With a claimed 4,000MB/s read and 3,800MB/s write, the P9 targets workflows that demand sustained high throughput.Samsung

Do photographers and videographers need USB4 speeds?

Based on our own testing, whether you’ll actually benefit from the increased speed depends on your workflow, the volume of data, and whether you have a card reader – and a computer – that supports USB4.

In an earlier article, we directly compared the performance of a different USB4 SSD to Samsung’s popular T7 Shield, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSD that theoretically maxes out at around 1,000MB/s, and the headline finding was that while the speed gap is real, it’s context-dependent. In that prior comparison, the USB 3.2 drive wasn’t meaningfully slower when copying hundreds of Raw/JPEG pairs from a CFexpress or SD card, and it scrolled through 3,600 photos in Lightroom Classic without a hiccup, but it did take longer to import and build previews for that Lightroom library. 

On the video side, that earlier testing found the T7 Shield could occasionally struggle when editing footage directly off the drive, and that very complex sequences could slow to a crawl – tests the USB4 drive breezed through. But the application also mattered; Final Cut fared better than Adobe Premiere.

Price and availability

The P9 and P7 will be available beginning on August 31. The P9 will retail for $340 for 1TB, $650 for 2TB, $1,350 for 4TB and $2,700 for 8TB. The P7 will retail for $290 for 1TB, $550 for 2TB, $1,150 for 4TB and $2,290 for 8TB. Additional information and full product specs can be found on Samsung’s P9 and P7 product pages.

Samsung