Samsung has quietly revealed that it is developing a next-generation SSD (solid state drive) for the upcoming PM9C1a. The company intends for the drive to “provide higher computing and gaming performance for PCs and laptops” in everyday scenarios.
With this design concept in mind, PM9C1a (opens in a new tab) The proven PCIe 4.0 (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) expansion bus will be used for more stable performance (PCIe 5.0 drives are still in development).Lifting the old bar, the upcoming drive will “integrate with a new controller based on Samsung’s … 5nm process [and] Seventh Generation V-NAND Technology”. Translated into plain English, this means that the PM9C1a will have better performance and power efficiency than its predecessors.
speed and efficiency
Samsung claims that future drives will be able to achieve sequential read speeds of 6,000 MB/s (megabytes per second) and sequential write speeds of 5,600 MB/s, nearly double that of the PM9B1 SSD. Read speed refers to how quickly a drive can access stored files, while write speed refers to how quickly it can “write” or save files. For comparison, Samsung 990 ProTechRadar rates it highly, with sequential read and write speeds of 7,465.79 MB/s and 6,887.68.19 MB/s, respectively. So, yes, the PM9C1a will be slower, but it’s really close, which is especially impressive for a drive in general everyday use. It’s not some top model.
As mentioned earlier, energy efficiency has been improved compared to the PM9B1. Now “70% more [efficient] per watt better than its predecessor. Samsung cites, for example, that when a laptop with the SSD is put into “standby mode,” the drive’s power consumption will be “reduced by about 10 percent.”
Security is also enhanced as the PM9C1a will support the Device Identifier Combination Engine Security Standard, or DICE for short.This will allow the drive to “safely [generate] Encryption keys” as a way to provide device authentication. The idea is that it will help protect computers from supply chain attacks and firmware tampered with by bad actors.
Availability to be determined
Since PM9C1a is still under development, it may take some time before it is released. The announcement didn’t say a release date or a price tag; though we did reach out to Samsung for clarification. However, we do know that SSDs will come in three different models based on storage capacity and size. The 256GB drive measures 22mm x 30mm, the 512GB model is 22mm x 42mm, and the largest is the 1TB option at 22mm x 80mm.
While it may be a while before we see these SSDs in computers, you can assume they’ll end up in some of the best ultrabook laptops on the market.
