This is one of the top Nvme's you can buy, if you dont have a motherboard that gives you a heatsink cover for your nvme then get the version with a heatsink, especially depending on your airflow and the placement in the motherboard, these things can get fairly hot when copying a lot of files.

I have a 980 pro that I originally used as my System drive, the Samsung Magician application made it so so easy to make an exact duplicate of that drive straight to my 990pro, and then by changing the boot drive in the BIOS it booted up without one issue. I immediately formated the 980 pro and use it now for extra storage. And back to the heat issue, when making that copy from a 980 pro to the 990 pro (transferring almost 2TB, the drives will definitely get up in temperature, but again, depending on your configuration it will or won't be a problem. Just keep it in mind. If you don't know what happens when an nvme starts to overheat, it'll temporarily drastically lower it's performance, and like with all electronics more heat exposure overtime shortens the life of the electronic.

Also, make sure you install Samsung Magician regardless, at least at first/temporarily, because your 990 pro may need a firmware update that might be quite necessary to avoid issues down the road.

Not as good as advertised. I have a high end 2 in 1 laptop with 4k display. It is not a cheap laptop and I wanted what is supposed to be the best gen 4 nvme ssd on the market so I purchased this in the 1tb version as I really do not need anymore than that. I also purchased the SK Hynix platinum P41 to check both of them out. !st of all the price difference was about $35 more for the 990 pro and that was on sale. I tested both with Crystaldiskmark. I didn't get into extensive testing on either of them but I used both for several days and I can honestly say the SK Hynix either outperformed the 990 pro or at least matched it in every category often doing a little better in write times. Even in high performance mode for the 990 pro it never reached its advertised speeds in read or write times and the SK P41 was matching the speeds of the 990 pro everytime. So bottom line is, im keeping the SK Hynix as my main ssd and will be returning the 990 pro and get my money back. Even if I was getting 150-200mb's more than I did, its not worth the cost difference. Another thing is the SK Hynix P41 has twice the life span as the 990 pro in reported testing.

The Samsung 990 Pro 2TB is an excellent NVMe SSD hard drive. It comes with a heatsink, which keeps it cooler than NVMe SSDs that do not have heatsinks. The difference is highly significant, so I highly recommend to purchase it with Samsung's heatsink, or use a good third-party heatsink.

The heatsinks that come with most motherboards are average at best.

I will say that the first Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe I purchased had issues. It would crash with blue screen of death (BSOD). It took a few weeks to troubleshoot and come to the conclusion it was the SSD.

Thank you to Best Buy for having a great return policy. And it occurred within the generous return window so I was lucky. The replacement has been working for a month now without issues.

I do think that Samsung over years has declined in quality. They seem to be cutting corners with their quality and assurance testing. It could be more rigorous.

With that said, I still give it a five-star rating because the replacement is working as intended. I may have received a "dud" and I was unlucky.

OVERVIEW: I have tested the Samsung 990 Pro (with heatsink) in three devices. An Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 laptop, a Dell i5415 AIO, and an ORICO M2 SSD USB 3.1 Gen2 Hard Drive Enclosure. Installed in the correct platform, it preforms extremely well. When installed in a less than desirable platform, it performs just OK. And when on-sale it is a very cost-effective upgrade.

ACER PREDATOR: 2023 Helios Neo 16 with two NVMe PCIe Gen 4x4 slots. Installed in the 2nd NVMe slot, booted back up, and then installed the combination Samsung Magician/Migration application. Was able to clone the Acer default 500GB drive onto the 2TB 990 in less than 5 minutes. Removed the default 500mb drive to keep as a backup while moving the 990 2GB to where the original drive was installed in the Predator. The 990 Pro with heatsink fit in the Acer laptop, in either 2280 location, when the bottom was reinstalled. Magician Benchmark Speeds: Sequential Read 6568 MB/s, Sequential Write 6040 MB/s, Random Read 441406 IOPS, and Random Writes 385230 IOPS. Currently I have not encountered any issues relating to the 990 Pro in this mid-level gaming laptop. Very cool indeed.

DELL i5415: After installing the combined Magician and Migration app, I was able to install and successfully clone from a Samsung 860 SATA SSD to the 990 Pro in about 8 minutes. Then removed the 860 leaving the 990 as the booting drive that functioned just fine. I thought the i5415 motherboard was MNVe PCIe GEN-4, but the Magician app says it’s a GEN-3, so the speed is about half of its capabilities, but still significantly faster than the much slower 860 SSD.

Note I did not intend to use the 990 in this AIO for any significant time, I just wanted to see how well it functioned with installation, cloning, speed, boot up, etc. Also, the 990 with heatsink installed in this AIO, the rear metal shielding cover will not fit back correctly due to the height of the 990 angular heatsink without modification.

ORICO NVMe ENCLOSURE: I originally purchased this case thinking I might want to clone the MVNe for use in my Asus GA402XV replacing the stock 500GB drive. But there were three reasons that stopped that trial. First, the Samsung Magician app would not recognize the 990, only the Orico USB interface. Second, my data is encrypted on this Asus laptop and Samsung Data Migration will not clone an encrypted drive. And third, the heatsink was too tall for the very thin G14 bottom case.

Now the USB case/enclosure does recognize the data that is on the 990 after it was cloned from another PC if in the future you need an access method for the data on the drive outside of the PC. Always good to know in advance with having the hardware on hand to access your data if/when your primary PC is down.

FIRMWARE: The 990 Pro sent to me had Samsung’s current (as of 07/22/23) firmware 3B2QJXD7 as reflected in the Magician application. From Samsung Support Website, Download Tools and Software: NVMe SSD-990 PRO Firmware *To improve the abnormalities regarding drive locked on Magician software. ISO 3B2QJXD7 | 33.6MB

HEATSINK: Very cool angular top designed heatsink with its own single RGB LED. From the Samsung Magician app, you can select the LED color, along with choosing Off, On, Pulsating, or Breathing. Interesting, but a feature I will never use other than “bragging rights”; therefore, it will be turned off in the Magician app.

HEATSINK REMOVAL: This is a “heads up” from internet research. First, removing the heatsink will void your warranty; there is a label on the side of the drive stating so. Second, this PS5 designed heatsink is attached with four P5 1.2mm Pentalobe screws (some of the smallest screws I have ever seen). If you require removal of the heatsink, you will need the proprietary Pentalobe screwdriver as used on Apple Macbooks for their back cover removal. Once the four screws are removed, you will then need to gently and slowly pry off the top heatsink that is stuck on with their adhesive thermal pads. Same process for the bottom plate if you wish to remove that too. I would mention that if your primary intended goal is not to use the heatsink for whatever reason, I strongly recommend you purchase the 990 Pro without it. Although I did not remove the heatsink, I can see where some, including myself, could end up destroying the drive due to the adhesive pads if not extremally careful. And again, once you remove the heatsink, you just voided the warranty.