Samsung has announced the production readiness of the PM9C1a, a new high-performance PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. Featuring a new controller based on the company’s 5-nanometer (nm) process and seventh-generation V-NAND technology, Samsung says that the PM9C1a will provide elevated computing and gaming performance in PCs and laptops. Pricing and dates of availability haven’t been confirmed, but Samsung’s PM9C1a SSDs will be available in 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB storage capacities in M.2 form factors (22 mm x 30 mm, 22 mm x 42 mm, 22 mm x 80 mm).
“Our new PM9C1a SSD will deliver a robust combination of superior performance, greater power efficiency and increased security, which are the qualities that matter most to PC users,” said Yong Ho Song, Executive Vice President of Memory Solution Product & Development at Samsung Electronics. “We are committed to creating storage that satisfies the diverse and changing market requirements, as we continue to advance innovation in the PC SSD space.”
From a Samsung press release:
With top-tier speeds, the PM9C1a SSD is ideal for everyday use as well as for more demanding computing and gaming applications. Leveraging the PCIe 4.0 interface, Samsung’s PM9C1a boasts a 1.6x faster sequential read speed and a 1.8x faster sequential write speed than its previous storage offering (PM9B1), reaching 6,000 megabytes per second (MB/s) and 5,600MB/s, respectively. Additionally, random read and write speeds can support up to 900K input/output operations per second (IOPS) and 1,000K IOPS, respectively.
The PM9C1a also offers up to 70% more power efficiency per watt than its predecessor. This means the new SSD can handle the same amount of tasks using significantly less power. Furthermore, when a notebook PC goes into standby mode, the SSD will use approximately 10% less power.
To address the rising need for stronger security measures, the PM9C1a features powerful security. The SSD supports the Device Identifier Composition Engine (DICE) security standard created by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG), a global organization that develops open standards for computing security. DICE securely generates cryptographic keys inside the SSD, providing device authentication to protect against supply chain attacks — cyberattacks that target companies through vulnerabilities in their supplier network — as well as attestation to prevent any firmware tampering.