What Samsung is selling
Samsung unveiled the P9 and the cheaper P7 at Gamescom 2026 in Cologne on August 26, 2026. Samsung's figures put the P9 at about twice the sequential speed of the previous generation. StorageReview describes the rated speeds as double those of the T9, the drive that sits below it. Samsung's comparison uses the 4TB T9, a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 drive rated at up to 2,000MB/s. Samsung also calls the P9 the first 8TB USB4 portable SSD at this speed.
Samsung's US list prices are:
| Capacity | Samsung US MSRP |
|---|---|
| 1TB | $339.99 |
| 2TB | $649.99 |
| 4TB | $1,349.99 |
| 8TB | $2,699.99 |
Reviewers' 4TB and 8TB prices differ from Samsung's announcement. PCWorld lists about $1,440 and $2,880, and Tom's Hardware lists $1,439.99 and $2,879.99. Treat all of these as prices at the time of each report, not as current street prices. PCWorld said Samsung's own site showed every model out of stock when it reviewed the drive. Tom's Hardware said only the 2TB was in stock when it wrote its review.
The connection is USB4 Gen 3×2, marketed as 40Gbps, over USB-C. That is a link rate, not a file-transfer rate. The drive's real ceiling is the 4,000MB/s rating, or roughly 4GB/s.
What How-To Geek measured
How-To Geek's Patrick Campanale rated the drive 8/10 after several weeks of use. His numbers:
- MacBook Pro (M1 Max), AmorphousDiskMark: 3,450MB/s read and 3,163MB/s write.
- Windows, DiskSpd: 4,066MB/s read and 3,265MB/s write. That is slightly above Samsung's read rating and below its write rating.
- Real-world copy: about 1.8TB moved from a Mac to a desktop in roughly 20 minutes. The review gives no file mix or destination-drive details, so this is an anecdote and not a controlled benchmark.
- Long writes: about 1,800MB/s over several hundred gigabytes, then a dip to about 1,655MB/s after roughly 250GB.
- Temperature: never above 37°C after 1TB of continuous writing. No ambient temperature or sensor details are given.
Campanale ties the sustained-write behavior to Samsung's TurboWrite cache. Samsung rates the drive at about 2,000MB/s once that cache is full.
The sustained-write disagreement
The reviews do not agree on long writes. Treat "holds up on long transfers" as one reviewer's result, not a settled fact.
StorageReview ran a Windows test suite on a Thunderbolt 5 laptop port, with exFAT formatting and the Quick removal policy. Its P9 results:
- Sequential read was 4,048MB/s and write was 3,769MB/s, about 1.01x and 0.99x of Samsung's ratings.
- In its half-capacity sustained write, the drive opened at about 1,950MB/s and held that for roughly 149GB. It then fell to a 540MB/s plateau, and later swung between about 240 and 500MB/s.
- Drive temperature stayed at 36–38°C, so StorageReview attributes the slowdown to the controller flushing its cache, not to thermal throttling.
- It reports the P9 cannot sustain 1,000MB/s on long writes, and that QD1 random writes are the slowest in its group.
- The LaCie Rugged SSD4 did better on sustained writes in its test, at the cost of a bulkier package.
StorageReview says its test is not like-for-like with Samsung's 2,000MB/s figure. That test came after about 870GB had already been written to the drive, on an exFAT volume with no TRIM between runs.
PCWorld tested on Windows 11 24H2 with NTFS-formatted, freshly TRIM'd drives. Reviewer Jon Jacobi wrote a 900GB file straight after a 450GB write and said the P9 sustains long writes exceptionally well and runs cool under heavy load.
Other reviewers: futr Singapore reported about 2GB/s sustained for big files. Tom's Hardware called it the best USB4 drive it has tested to date.
The differences between these results are plausibly down to test setup, filesystem, TRIM state, host port or workload. None of the reviews proves which factor matters, and I can't say either. If you edit directly from the drive or offload very large camera dumps, test your own workload before relying on a single published number.
The port decides everything
Campanale's clearest practical warning is about the host port. The P9 needs a full 40Gbps USB4 port to reach its rated speed.
- He puts the loss at about 75% on a 10Gbps port and about 50% on a 20Gbps port. That is arithmetic on link bandwidth, not a guaranteed real-world result.
- The drive falls back to USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps), Gen 2 (10Gbps) and Gen 1 (5Gbps) as needed, so it still works on older ports.
- In his testing, the P9 ran at 40Gbps on his MacBook Pro and a Lenovo Yoga mini PC. His Strix Halo desktop's front USB4 port would not connect it at USB4 speeds, even though that port ran other USB4 devices at full bandwidth. The cable was the same on all three machines.
- One odd result on one machine does not show that USB4 is unreliable or that the desktop is incompatible. It does show that a USB-C connector alone does not tell you what the port can do.
Before buying, check your PC or motherboard documentation for a 40Gbps USB4 or Thunderbolt port. Samsung includes a cable in the box, according to futr Singapore's review. If the drive negotiates a slower link, try the rear ports, a different cable, or a different port.
Build and durability
- Size and weight: Samsung's specifications as quoted by How-To Geek are 3.54 × 2.56 × 0.33 inches and 3.39oz (96g). The enclosure is metal.
- Drop rating: Samsung rates it for a 6.5-foot drop (2 meters, per StorageReview). StorageReview notes the T9's rating was 3 meters.
- Water and dust: the P9 has no IP rating. PCWorld says it is sealed apart from possibly the connector, but that is a reviewer's observation, not a Samsung claim. Drop resistance is not waterproofing.
- Warranty and encryption: five years, limited. StorageReview says the drive has hardware AES-256 encryption managed through Samsung Magician.
- Cable: Tom's Hardware says the sleeved USB-C cable is 16 inches long.
- Thermals: StorageReview recorded a 40°C peak, against 60–70°C on the SanDisk, LaCie and Lexar drives it tested.
Is it worth the money?
Campanale admits that few people need 4GB/s from an external drive. He also estimates that a DIY NVMe enclosure with comparable speed would cost around $460 or more. He doesn't list the parts, so treat that as a qualified estimate, not a market-wide figure. The DIY route also means assembling and cooling it yourself, while the P9 is plug-and-play.
Price context from StorageReview at review time:
- SanDisk Extreme Pro USB4 2TB: $279, though it was out of Amazon's own stock and starting at $519 from other sellers.
- LaCie Rugged SSD4 4TB: $479.99 at review time, and $1,169.99 at B&H when StorageReview wrote its conclusion.
- Samsung T9 2TB: $436.96.
Prices are moving quickly, and PCWorld notes that the market is in flux.
Bottom line
The P9 fits a person who regularly moves very large media files, has a verified 40Gbps USB4 or Thunderbolt port, and values low heat and a compact metal body. For everyday backups or a PC limited to slower USB ports, the premium is hard to justify. Anyone planning multi-hundred-gigabyte writes should read StorageReview's sustained-write results alongside How-To Geek's and PCWorld's before choosing between the P9 and a drive tuned for long writes, such as the LaCie.