Lexar NM990 4 TB vs Samsung 980 PRO 2 TB

Short answer: which is best?

Lexar NM990 4 TB is 19.2 % stronger than Samsung 980 PRO 2 TB. Lexar NM990 4 TB ranks #4 of 91 measured system drives at WhatFPS (15,889 Drive score over 1 verified runs). Samsung 980 PRO 2 TB ranks #17 of 91 measured system drives at WhatFPS (13,331 Drive score over 1 verified runs). The numbers are measured in 2 verified WhatFPS runs — not estimated, not self-reported.

Measured comparison

MetricLexar NM990 4 TBSamsung 980 PRO 2 TB
Drive score (the drive's own performance: sequential read + 4K IOPS)15,88913,331
Best rig (GAMING — whole PC)8,96213,434
Sequential read4,971 MB/s3,947 MB/s
4K IOPS17,82715,805
4K latency, median (lower is better)51 µs57 µs
TypeNVMe SSDNVMe SSD
Size4 TB2 TB

What the numbers mean

The drive score is the system drive's measured performance in the rigs it sat in — sequential read and 4K IOPS, unbuffered. PCIe generation, fill level and driver affect it. GAMING is the whole rig's score. We show both and never mix them.

All numbers come from our benchmark suite, the same test on every PC, written in Rust with no middleware. The methodology is open at https://whatfps.com/metodik

All measurements for Lexar NM990 4 TB · All measurements for Samsung 980 PRO 2 TB