Samsung 9100 PRO 1 TB vs Samsung PM981a (OEM) 1 TB

Short answer: which is best?

Samsung 9100 PRO 1 TB is 155.6 % stronger than Samsung PM981a (OEM) 1 TB. Samsung 9100 PRO 1 TB ranks #1 of 54 measured system drives at WhatFPS (18,621 Drive score over 3 verified runs). Samsung PM981a (OEM) 1 TB ranks #38 of 54 measured system drives at WhatFPS (7,285 Drive score over 1 verified runs). The numbers are measured in 4 verified WhatFPS runs — not estimated, not self-reported.

Measured comparison

MetricSamsung 9100 PRO 1 TBSamsung PM981a (OEM) 1 TB
Drive score (the drive's own performance: sequential read + 4K IOPS)18,6217,285
Best rig (GAMING — whole PC)8,0834,752
Sequential read6,400 MB/s2,113 MB/s
4K IOPS18,2038,815
4K latency, median (lower is better)51 µs108 µs
TypeNVMe SSDNVMe SSD
Size1 TB1 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 Samsung 9100 PRO 1 TB · All measurements for Samsung PM981a (OEM) 1 TB