Do you need an SSD with 6GBps sequential read speeds? Yeah, probably not, but that's what Samsung is offering with its line of PM9C1a SSDs. These are the first M.2 SSDs to use Samsung's 5nm controllers, hence the leap in performance over the previous PM9B1 drives.
Samsung's PM9C1a SSDs are primarily intended for laptops. They offer sequential read and write speeds of 6,000 MBps and 5,600 MBps, respectively. That's 1.8x the read speed of the company's PM9B1 drives---a significant improvement that may only be noticeable when gaming or performing other rigorous tasks.
More interestingly, the PM9C1a is about 70% more efficient than its predecessor (and uses 10% less power when a machine is in standby mode). This increase in power efficiency should extend the battery life of laptops and reduce the thermal impact of demanding software.
The new SSDs also provide some advanced security features, such as device authentication through cryptographically generated keys. This is achieved through the Device Identifier Composition Engine (DICE) security standard. But, to be clear, the enhanced security of PM9C1a is more valuable to businesses than it is to individuals.
Samsung hasn't revealed a launch date for its PM9C1a SSDs, which utilize the M.2 form factor and will be available in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities. Pricing is also unknown.
Source: Samsung