Samsung 870 EVO 2TB SATA III 2.5"

The 870 EVO 2TB maxes out SATA at 560 MB/s read and backs it up with a monster 1,200 TBW endurance rating. It's the most trusted SATA SSD on the market with social proof in the 95th percentile. Just don't pay more than USD 205 for it, and if you have an M.2 slot, buy an NVMe drive instead.

Sequential reads top out at 560 MB/s and writes at 530 MB/s, which is the practical limit of the SATA III interface. Samsung isn't leaving anything on the table here. Random performance tells a more nuanced story: 98K read IOPS is respectable, but 36K random write IOPS is where this drive shows its age. That puts random performance right at the 40th percentile in our database, which is about average for SATA drives but nowhere near what a budget NVMe drive can do.

The TLC NAND paired with a DRAM cache and Samsung's MKX controller keeps things consistent. You won't see the dramatic slowdowns that plague DRAM-less budget drives when they fill up. For an OS boot drive or a game library on an older system, this thing just works. The 1,500,000 hour MTBF is a number Samsung loves to print on the box, and while it's mostly marketing math, it does reflect the general reliability reputation this drive has earned.

Against the Micron T710, Crucial T500, Kingston Fury Renegade, Lexar NM1090 PRO, and Team Group MP44, the 870 EVO is playing a different game entirely. Those are all NVMe drives that will run circles around 560 MB/s. The Crucial T500 and Kingston Fury Renegade in particular are PCIe 4.0 drives that deliver several times the sequential throughput. But here's the catch: if your system only has a 2.5-inch SATA bay, none of those competitors fit. The 870 EVO's real competition is other SATA drives, and in that arena, it's still one of the best. The endurance rating of 1,200 TBW beats most SATA rivals, and the social proof at the 95th percentile says buyers trust this drive more than any alternative. If you have an M.2 slot available, skip this and get an NVMe drive. If you don't, this is the SATA drive to buy.

Pricing is all over the place. US listings range from USD 205 to USD 1,300, which is a wild spread for the same drive. The USD 205 listing is the one to grab if you can find it in stock, that's a genuinely good deal for 2TB of reliable SATA storage. The USD 1,300 listing is either a typo, a scalper, or someone hoping you won't shop around. In Canada, the spread is tighter at CAD 925 to CAD 1,062, with the CAD 925 option being the obvious pick. The 18th percentile affordability score tells the real story though: even at its best price, you're paying more per gigabyte than you would for a faster NVMe drive. You're buying reliability and compatibility, not raw value.

The Samsung 870 EVO 2TB hits the SATA ceiling at 560 MB/s read and 530 MB/s write. That's about as fast as this interface gets, and for anyone still running a 2.5-inch bay, it's a meaningful upgrade over a spinning drive. The endurance story is even better: 1,200 TBW means you could write over 650GB every single day for five years before hitting the rated limit. That's a lot of Steam installs.

But here's the thing. SATA is old tech, and our database puts this drive's speed at the 38th percentile overall. It's a top-tier SATA drive in a world that has moved on to NVMe. The 2TB capacity lands at the 78th percentile, which is solid, but the affordability score sits at a rough 18th percentile. You're paying a Samsung premium for a format that's on its way out.

If your machine has an M.2 slot, skip this drive entirely. The 38th percentile speed ranking means even a budget NVMe drive will embarrass it. The 18th percentile affordability score means you're paying more for less performance. And if you need something portable, the 19.1/100 portable score tells you everything: this is a desktop or laptop internal drive, not something you're tossing in a bag. Gamers building new systems should look at the Crucial T500 or Kingston Fury Renegade instead. The 870 EVO is for rescuing old hardware, not building new rigs.

The 870 EVO 2TB is the best SATA SSD you can buy, and that's both a compliment and a caveat. The 1,200 TBW endurance, DRAM cache, and 560 MB/s sequential reads make it the obvious choice for anyone upgrading an older laptop or desktop that lacks an M.2 slot. The 95th percentile social proof isn't an accident, this drive has earned its reputation. But the 38th percentile speed ranking and 18th percentile affordability score mean you should only buy this if SATA is your only option. At USD 205, it's a no-brainer for breathing life into an old machine. At anything close to USD 1,300, you're getting taken for a ride.