Samsung 860 EVO 2TB SATA III 2.5"

The 860 EVO is the most reliable SATA SSD ever made, but it's also overpriced and slow by modern standards. Buy it only if your system physically can't take an NVMe drive.

The 550 MB/s read and 520 MB/s write speeds are exactly what you'd expect from SATA III, and that's the problem. In our database, this drive sits in the 34th percentile for speed and 23rd for random performance, which is rough when even budget NVMe drives are hitting 3,500 MB/s. The 78GB TurboWrite buffer is a nice touch for sustained writes, but it's like putting a spoiler on a minivan. The 2GB of DDR4 cache helps with consistency, but you're still capped by that SATA ceiling.

The WD_BLACK SN850X and Kingston FURY Renegade absolutely demolish this drive in every performance metric. We're talking 7,000+ MB/s versus 550 MB/s. The Crucial T500 and SanDisk SN850X are also in a completely different league. The only reason to pick the 860 EVO over any of those is if you're stuck with a SATA-only system or need a drop-in replacement for an older laptop. In that case, it's still the best SATA drive you can buy, but that's like being the best horse-drawn carriage in a Tesla dealership.

Here's the thing: you can get a 2TB NVMe drive that's 6-7x faster for less money. The 860 EVO is priced between $464 and $761 depending on the vendor, and that's just not competitive. The best deal we found is on Amazon at $464, but even that feels steep. You're paying for the Samsung ecosystem and that 5-year warranty, not the performance.

The Samsung 860 EVO 2TB is the old reliable of SATA SSDs. It's not going to win any speed contests against NVMe drives, but it's still one of the most trusted 2.5-inch drives ever made. The one thing to know: this is a SATA drive in an NVMe world, and you're paying a premium for the Samsung name and that legendary reliability.

If you're building a new PC or upgrading a system with an M.2 slot, skip this entirely. You can get a 2TB NVMe drive that's 6-7x faster for less money. The WD_BLACK SN850X or Crucial T500 will absolutely embarrass the 860 EVO in every performance metric. This drive is for people stuck with SATA-only systems, period.

If you need a 2.5-inch SATA drive for an older system, the 860 EVO is still the gold standard. It's reliable, it's consistent, and it'll probably outlive your computer. But if you have an M.2 slot available, don't even think about this drive. Get an NVMe drive, save money, and enjoy 10x the speed. The 860 EVO is a legend, but legends belong in museums.