Side-by-side: Crucial T705 4TB ($613) vs Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB ($369). $/TB winner, specs, real-world picks for July 2026.
Both run on Gen 5 hardware but at different capacities: 4 TB for the Crucial T705 4TB versus 2 TB for the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB. Whether the larger drive's $/TB advantage justifies the higher upfront cost depends on how much you actually need.
Hardware-wise, the Crucial T705 4TB runs on Phison's E26 silicon, which kicked off the consumer Gen 5 era and typically requires a heatsink. The Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB pairs Samsung's Piccolo controller — DRAM-less with PCIe 4.0/5.0 dual-mode support.
Prices favor the Crucial T705 4TB by $31.25/TB ($153.25/TB versus $184.50/TB). Not a huge gap, but enough to be the tiebreaker if performance is similar.
On sequential reads the Crucial T705 4TB pulls ahead by 7,250 MB/s (14,500 MB/s versus 7,250 MB/s). That matters for moving large files but rarely shows up in game loads.
Write speeds skew toward the Crucial T705 4TB: 12,700 MB/s sustained against 6,300 MB/s. Content creators feel this; gamers do not.
The DRAM-vs-HMB question divides opinion: Crucial T705 4TB's on-board DRAM theoretically helps under sustained workloads, while Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB's HMB approach has matured enough that most users won't see the difference. Pick on price if everything else is similar.
Endurance leans toward the Crucial T705 4TB at 2,400 TBW (versus 1,200 TBW for the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB). For most consumers this never becomes a real concern — 600 TBW lasts a decade of normal writes — but heavy daily writers should weight it.
PS5 owners get no measurable benefit from either drive's peak speed because Sony's internal NVMe controller throttles to ~5,500 MB/s; treat Crucial T705 4TB and Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB as interchangeable here and let price decide. Video editors will gravitate toward the Crucial T705 4TB for its write headroom (12,700 MB/s sustained). Project saves and proxies move faster, which compounds across a workday. Heads-up — these are full-length 2280 drives. Steam Deck and most current handhelds require shorter 2230 modules, so check capacity-specific 2230 variants if that's your target platform.
Market context: the Crucial T705 4TB ranks #2 of 6 Gen 5 4 TB drives we track by $/TB, while the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB ranks #4 of 11 Gen 5 2 TB drives. One of them is genuinely among the cheapest options in its class, so this matchup includes a real value pick.
Go with the Crucial T705 4TB for better $/TB economics ($153.25/TB), meaningfully faster reads (14,500 MB/s), higher sustained writes (12,700 MB/s), a higher TBW endurance rating (2,400 TBW), and a dedicated DRAM cache chip. Crucial's T-series tends to undercut Samsung and WD on price while using comparable Micron silicon — a value play hiding in a flagship form factor.
Go with the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB for the lower retail price ($369 vs $613). The 990 EVO Plus uniquely supports both PCIe 4.0 x4 and PCIe 5.0 x2 modes — useful flexibility if you might upgrade motherboard generations.