Compare Crucial T710 1TB and Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB: prices, speeds, $/TB. Which to buy in May 2026? Full spec breakdown.
Both run on Gen 5 hardware but at different capacities: 1 TB for the Crucial T710 1TB 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 T710 1TB runs on the SMI SM2508 — a 6nm Gen 5 controller running notably cooler than first-gen Phison E26 designs. The Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB pairs the dual-mode Samsung Piccolo silicon that uniquely runs PCIe 5.0 x2 or PCIe 4.0 x4.
Price separates these two meaningfully. The Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB costs $114.50/TB versus $265.00/TB for the Crucial T710 1TB — a 57% premium that needs justification in real benchmarks, not just spec-sheet bragging.
Read speeds favor the Crucial T710 1TB: 14,900 MB/s versus 7,250 MB/s for the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB, a 51% advantage. Sequential-heavy workloads notice; transactional workloads don't.
The Crucial T710 1TB writes about 48% faster (12,000 MB/s vs 6,300 MB/s). Whether that matters depends entirely on what you write to the drive — gameplay capture and large project saves benefit, browsing and gaming do not.
The Crucial T710 1TB carries a dedicated DRAM chip for FTL (Flash Translation Layer) mapping; the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB relies on HMB (Host Memory Buffer), borrowing 64 MB from system RAM. The practical gap shows up only under sustained random write loads.
On warranty endurance the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB carries 1,200 TBW against Crucial T710 1TB's 600 TBW. Both will outlast typical use, but the gap matters if you're doing professional content work.
Heading to a PlayStation 5? Both drives drop into the console's M.2 bay and report identical real-world benchmarks since the PS5 caps storage at PCIe 4.0 speeds. The Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB wins this matchup on $/TB. Heavy write workloads — video editing, RAW photo libraries, backup operations — favor the Crucial T710 1TB's 12,000 MB/s sustained write speed. Both drives use the 2280 form factor, which is too long for Steam Deck or ROG Ally — you'd need a 2230 variant if either manufacturer offers one, or a dedicated handheld-format drive instead.
Pick the Crucial T710 1TB if you value meaningfully faster reads (14,900 MB/s), higher sustained writes (12,000 MB/s), and a dedicated DRAM cache chip. Crucial drives benefit from being a direct Micron product — the same NAND that powers competitors' drives, but at lower margins.
Pick the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB if you value the lower retail price ($229 vs $265), better $/TB economics ($114.50/TB), and a higher TBW endurance rating (1,200 TBW). Among Samsung's lineup, the 990 EVO Plus is the only consumer drive that physically supports dual-generation PCIe — same hardware, different bus speed depending on platform.