Side-by-side: Crucial T710 1TB ($264) vs Samsung 990 PRO 1TB ($240). $/TB winner, specs, real-world picks for September 2026.
This is a generational matchup at 1 TB: the older-gen drive offers proven reliability and better $/TB, while the newer-gen sibling brings raw bandwidth that most users never tap.
Hardware-wise, the Crucial T710 1TB runs on SMI's SM2508 silicon, which became the default Gen 5 controller for power-conscious flagships. The Samsung 990 PRO 1TB pairs Samsung's 8nm Pascal controller, the silicon powering the 990 PRO line.
Prices favor the Samsung 990 PRO 1TB by $24.00/TB ($240.00/TB versus $264.00/TB). Not a huge gap, but enough to be the tiebreaker if performance is similar.
On sequential reads the Crucial T710 1TB pulls ahead by 7,450 MB/s (14,900 MB/s versus 7,450 MB/s). That matters for moving large files but rarely shows up in game loads.
Write speeds skew toward the Crucial T710 1TB: 12,000 MB/s sustained against 6,900 MB/s. Content creators feel this; gamers do not.
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 PRO 1TB wins this matchup on $/TB. Comparing across generations always invites the same question: does the bandwidth gap convert into user-visible improvements? Honest answer for the Crucial T710 1TB vs Samsung 990 PRO 1TB pairing: only for sustained sequential reads of multi-GB files. Video editors will gravitate toward the Crucial T710 1TB for its write headroom (12,000 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 T710 1TB ranks #6 of 6 Gen 5 1 TB drives we track by $/TB, while the Samsung 990 PRO 1TB ranks #2 of 4 Gen 4 1 TB drives. Neither cracks the top of the value table, so it's worth glancing at the alternatives below before picking either.
As of September 7, 2026, these tracked drives undercut both the Crucial T710 1TB and Samsung 990 PRO 1TB on $/TB:
Go with the Crucial T710 1TB for meaningfully faster reads (14,900 MB/s), and higher sustained writes (12,000 MB/s). 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 PRO 1TB for the lower retail price ($240 vs $264), and better $/TB economics ($240.00/TB). Samsung's PRO line has the longest track record for firmware reliability — over a decade of consumer SSDs with global RMA support.