Side-by-side: Sabrent Rocket 5 4TB ($739) vs Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB ($585). $/TB winner, specs, real-world picks for July 2026.
Gen 5 at 4 TB is one of the most contested SSD segments in 2026, and Sabrent Rocket 5 4TB versus Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB captures that competition well. The decision rarely comes down to peak speeds — both drives saturate typical workloads.
Hardware-wise, the Sabrent Rocket 5 4TB runs on the Phison E26 — the first widely-deployed Gen 5 controller, capable but thermally demanding. The Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB pairs the dual-mode Samsung Piccolo silicon that uniquely runs PCIe 5.0 x2 or PCIe 4.0 x4.
Prices favor the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB by $38.50/TB ($146.25/TB versus $184.75/TB). Not a huge gap, but enough to be the tiebreaker if performance is similar.
Read speeds favor the Sabrent Rocket 5 4TB: 14,000 MB/s versus 7,250 MB/s for the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB, a 48% advantage. Sequential-heavy workloads notice; transactional workloads don't.
The Sabrent Rocket 5 4TB writes about 46% faster (11,600 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 DRAM-vs-HMB question divides opinion: Sabrent Rocket 5 4TB's on-board DRAM theoretically helps under sustained workloads, while Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB's HMB approach has matured enough that most users won't see the difference. Pick on price if everything else is similar.
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 4TB wins this matchup on $/TB. Heavy write workloads — video editing, RAW photo libraries, backup operations — favor the Sabrent Rocket 5 4TB's 11,600 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.
How do these two fit the wider Gen 5 4 TB field? Out of 6 tracked drives, the Sabrent Rocket 5 4TB is #4 on $/TB and the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB is #1. One of them is genuinely among the cheapest options in its class, so this matchup includes a real value pick.
As of July 27, 2026, these tracked drives undercut both the Sabrent Rocket 5 4TB and Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB on $/TB:
Go with the Sabrent Rocket 5 4TB for meaningfully faster reads (14,000 MB/s), higher sustained writes (11,600 MB/s), and a dedicated DRAM cache chip. Sabrent extends Rocket warranties to 5 years through manufacturer registration and ships with the latest Phison firmware revisions, often ahead of competitors.
Go with the Samsung 990 EVO Plus 4TB for the lower retail price ($585 vs $739), and better $/TB economics ($146.25/TB). 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.