Samsung's 850 Evo 1TB SSD is on sale for $290

Swapping out your hard drive for a solid state drive is one of the best ways to improve overall performance. This can often come at the expense of capacity, unless you splurge on a 1TB SSD. To take the sting out of doing that, Samsung's 850 Evo in 1TB form is currently on sale for $290.

That makes it competitive with other 1TB SSD options, such as WD's Blue and SanDisk's Ultra 3D, the latter of which is $10 cheaper. What we like about Samsung's 850 Evo line, however, is that it outperforms more expensive SSDs. That's a big reason why we list the 500GB model as our top pick.

The 850 Evo uses vertically arranged 3D NAND flash memory, which it combines with its own controller. Samsung rates the 1TB model to deliver up to 540MB/s of sequential read and up to 520MB/s of sequential write performance. In our testing, those figures are fairly accurate.

Those numbers pale in comparison to newer M.2 form factor NVMe SSDs that tap into the PCIe bus, though unless you're doing some heavy file lifting, you're not going to notice much of a difference. SATA-based SSDs are still plenty fast.

Both Amazon and Newegg have the 1TB SSD on sale. Other capacities are also marked down, though the savings aren't quite as great. 

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info.

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).

Latest in SSDs
Crucial X9 external SSD on blue background
You can pick up the 2 TB version of my favorite budget external SSD for less than $0.06 per GB, transfers 300+ GB of data in 6 minutes
A Samsung 9100 Pro SSD in both 2 TB and 4 TB sizes.
Samsung 9100 Pro 2 TB SSD review
An image of a WD_Black SN850X SSD against a teal background with a white border
The best 1 TB gaming SSD you can buy is now just $79, the cheapest it's been for a good while
WD Black SN850X SSD on a gaming PC case.
Looks like we won't be seeing Western Digital SSDs in our gaming PCs as the company hands the reins back over to SanDisk
A SanDisk Desk Drive external SSD on a blue background
I adore this chunky, reliable external SSD, so for a third off the 4 TB version I will absolutely recommend it in a heartbeat
The WD Black SN850X 8 TB out of the packaging.
If you thought PCIe Gen 5 SSDs were a little pointless, don't worry, here comes 32 GB's worth of Gen 6 technology
Latest in News
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'
Otter AI Meeting Agent
As if your work meetings weren't already fun enough, now Otter has a new all-hearing AI agent that remembers everything anyone has said and can join in the discussion
Monster Hunter Wilds' stockpile master studying a manifest
As layoffs and studio closures continue to deathroll the western AAA industry, analyst points out 5 of 8 major Japanese companies hit all-time share prices this year