Samsung 870 EVO 4TB Review: SATA, Silent, Expensive Per Terabyte
Samsung's 870 EVO saturates the SATA interface at 560 and 530 MB/s, is rated to as much as 2,400 terabytes written, and Samsung explicitly tests it against NAS systems. Buy it if you want a silent, low-power array and you have accepted the cost per terabyte. Skip it for bulk storage, because a 24TB NAS hard drive costs about what this 4TB SSD does and holds six times as much.
The most reliable SATA SSD you can put in a NAS bay, at roughly ten times the cost per terabyte of a hard drive.
Samsung 870 EVO 4TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD
~$1,130
A 4TB 2.5 inch SATA SSD reaching the interface limit at 560 and 530 MB/s, with endurance rated to as much as 2,400 TBW.
Check price on AmazonSpecifications
| Capacity | 4 TB |
|---|---|
| Interface | SATA III, 2.5 inch |
| Sequential speed | Up to 560 MB/s read and 530 MB/s write, the SATA interface limit |
| Endurance | Up to 2,400 TBW |
| Shock rating | 1,500 G |
| Compatibility | Tested by Samsung against chipsets, motherboards, NAS and video recording devices |
Specifications above come from Samsung's published specifications. Treat pricing as approximate, since Amazon pricing moves.
What it does well
- It reaches the SATA ceiling, so there is nothing left on the table. Any faster storage requires NVMe, which most NAS bays do not offer.
- Samsung's own compatibility testing includes NAS systems, which is more than most consumer SSD listings claim and is worth something when a controller misbehaves.
- Endurance rated to as much as 2,400 TBW is far beyond what a home NAS writes in its lifetime, so wear is not a practical concern.
- No noise, no vibration and low power. An all-SSD NAS can live in a room you sit in, which no eight-drive spinning array ever will.
- No rotational vibration means bays do not interfere with each other, which is a real effect in dense spinning arrays.
Where it falls short
- Cost per terabyte is the review. At roughly this price, a 24TB CMR NAS hard drive holds six times as much for the same money. For bulk storage that maths is not close.
- SATA caps you at around 550 MB/s regardless of the drive, so an all-SSD SATA array is not the speed jump people expect over a wide spinning array in sequential transfer. The gain is in random access and latency.
- SSD failure modes are less predictable than spinning drives. A drive that has been reading fine can stop responding entirely, where a failing hard drive often gives warning through SMART.
- SSDs left unpowered for long periods can lose data retention over time, which makes them a poor choice for a cold archive shelf.
- This is a consumer drive. It does not have the power-loss protection capacitors that enterprise SSDs use, which matters for a write cache role.
What owners report
The 870 EVO has one of the longest and most consistent reliability records of any consumer SATA SSD, and owner reports reflect that. It appears in NAS builds regularly and the complaints are almost entirely about price rather than behaviour. That is the correct summary: it works, and it costs a lot per terabyte.
The decision is covered directly in our NAS HDD versus SSD comparison. The honest split is that SSDs win on noise, power, latency and physical resilience, and hard drives win on cost per terabyte by roughly an order of magnitude. Most home servers should be spinning drives with an SSD for the operating system or cache.
If you are considering an all-SSD NAS, work the cost through our price per terabyte chart and the RAID capacity calculator first. The number people underestimate is how much usable capacity redundancy consumes.
Who it suits
- All-SSD NAS builds where silence and low power are the requirement.
- Anyone putting a NAS in a bedroom, living room or small office.
- Fast application or virtual machine pools alongside a spinning bulk pool.
Who should skip it
- Bulk media storage, where cost per terabyte decides everything.
- Write cache duty in a critical array, which wants an enterprise SSD with power-loss protection.
- Cold archives left unpowered on a shelf.
Alternatives worth considering
Western Digital 24TB WD Red Pro NAS Internal Hard Drive, 7200 RPM, CMR
~$1,060
About the same money for 24TB of CMR NAS storage rated for 550TB/year workloads. If the requirement is capacity rather than silence, this is not a close comparison.
Check price on AmazonSamsung 990 PRO 2TB, PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280
~$390
Up to 7,450 MB/s over PCIe 4.0, more than ten times what SATA allows. Only relevant if your NAS or mini PC has an M.2 slot, which many now do for cache or application storage.
Check price on AmazonTerraMaster F8 SSD Plus NAS 8-Bay, Core i3 8-Core, 16GB DDR5
~$900
An eight-bay NAS designed around SSDs, with heat sinks on each bay and convection cooling. If you have decided on an all-SSD array, this is the enclosure built for it rather than a spinning-drive chassis with SSDs in it.
Check price on AmazonKeep reading
- NAS HDD vs SSD
- USB external drive vs internal NVMe
- Drive price per terabyte chart
- RAID capacity calculator
- How to choose NAS drives
- Samsung 990 PRO 2TB review
- WD Red Pro 24TB review
- Best SSD for a NAS
This review draws on published specifications, manufacturer figures and the consensus of verified owner reviews. We have not tested this product ourselves, and we say so rather than implying otherwise. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Frequently asked questions
Should I use SSDs in a NAS?
For most home servers, no, at least not for bulk storage. Hard drives cost roughly a tenth as much per terabyte. SSDs make sense when silence, power draw, physical resilience or random access latency matter more than capacity, and as a cache or application pool alongside spinning drives.
Is the 870 EVO safe for NAS use?
Samsung states it has been compatibility tested against NAS systems among other platforms, and it has a long field record. It is a consumer drive rather than a data centre one, so it does not include power-loss protection capacitors. For general storage that is fine; for a write cache in a critical array, an enterprise SSD is the correct part.
How fast is a SATA SSD in a NAS?
About 550 MB/s at the interface limit, which this drive reaches. That is faster than any single spinning drive and it is not the dramatic jump people expect over a wide array in sequential transfer. The real gain is in random reads and in latency, which is what makes applications and virtual machines feel quick.
What is TBW and does it matter?
Terabytes written, the manufacturer's endurance rating. This drive is rated to as much as 2,400 TBW at the largest capacity. A home NAS typically writes a tiny fraction of that across its life, so endurance is not the thing that will end this drive. Do not choose a NAS SSD on TBW alone.
Can I mix SSDs and hard drives in one NAS?
Yes, and it is often the best arrangement: spinning drives for bulk storage and an SSD pool or cache for applications, virtual machines and metadata. Keep them in separate pools rather than mixing drive types within one RAID array, where the array will run at the speed of the slowest member.
How we choose: we compare published manufacturer specifications, drive datasheets, published reliability statistics and verified owner reviews. We do not test hardware in person, and we are not tied to any NAS vendor. Capacity and power figures here are researched guidance, not a warranty. RAID protects against drive failure, not against deletion, ransomware, fire or theft, so keep verified backups regardless of what any calculator tells you.
Working out your own cost per usable terabyte? The Home Server Build Planner is the paid version of these pages: 8 printable worksheets you fill in with your own numbers, plus the full PDF, $29.