Every 2.5-inch and M.2 SATA SSD we track, ranked by price per terabyte. The honest headline for July 2026: SATA is no longer the bargain it was — entry NVMe now costs about the same per TB. 12 drives compared. Updated July 31, 2026.
Cheapest SATA SSD: Crucial BX500 4TB — $95.67/TB ($382.66 total)
SATA average: $214.04/TB
The catch: the cheapest new NVMe is $118.50/TB — so SATA no longer meaningfully beats a far faster drive on price. Buy SATA only for the reasons below.
Last checked July 31, 2026. Prices come from Amazon US and are refreshed every day; $/TB is the listing price divided by raw capacity. Full methodology.
| $/TB | $/GB | Price | Lowest seen | Capacity | Interface | Gen | Read | Write | NAND | Warranty | Cond. | Product |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $95.67BEST | $0.096 | $382.66 | LOWEST YET | 4 TB | 2.5 SATA | SATA | 540 MB/s | 500 MB/s | QLC | 3 yr | New | Crucial BX500 4TB |
| $109.94 | $0.110 | $219.89 | LOWEST YET | 2 TB | 2.5 SATA | SATA | 560 MB/s | 500 MB/s | QLC | 3 yr | New | TeamGroup QX 2TB· 3rd-party |
| $140.00 | $0.140 | $279.99 | LOWEST YET | 2 TB | 2.5 SATA | SATA | 560 MB/s | 510 MB/s | TLC | 5 yr | New | Crucial MX500 2TB· 3rd-party· ships later |
| $140.00 | $0.140 | $279.99 | LOWEST YET | 2 TB | M.2 SATA | SATA | 560 MB/s | 520 MB/s | TLC | 5 yr | New | WD Blue SA510 2TB M.2 |
| $141.25 | $0.141 | $564.99 | LOWEST YET | 4 TB | 2.5 SATA | SATA | 560 MB/s | 520 MB/s | TLC | 5 yr | New | WD Blue SA510 4TB |
| $155.00 | $0.155 | $155.00 | LOWEST YET | 1 TB | 2.5 SATA | SATA | 500 MB/s | 450 MB/s | TLC | 3 yr | New | Kingston A400 1TB |
| $189.02 | $0.189 | $90.73 | $34.99 | 480 GB | 2.5 SATA | SATA | 500 MB/s | 450 MB/s | TLC | 3 yr | New | Kingston A400 480GB |
| $200.00 | $0.200 | $399.99 | $149.99 | 2 TB | 2.5 SATA | SATA | 560 MB/s | 530 MB/s | TLC | 5 yr | New | Samsung 870 Evo 2TB |
| $250.00 | $0.250 | $999.99 | $319.99 | 4 TB | 2.5 SATA | SATA | 560 MB/s | 530 MB/s | TLC | 5 yr | New | Samsung 870 Evo 4TB· 3rd-party |
| $309.69 | $0.310 | $309.69 | $89.99 | 1 TB | 2.5 SATA | SATA | 560 MB/s | 530 MB/s | TLC | 5 yr | New | Samsung 870 Evo 1TB |
| $409.98 | $0.410 | $204.99 | $44.99 | 500 GB | M.2 SATA | SATA | 560 MB/s | 510 MB/s | TLC | 5 yr | New | WD Blue SA510 500GB M.2· 3rd-party |
| $427.99 | $0.428 | $427.99 | $84.99 | 1 TB | 2.5 SATA | SATA | 560 MB/s | 510 MB/s | TLC | 5 yr | New | Crucial MX500 1TB· 3rd-party· ships later |
For most new builds, no. SATA tops out at about 550 MB/s — the ceiling of the interface, not the drive — while a budget Gen 4 NVMe hits 5,000–7,000 MB/s for roughly the same price per terabyte. When two drives cost the same per TB and one is ten times faster, the slow one needs a specific reason to exist.
Those reasons are real but narrow, which is exactly what the roundup sites selling you a “best SATA SSD” won't tell you. Here is when SATA still earns its place.
No free M.2 slot. Older or small-form-factor motherboards may have one M.2 slot already filled. A 2.5-inch SATA drive on a spare SATA port is the only way to add fast storage without an adapter.
2.5-inch bays in laptops and NAS. Many older laptops and most NAS enclosures take 2.5-inch drives, not M.2. SATA is the native fit.
Bulk secondary storage. For a game library or media scratch disk where sequential speed past 550 MB/s changes nothing you'll notice, a large SATA drive is fine — and often the cheapest way to a lot of quiet, cool terabytes.
Reviving an old PC. Swapping a hard drive for any SSD is the single biggest speed upgrade an aging machine can get. On a system too old for NVMe, SATA delivers that jump for very little money.
All three use the same SATA interface and hit the same ~550 MB/s ceiling — the difference is only the physical connector. 2.5-inch is the familiar drive shape, connects with a SATA data + power cable, and fits any 2.5-inch bay. M.2 SATA is a bare stick that slots into an M.2 socket but, crucially, is NOT the same as M.2 NVMe — the board must support SATA on that slot, and speed is still capped at 550 MB/s despite the identical connector. mSATA is an older, smaller stick found in some 2013–2016 laptops; check your machine before buying one.
The trap to avoid: an M.2 SATA drive looks identical to an M.2 NVMe drive on the shelf. If you want NVMe speed, confirm the listing says NVMe or PCIe, not SATA.
SATA SSDs are mature technology and generally very reliable. The mainstream picks here — Samsung 870 Evo, Crucial MX500 — use TLC NAND with a DRAM cache and carry five-year warranties, which is more than many budget NVMe drives offer. For a drive you plan to keep for years in a NAS or as a boot drive, that endurance and warranty can matter more than raw speed.
Cheaper SATA drives may use QLC NAND, which is fine for read-heavy secondary storage but slower on sustained writes. The table above lists NAND type per drive so you can weigh it.